Reducing Spirit to Substance

Abstract

In «Hegel's phenomenological method», K. R. Dove maintains that the method of the «Phenomenology of spirit» is not dialectical but instead wholly phenomenological. That is, Dove claims that Hegel's method is purely descriptive. Dove's interpretation has been highly influential and widely accepted. This article argues that, although there is a phenomenological aspect to Hegel's method, that aspect itself presupposes a prior dialectical moment. Failure to account for that dialectical moment results in spirit being reduced to substance.