23 January 2011

It turns out the new translation of "The Science of Logic" came out last year

I didn't notice when this happened, so I figure others probably missed it, too: di Giovanni's translation of "The Science of Logic" is out now. From what I've read of it so far, it's not radically different from Miller's translation, but the mere addition of some modern critical apparatuses is very welcome. Like, just having some more footnotes is a great addition. As is changing the font. The Miller is just an ugly book to look at. So even if this doesn't end up being a radical change, it's definitely welcome. (Now they just need to print it in paperback so I can own a copy of the thing legally.)

It looks like there are actually three volumes of the Cambridge Edition of Hegel's Works out now. I'd only heard about the Heidelberg Writings (which I haven't had time to think about looking at yet), and I just found out they were working on (and have already published) another translation of the Encyclopedia Logic earlier this evening. I'm not sure why they did this one, especially this early-on; the Hackett edition is from 1991, and strikes me as perfectly serviceable still. I would've thought that they were working mainly on unpublished or out-of-date materials, based on the fact that they started with the Heidelberg Writings volume. I suppose they might have been trying to get the major works out there (with Pinkard's translation of the Phenomenology presumably destined to come out in this series), but it still strikes me as odd. The other volumes of the Encyclopedia are badly in need of either new translations or a reprint of the Petry editions in a format that people other than major research libraries can get access to. (I've not seen them outside of reference collections, even there. Amusingly, Amazon offers the third volume of Petry for $2.30 as a Kindle edition, but this is actually just the version you can find online at places like Marxists.org, not even the Miller edition that has the Zusatze etc. So save your $2.30, nature-philosophers!)

Anyway, I'm reading di Giovanni's preface to "The Science of Logic" now. One bit that leaped out at me when I was reading:
"In this respect, since [The Phenomenology of Spirit] is governed throughout by the idea of spirit, it also constitutes the First Part of the System of Science, as Hegel surnamed it in 1807. This is a title which was dropped in the second edition of 1832, because it no longer corresponded to the subsequent publication history of the then planned System, and because Hegel later incorporated a much abbreviated version of the Phenomenology in the Encyclopedia as part of the Philosophy of Spirit."

I was very happy to see someone established say this; I've never actually seen it stated in print before (though I've said it on blogs). I have seen the opposed view (both in print and online), that the Phenomenology elevates its reader to the status of Absolute Knowledge and thus enables her to make sense of the System Of Science which begins with "The Science of Logic", which has always struck me as nuts.

Unrelated note: My handwritten McDowell notes gnaw at my soul like a beaver on soft wood. They demand to be typed up. I am not very good at blogging.