Notes on Reviews of Hegel’s Logic

Notes on Reviews of Hegel’s “Logic”—written after December 17, 1914 at the end of the third notebook of the conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic. Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible where they were located in the original manuscript.

Preuβische Jahrbücher (Bd. 151) 1913, March, an article by Dr. Ferd. J. Schmidt: “Hegel and Marx.” The author hails the return to Hegel, reviles “theoreticoco- gnitive scholasticism,” quotes the neo-Hegel- ians Constantin Rössler and Adolf Lasson (of the Preuβische Jahrbücher) and, in connection with Plenge’s book, states that Marx did not understand the significance of the “national idea” as a synthesis. Marx’s merit—that of organising the workers—was a great one, but ... one-sided.

An example of the “liberal” (or rather bourgeois, worker-loving—for the author is probably a conservative) castration of Marx.

MacTaggart, Ellis M’Taggart: Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Cambridge, 1896 (259 pp.). Review in Zeitschrift für Phi- losophie, Bd. 119 (1902), S. 185— — —, says that the author is an expert on Hegel’s philosophy, which he defends against Seth, Balfour, Lotze, Trendelenburg, etc. (the au- thor MacTaggart is obviously an arch-idealist).

Emil Hammacher: Die Bedeutung der Philosophie Hegels. (92 SS.) 1911, Leipzig. Review in Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Bd. 148 (1912), p. 95. Says that the book contains rather good observations on “the reappearance of post Kantian idealism at the present time,” that Windelband is an agnostic (p. 96), etc., but that the author completely failed to understand Hegel’s “absolute ideal- ism,” as incidentally also Riehl, Dilthey and and other “stars.” The author is said to have undertaken a task beyond his powers.

Andrew Seth: The Development from Kant to Hegel with Chapters on the Philosophy of Religion, London, 1882. Review in Zeit- schrift für Philosophie, Bd. 83, S. 145 (1883). The author is said to defend Hegel against Kant. (Laudatory in general.)

Stirling: The Secret of Hegel. Review in the same journal, Bd. 53 (1868), p. 268. The author is said to be an exceptionally fervent worshipper of Hegel, whom he in- terprets for English readers.

Bertrando Spaventa: Da Socrate a He- gel, Bari, 1905. (432 pp. 4,50 lire). Review ibidem, Bd. 129 (1906)—the book is said to be a collection of articles, inter alia about Hegel, of whom Spaventa is a faith- ful adherent.

Stirling: The Secret of Hegel.

Italian:

Spaventa: Da Socrate a Hegel. Raff. Mariano.

German:

Michelet and Haring. Dialektische Methode Hegels (1888). Schmitt. Das Geheimnis der Hegel- schen Dialektik (1888).

Regarding recent literature on Hegel. Neo-Hegelians: Caird, Bradley. J. B. B a i l l i e: The Origin and Significance of Hegel’s Logic, London, 1901 (375 pp.). A review in Revue Philosophique, 1902, 2, S. 312. Says that he does not merely repeat Hegelian terminology (like Véra), but tries to examine and explain historically. Incidentally, Chapter X: the relation of logic to nature (Hegel is said not to have achieved his aim). Hegel’s significance is that he “demonstrated the object- ive character of knowledge.” (p. 314)

William Wallace: Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel’s Philosophy and Especially of his Logic, Oxford and Lon- don, 1894. Review in Revue Philo- sophique, 1894, 2, p. 538. Second edition, the first was in 1874. The author translated Hegel’s Logic.

By the same author: 1894 a translation of The Philo- sophy of Mind, with an explanatory chapter. Review ibid.

“Mr. Wallace accurately expounds the Hegelian conception of this science (logic) ... a science which governs both the philo- sophy of nature and that of mind, since pure thought or the Idea is the common basis both of material reality and psychical real- ity.”

On Wallace, a laudatory but shallow review in Zeitschrift für Phi- ospohie, Bd. 111 (1898), p. 208.

P. Rotta: La renaissance de Hegel et “la philosophia perennis” in the Italian Rivista di Filosofia, 1911, I—(review in Revue Philosophique, 1911, 2, p. 333). Rotta is a supporter of Caird. Seemingly, nil.

an idealist interpreta- tion of energy??

Among other things... “Bradley’s neo- Hegelian conception of an invisible energy transferred from one manifestation to an- other, present and operative in all changes and all particular activities.”

J. Grier Hibben: Hegel’s Logic, an Essay in Interpretation, New York, 1902 (313 pp.).

Review in Revue Philosophique, 1904, Vol. I, p. 430: “In spite of its title, the work of M. H. is not an interpretative commentary but rather an almost literal summary.” The author has compiled some- thing in the nature of a dictionary of the terms used in Hegel’s Logic. But this, it is said, is not the essence of the matter: “The commentators are still in dispute over

the very position taken by Hegel, over the fundamental meaning and true aim of his dialectic. The celebrated criticisms of Seth are opposed by recent exegeses which attribute a quite different significance to the Logic, taken as a whole, notably such as those of MacTaggart and G. Noël.” (431)

According to Hibben, Hegel’s Logic “n’est pas un simple système spéculatif, une plus ou

moms savante combinaison de concepts abs- traits; elle est on même temps ‘une interpró- tation de la vie universelle dans toute la plén- itude de sa signification concrète.’” (p. 430)