Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel/Talk

Protogonus1, you might have noticed that I've stripped down your articles about Hegel to, well, a bare minimum. I suspect you don't quite understand what we're up to here on Wikipedia. A paean to your favorite philosopher, written in his own style, is out of place--we want encyclopedia articles.

...now recognized as a laborious, exacting, and successful completion of Aristotle’s valiant attempt...

I (just for example) don't recognize it as such, nor do most philosophers. I admittedly don't know much about Hegel (except the simplest of catchphrases and that he's very hard to read :-) ), but I've never heard him compared to Aristotle. In any event, the above is not written from the neutral point of view, which is why I removed it.

Informed Wikipedians recognize ruefully that the true encyclopedia is not organized from “A” to “Z” but instead moves in majestic consideration first of its own cognitive tools (the nature of Thought itself as True Being), then in search of the truth behind the often misleading appearances (the nature of Nature), and finally applies the concrete knowledge of Being and Nature to recognize, reconcile, and reform itself in and through the world of the Mind, which is now, after a Titanic struggle with and victory over its opposite, fully possessed of its own eternal reality.

I don't think it's a good idea to refer to Wikipedia in most articles--certainly not, anyway, in an article about Hegel. It's interesting that I know as much about Wikipedia as anybody, but I don't understand the above paragraph!

Hegel’s particular contribution was to modify the form of the eternally True Philosophy or Wissenschaft to make it infinitely expandable (the parts remaining always in systematic/organic relation) and to illustrate its stupendous heuristic power in the service of Man. Note also the pertinent truism of the Germans in this regard: “There is nothing more practical than a good theory.” Those who desire to discover and create, regardless of discipline or line of work, must not fail to appreciate this Tool of Tools, whose encyclopedic form was developed in Germany in the period 1808-1831 and continues to this day in the hands of the [True Hegelians]?.

I'm not sure that the above can be rendered from the neutral point of view or be rendered clear enough to be of use in an article.

Maybe it will suffice to say that Wikipedia is not a platform to write in praise of Hegel in Hegelian language. We ought to be trying to write as clearly as possible about what Hegel said, and his life and influence.

--LMS

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I actually think that the paragraph about wikipedians makes sense if you know the terminology. However, I'm not convinced of its truth, or of it's value in this context. Perhaps it would be valuable in a paper on the epistemology of the wikipedia, but it isn't really about Hegel -- so it doesn't belong here.

I do think the article should at least have some real information about Hegel's work, and that there was content in the deleted portion which could be salvaged, but I'm not up to the task as my 19th century continental philosophy course flew through 300 pages of Hegel in about a week, and I'm pretty sure I only understood about half of those pages, and a few bits and pieces from the rest. Ah, if only I had more time... MRC

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Unfortunately Protogonus1 deleted his contribution. I don't know him, or the quality of his work, but I am sorry to see him go. I'm fairly certian that the text he wrote is legally ours still, and we could just put it back. However, I went ahead and replaced it, so as to avoid whatever ill will we can. MRC