Hello Joao,

To work out the structure of the Phenomenology is fairly complicated.

The first step is just simply to read the book through from beginning to end (preferably a few times). Having done this, then the structural problems will be very manifest.

Secondly, you would read a fair amount of the secondary literature. Here the problem of the structure of the Phenomenology comes up endlessly.

Without this preliminary work, it really isn't possible to explain the structure of the Phenomenology to you. It would be a matter of me providing answers to questions you haven't asked.

But this is, after all, the Hegel list. There are several real Hegel scholars here--people with credentials!. One would think one of them would meet these minimum standards.

I know that you have read the Self-consciousness chapter. I presented the structure of that chapter. It is quite straight-forward. I don't think you should have any problem with it. It is the one part of the Phenomenology with an unambiguous structure. As it happens, each of the nine sections of the Phenomenology has a structure that corresponds to this nine-part structure of the Self-consciousness chapter.

You read the Observing Reason section. The last time we spoke about this, I tried to show the nine-part structure of the Observing Reason section, as well as how it corresponds to the nine-part structure of the Consciousness section. Unfortunately the structures of these two parts aren't as clear cut. Much work and much thinking is required to get at the structure in these two cases.

So, then, have you read The second and third parts of the Reason chapter? I know you have read them at least a little bit. So here, again the structure is pretty clear. I think you can readily see that Pleasure and Necessity corresponds to the Life section that begins the Self-Consciousness chapter. You can easily see that the Law of the Heart corresponds to the need for recognition. The fight between Virtue and the Way of the World corresponds to the fight to the death. It is less clear, but quite interesting, to see that the Spiritual Animal Kingdom corresponds to the work of the slave. It is pretty straight-forward that Law Making corresponds to the Stoic and Law Testing to the Sceptic.

At this point it isn't a matter of "necessity". It is simply a matter of observation and thought.

So then, finally, that the Unhappy Consciousness in its three forms corresponds to the Ethical Life section of the Spirit chapter was suggested by Harris in his _Hegel's Ladder_. The Ethical Life section which deals with ancient Greece from the perspective of the plays by Sophocles about Antigone, etc,--this describes the Happy Consciousness, the consciousness of ancient Greece!

So, then, actually the next two sections of the Spirit chapter, on Culture and Morality, together form the fifth part of the Phenomenology. Together they have the same structure as the Self-consciousness chapter. Of course I would love to go into this. But as far as I know you haven't read this part of the Phenomenology--so what I might say would mean nothing to you.

The sixth, seventh and eighth parts of the Phenomenology are the sections on Natural Religion, Religion of Art, and Revealed Religion. Natural Religion corresponds to the Consciousness section. The Religion of Art corresponds to the Self-consciousness section. And the Revealed Religion section corresponds to the Culture/Morality section.

Then, of course, the Absolute Knowing chapter, in its nine parts, is the cap stone to the whole thing.

And really I suppose this is just a table of contents. But it is just the first step. As a first step it is, of necessity, quite external--appealing only to the understanding. I wish I could get beyond these first steps. But to do so I would need someone who has actually read the Phenomenology, who has read it enough to be aware of the structural problems involved--and someone, quite simply, who was interested in the Phenomenology, interested enough to spend the time necessary in reading, and doing the work of comparing.

This work would result in a truly speculative understanding of the book, an understanding that encompassed the whole book from beginning to end, a reading that would see the circular nature of the book as a whole and of each of the nine parts of the book.

So, I'm afraid, Joao, that if, at this point you see no necessity--then perhaps that might be your short-coming? Perhaps you haven't done the work that would be necessary?

And this has nothing to do with theology. All this talk about a "theological reading" is just the stupidity of atheism trying to avoid the hard work of actually reading Hegel. Of course those who aren't atheists also avoid reading Hegel to a very large extent. I really don't understand this reluctance to actually read Hegel. Why wouldn't we want to read Hegel?

John