Public Half-Hour Hegel Q&A Later Today!

We'd committed that when Patreon supporters of the Half-Hour Hegel project reached a certain level of total pledges, I'd start offering the same sort of Q&A sessions I'd been providing exclusively to my patrons to the general public, open-access, for free.

I held the inaugural session back in August, taking a break from the drive back from New York City, stopping at a rest area, and taking advantage of their free wifi.  Four people interested in Hegel, including some of my Patreon supporters, signed in, and we had a great, far-ranging conversation, focused particularly on the territory we'd earlier traversed in the Consciousness section, and looking ahead to the rest of the Self-Consciousness section.  We even discussed some of the possible parallels between Hegel and Heidegger.  All told, a great Google Hangout.

I've scheduled the second one for later today.  So, if you've got any Hegel-related questions, or if you'd just like to listen in on some Hegel enthusiasts, join the Google Hangout -- I'll be opening it up at 7:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.  Until then, here's the event page (where I'll also post the link, once I open the Hangout)

Starting the Master-Slave Dialectic

With this video, we start the long-anticipated dialectic of Master and Slave, or if you prefer the more old-fashioned translation, Lordship and Bondage.

You won't find any discussion of these two terms quite yet, though -- Hegel has a bit of preliminary setting matters up to conduct first.  We have to get two self-consciousnesses caught within their relationship to each other, neither one able to be entirely what it is because it needs the other in order to be what it will.

But, the subjugation of the one consciousness -- the Slave or Bondsman -- to the other -- the Lord or Master -- is soon to come.  As is the surprise ending. . . .

On To the Master and Slave Dialectic!

We've finished up with the first portion of the Self-Consciousness section of Hegel's Phenomenology.  It too six video lectures -- about 3 hours worth of video (representing somewhere around 20-25 hours worth of work) -- to get through all of the dialectical twists and turns of those paragraphs.  Here's the video for paragraphs 176 and 177:

So that does mean that with the very next video, we get into the second section, "Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness:  Lordship and Bondage," otherwise known by the alternate translation of Herrschaft und Knechtschaft -- the Master-Slave Dialectic.   Exciting stuff coming up!

Progressing Through Self-Consciousness

We're continuing our trek through the first portion of the Self-Consciousness section, making good and steady progress once again -- and getting closer and closer to the beginning of the next section, "Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness, or the famous dialectic of Master and Slave.

There's two new videos available in the series, getting us now to 70 total half-hour installments. 

Here they are: 

• Lecture 69 - sections 170-171
• Lecture 70 - sections 172-175  

Open Culture Features The Project!

It looks like the Half-Hour Hegel project is starting to get some press in the larger online intellectual community -- the intersection between academic research, continuing education, and the broader interested public.

The massive curated clearinghouse for online intellectual content, Open Culture, recently featured the Half-Hour Hegel project.  That's very cool to see, and I suspect, so long as we keep up the quality video commentary work, we can expect to see some other sites mention or discuss the video commentary series down the line as well.