The Logic of Hegel

These are only the first steps in science; we do not truly understand a thought simply because we can view it through the lens of some of its illustrations.

For the English reader of Hegel, specific obstacles arise from the foreign language. In sharp contrast to most well-known German philosophers, Hegel can be said to write in the popular and national dialect of his country. Naturally, there are nuances and shades of meaning given to his words by the general context of his system. However, overall, he did what he promised to Voss Johann Heinrich Voss (1751–1826), a German poet and translator famous for his German versions of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.. In a letter written to that poet from Jena in 1805, Hegel says of his projects: "Luther has made the Bible speak German, and you have made Homer speak German. No greater gift than this can be given to a nation. As long as a nation does not know a noble work in its own language, it is still barbarian and does not regard the work as its own. If we set aside these two examples, I may describe my own intention as an attempt to teach philosophy to speak in German." ¹

Hegel is unquestionably the preeminent original: par excellence philosopher of Germany—German through and through. For philosophy—though it is the shared birthright of mature reason in all ages and countries—must, like other universal and international interests such as the state, the arts, or the church, submit to the limits and traits imposed upon it by the natural divisions of race and language. The subtle nuances, as well as the more obvious differences in national speech, make themselves vividly felt in philosophical systems and resist translation. Just as Greek philosophy cannot be easily converted, German philosophy cannot be turned into a body of English thought by a simple stroke of the translator's pen. There is a difference in this matter between the sciences and philosophy. The various sciences have a de-nationalized character that belongs to all humanity, like the trades and industries of various nations; they are pretty much the same in one country as in another. But in the political body, in works of high art, and in

¹ Miscellaneous Writings original: Vermischte Schriften, volume 2, page 474.