From: Andy

In-Reply-To: <GL036@mdx.ac.uk>

I would like to thank Graham for challenging the design of the Hegel-by-HyperText page. Most vistors are too kind. Like "Douwdy", I would like to hear more of Graham's positive suggestions, the more so since the since while there is an apparent eclecticism to the collection, some of the writers Graham slights are far, in my view, from treating Hegel as "holy text".

The rationale of the site is this: I came to the study of Hegel as a Marxist, and while opening the disucssion to non-Marxist students of Hegel remains an essential ingredient of what I hope to achieve with the site, in the main I aimed to attract to a discussion of those who shared my own underlying desire to make a "materialist reading" of Hegel. The site is a "tool-result" (to use Vygotskyan terminology) to create a discussion of Hegel which would teach me how (and if) such a re-awakening can be achieved ... and contribute to achieving it!

Also, I remain of the view that by far the majority of people who ever acquire an interest in a "materialist reading of Hegel" or otherwise want to go back to a creative study of the relation between MARX and Hegel, will know of Hegel only what they have read in Engels' two famous pamphlets and possibly what they may have learnt from an attempt to study Lenin's Notebooks. ... or re-cycling of the same material!

Accordingly, I chose Engels' pamphlets to play the role of an Introduction to the site. Further, I have followed Lenin's advice in focussing on The Logic, though others have since pointed out that The Phenomenology is perhaps more important to a study of Hegel. Nevertheless, I have here opted for Graham's advice to be definitive not comprehensive, and left the Phen. to others (Carl Mickelsen).

I have tried to include EVERYTHING Marx, Engels and Lenin wrote on Hegel, except for the fact that The Grudrisse is just too large for this site, and I have left it to the Marx-Engels Archives to one day complete this task.

These: Hegel-Marx-Engels-Lenin, constitute the core material of the site.

The remaining material is intended to follow the way in which Hegel's Logic has been read by others who have walked this same road. In the main, these are Marxists. By "Marxist" I mean someone who is part of the line of development which bases itself on Marx's theoretical work and is a part of the struggle of the working class. I specifically choose this definition rather than any "normative" definition which would be contrary to the spirit of both Hegel and Marx.

Nevertheless, it leads to contradictions. I have chosen to include material from those whom I may regard as politically reactionary (Kautsky, Mao for example) rather than be tempted to retreat to a "normative" criteria.

On reflection, I later included the French Hegelians, because their interpretation has proved so influential in relation to contemporary understanding of Hegel, especially in Europe, and including European Marxists. I did NOT include the legion of Soviet Professors who so far as I am aware have not been influential in their own right. As many others agree, Ilyenkov stands outside this category, and he reamins the single most appreciated contributor.

The inclusion of Slaughter and Pilling may be slightly eccentric; it's difficult to judge because these two people (especially Geoff Pilling) were influential in my own understanding of Hegel, and that is reason enough for me to invite others to read them.Cyril Smith, Tony Smith and Hiroshi Uchida are included because their work came up in the discussion on the site, and in general that has always been for me ipso facto reason for inclusion.

I have not included any of the dozen or so writers whose commentaries on Hegel adorn the bookshelf at my local library, simply because I have never come across them outside of the library, and the last thing I want to do with Hegel's ideas is "to consecrate their burial in old books".

I have changed my view of Hegel greatly since starting this project, but I have in general avoided going over work I did at any earlier stage, mainly because I think that my own misconceptions were not personal, but widely shared, and I have chosen to allow the site to continue to carry its own genesis with it.

Andy