Introduction

Abstract

In 1801, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel moved from Frankfurt, where he had devoted himself to independent study, while closely following the political, legislative, and economic developments of the day, to Jena, where he remained, teaching and writing philosophy, until 1807. These dates are not significant in themselves, but are often mentioned in the literature because they demarcate the period that yielded Hegel’s first mature and fully articulated philosophical system, the Phenomenology of Spirit, published in April 1807. The unparalleled status of this work as a philosophical masterpiece relegated to the sidelines everything Hegel had written or published before that, and the Jena period became completely identified with the magisterial achievement represented by the Phenomenology of Spirit. Even today the Phenomenology is considered Hegel’s most important work, and despite the fact that Hegel’s philosophy as a whole is often dismissed, the Phenomenology’s renown as a philosophical classic remains unchallenged.