If your shelf has Hegel but no Hegel commentary, I assume you own Hegel, not that you read Hegel. So I ask: What book are we pretending you’ve read today?
My shelf has Hegel and some commentary on his work, but I haven't even attempted to read them.
>>25354119>What book are we pretending you’ve read today?interesting formulation that, if anything, showcases your own shortcomings
>>25354119Neither Hegel nor Hegel commentary on my shelf because I'm not a faggot.>are we pretendingI'm not pretending, but you can pretend whatever the fuck you want (or can).
>The ordinary book philosopher relates to someone who thinks for himself as the historian relates to an eye witness; the latter speaks from his own direct interpretation of the matter. This is why at bottom all who think for themselves are basically in agreement, and their difference arises only as one of standpoint; but where this does not change anything, they all say the same thing. For they are merely stating what they have objectively apprehended. Often I was pleasantly surprised afterwards to find formulations in ancient works by great men of propositions that I had hesitated to bring before the public because of their paradoxical nature. – The book philosopher on the other hand recounts what this man said, what that one meant and then again what another objected and so on. This he compares, evaluates and criticizes, thus attempting to get at the truth of things, and in the process he becomes quite similar to the historian. So for instance he will launch investigations on whether Leibniz might ever have been a Spinozist for a while and so forth ... Herbart ... – One might be amazed by the great effort such a man takes, since it seems that if only he tried to focus on the matter itself, he would soon reach his goal with a bit of thinking for himself. Only there is a small drawback here, insofar as this does not depend on our will; we can sit down and read at any time, but not sit down – and think.>To read all kinds of expositions of the doctrines of the philosophers, or in general the history of philosophy, instead of reading their own original works is like letting somebody else chew our food. Would anyone read world history if we were free to watch with our own eyes the events of former times that interest us? Now in respect to the history of philosophy such an autopsy of the subject is actually available, namely in the original writings of the philosophers. At any rate, we can then limit ourselves, for the sake of brevity, to well-chosen principal chapters, the more so as they all abound in repetitions, which we can spare ourselves. In this way we will get to know the essence of their doctrines in authentic and unadulterated form, whereas from the half dozen histories of philosophy that now appear every year we merely receive what entered the head of a philosophy professor, and in the form in which it there appears at that. It goes without saying that the thoughts of a great mind are bound to shrink considerably in order to fit into the three-pound-brain of such a parasite of philosophy, out of which they are then to emerge again, clothed in the respective jargon of the day, accompanied by his precocious judgement.t. schopenhauer
>>25354175Do you think this is a refutation of what I am saying? Schopenhauer is not saying "secondary works are always bad." He even says selected principal chapters and anthologies can be useful. His target is when secondary literature replaces encountering primary literature and having independent thought. I am not suggesting that nobody reads Phenomonology of Spirit; what I am saying is that nobody who has seriously studied the book has done so without having a collection of secondary literature. Secondary literature is scaffolding, not a replacement for the actual thing.
