CONTENTS
(Editorial note: the contents are a very rough outline of the structure. The Commentary is divided into three parts each of which are again divided into three, each of which are again divided into three, etc. However, apart from the first division into three, most of the divisions into three may be complicated by a separate introductory part so that the basic division into three becomes a division into four. Also, throughout the work there will be what will be called additions, a bit like extended marginal notes or footnotes, but which may be appended at any level of the hierarchy of divisions, and not just to a single web page. Hopefully the structure will not be as messy as the compilations of Hegel's works as they have come down to us, but this is not guaranteed.)
Section 1: Introduction to the Introduction
Section 2: Ways of Considering Hegel’s Works (Rough draft, mostly readable)
Section 3: The Geist of Hegel’s Works (Rough draft, some readable)
Section 4: Division of the Commentary (On site, but not readable)
Additions to Introduction
To Section 1: Inaugural Addition
To Section 4: The Commentary Further Defined and Divided
To all sections: Development of Commentary (Rough draft, not yet in html)
which will close with some stuff about the Recycling Preamble (see general notes below) (Rough draft, not yet in html)
Addition: Inaugural Addition
Addition: With What Must the Exposition Begin? (Rough draft, not yet in html)
This will be a massive work, unlikely to be completed by me alone – I hope to persuade others to co-operate with me.
The Abstract part is, as its title suggests, like an abstract of the whole commentary. I have put the Introduction to the whole commentary as the first part of the Abstract part, but there is some justification for putting the Introduction as separate from the Abstract, as the first of four parts of the Commentary. This justification emanates from Hegel’s own problem about beginning his works. Including the Introduction within the Abstract part may result in spreading its contents through the Abstract part, rather than just being confined to the first part of the Abstract part, so I have left the other two parts of the Abstract part without titles for now.
The opening piece of the Introduction has now been on the site for several years, but I have been taking a long time composing the other three parts of the Introduction.
Note that I have included the first of many "additions", like the "Zusatz" in compilations of Hegel’s works. These will be put elsewhere in the commentary too, complicating the table of contents.
The second (Dialectic) part will be the part looking most like a straightforward commentary on Hegel’s works. However, its structure has been far more difficult to decide upon than the other two, and will probably be larger than the other two combined. (The difficulty lies in trying not to impose order on the material, while making it easy for the reader to find what he or she is interested in.
I have written something which I call a preamble to the commentary which also relates to Hegel’s problem in beginning in his works. However, it would be very misleading to describe the preamble as introductory – not only is it immersed in Hegelian jargon, and so inappropriate reading for anyone not familiar with Hegel’s works, but also it is written as if it were a part of Hegel’s works (logically inauthentic, as it were). The preamble starts, as it were, from within Hegel's philosophy and is about to become commentary on Hegel, but has yet to reach the stage of seeing Hegel’s philosophy as other (as externalised in his works), as something to be commented on. Thus the preamble can no more be directly incorporated into this commentary than Hegel's works can. Nor is the preamble prefatory since it serves none of the purposes that a preface to the commentary would serve. Whatever the actual date of its composition, the preamble is in an important sense prior to the commentary where a preface would be posterior to the commentary.
I am unsure of where to place the preamble. Currently I am placing the preamble in the dialectical part of the commentary, near the end of it, renaming it as ‘Recycling Preamble’, since it is a preamble to beginning the cycle of Hegel’s system again. It is not directly part of the Dialectic Commentary but, as it were, appearing as an extended quote within it. It implicitly links Hegel’s Doctrine of the Notion and his Philosophy of Geist. But I may change my mind and move it back to being at the beginning, although it is before any beginning, and does not play the usual prefatory role either.