Hegel Update

Just got back to reading Mr. Hegel after taking the week of my surgery off. I'm a little past half-way in my anthology of his works, and let me tell you: what they say about Georg Wilhelm is true. The writing is super-dense, super-vague, super-long and just plain indecipherable. Lots of Capitalized Nouns. It is written in English, which I claim to understand, but I read a paragraph and have no idea of what I just read. Sometimes, if I sense I just went over something important, I'll go back, re-read the last paragraph or two, slowly, trying to focus my jumping mind. I usually get the gist of Hegel's immediate point, but I can't hold it long enough to grasp the bigger picture he's fleshing out.

I've finished three of his (abridged) works and am half-way through a fourth. Here's how much I felt I understood of each:

The Philosophy of History....................75%
The History of Philosophy................... 40%
The Science of Logic.............................10%
The Philosophy of Right and Law.........30%

There's a rising feeling of panic, but I keep it down by realizing that this is just an experiment to combat hopping tendencies. Stay calm, stay focused on the goal. I have only one thing to do: keep going until I finish the anthology. Then I have a week or two on some short, hopefully too-the-point and enlightening secondary materials to explain Hegel's ideas, then I go back and re-read the works. The second time, slowly, as focused as I can be. Centered on the text. After that, I will evaluate my knowledge of Hegel and his system. There is no final exam, no mid-terms, no grades, and most importantly, no rush. But to keep my feet to the fire I'll throw a couple of short essays up on this blog. Hopefully, they'll be accurate and thoughtful, as well as entertaining.

For the curious, I have three more works to plough through:

Lectures on Aesthetics
The Phenomenology of the Spirit (I can't wait to read this one)
Three [short] Political Essays
- The Internal Affairs of Wurttemburg
- The Constitution of Germany
- Concering the English Reform Bill

Riveting, I know, but I am interested in philosophy, and Hegel undeniably has influenced so, so very much of what went on in the twentieth century, especially in the political and economic fields (Marx was a devotee). Something tells me a futuristic society steeped in this man's thought may provide a fertile field for fiction. (alliteration!)