Phenomenology: Hegel and Husserl

Abstract

At a time when the philosophy of Hegel is awakening renewed interest among scholars both on the European continent and in the Anglo-Saxon world it would seem not only desirable but even imperative to institute a comparison between one of the most influential movements of our own age, the phenomenological movement, and that part of Hegel’s philosophical endeavor for which he is, perhaps, best known, his Phenomenology of Spirit. The comparison, of course, is of interest, not simply because in both instances the same term, “phenomenology,” is employed, but, more significantly, because in both the same sort of appeal is made to human consciousness, to experience, as the key to philosophical knowledge. It would, assuredly, be claiming too much to say that the two types of phenomenology greatly resemble each other in their approach to experience, but it is to be hoped that, even in their differences, they can be seen as somehow complementing — or, perhaps, illuminating — each other.