Kommentar zu Hegels Logik in seiner "Enzyklopädie" von 1830 (review)

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BOOK REVIEWS 317 with scriptural revelation. With most men of letters in the early eighteenth century, Whiston considers Newton's system as delineated in the Principia to be certain, and he utilizes the results of Newton's scientific investigations to corroborate the merely probable testimony of historical revelation. He delineates this view in a book dedicated to his mentor, Newton, and to the rest of the members of the Royal Society-Astronomical Principles of Religion, Natural and Reveal'd (1717). Attfield is correct in his view that secular science (or secular morality or belief in God independently of scripture on purely rational grounds) is compatible with Judeo -Christian theism. But in arguing historically he prises his "secular" authors out of their historical context for the purpose of his own argument and inevitably distorts their positions in the process. He uses his historical characters as if all they represent is a prospectus of positions, a grab-bag of technical concepts and arguments independent of all historical circumstance and particularity. Such semantic atomism is useful to a person making a case for his own philosophical position, which is the best part of what Attfield is doing, but it is dangerous for an accurate historical understanding. Attfield's conclusion about the compatibility of theism with independent reason would stand on its own, and he ought to have written the book as a straightforward essay in the philosophy of religion. But in insisting that he must delineate "in some measure the theories, attitudes and the spirit of the secularisers" he does violence to them and to the way they link reason to their own religion beliefs. By calling them "secularizers," by his definition, he simultaneously distorts their philosophies and begs the question. JAMES E. FORCE University of Kentucky Bernhard Lakebrink. Kommentar zu Hegels Logik in seiner "Enzyklopi~die" yon 183o. Vol. 1, Sein und Wesen. Freiburg and Munich: Karl Alber, 1979. Pp. 453. DM 48.oo. Kant's hermeneutical claim of understanding other philosophical authors "better" than they would understand themselves seems to fail when applied to that philosopher who tried to reverse by his understanding the entire philosophical tradition-Hegel . There are, of course, various interpretations, explanations, or transformations of Hegel's Logic. However, it seems that nearly all interpreters' managed to avoid the most simple requirement of a commentary, to "spell out" (buchstabieren) the text itself. Lakebrink's book, ~which is the first German commentary on Hegel's Logic, tries to fill this gap. "Nirgendwo verlangt zudem ein vorliegender Text ein solches Ausmass an Ann~iherung und Angleichung wie eben hier" (p. 23). This pretension has to justify its own validity with regard to a hermeneutical tradition going back to Hegel's own time. ' The only exception is A. L6onard, Commentairelittoralde la LogiquedeHegel(Paris-Louvain, 1974); see the review in Journal of the Historyof Philosophy 16 (1978):125-28. 2 See B. Lakebrink, HegelsdialektischeOntologieund die Thom.~itischeAnalektik(Cologne, 1955); Die EuropgdscheIdee der Freiheit,vol. 1, HegelsLogik und die Traditionder Selbstbestimmung(Leiden, 1968); and Studien zur MetaphysikHegels(Freiburg, 1969). 318 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY The text in question is the Encyclopedia Logic, of 183o, and--at least to a certain extent--the corresponding passages of the Great Logic of 1812-13. The first part of the commentary covers the sections on "Being" (Sein) and "Essence" (Wesen); it is announced that a second volume, on the logic of "Concept" (Begrif]), is to follow. The book begins with a systematic introduction (pp. I 1-96) discussing the current tendencies of topics such as hermeneutics (p. 11), language and thought (p. 2 t), universality and singularity (p. 26), spirit and history (p. 29), the finite and the infinite (p. 46), logic and eschatalogy (p. 56), and the problem of metaphysics with reference to idealism and realism (p. 76). These introductory chapters try to place Hegel's Logic in the tradition of the leading themes of classical philosophy. In this respect, the commentary follows a retrospective line by constructing a possible dialogue between Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Hegel. On the other hand, one may regret that there are only a few points of contact that might facilitate a comparison between Hegel's dialectics and the conceptions of modern...