The Necessity of an Absolute Misunderstanding: Why Hegel Has So Many Misreaders

Abstract

What stands out about Hegel as a philosopher is the confusion that surrounds his most basic positions. No other philosopher in the Western tradition occasions such wild divergence with regard to the principal concerns of her or his philosophy, and the competition is not even close. To capture the immensity of the divergence of opinion concerning Hegel, one would have to imagine some readers of Marx seeing him as a champion of the capitalist system rather than its foremost opponent or envision psychoanalysts conceiving of Freud as an advocate of repression rather than its diagnostician. Though there is disagreement over the details of the philosophies of Marx, Freud, and most other major thinkers, a general agreement exists concerning the fundamental principles. The same cannot be said in the case of Hegel.