Wikipedia:Peer review/Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel/archive1

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I've listed this article for peer review because it is a high-importance article in several categories, and, in the past few weeks, I have revised it extensively with almost no engagement from other editors. I have made a concerted effort, however, to document my revisions and create space for discussion on the Talk page. (Previous editors are maybe all on summer vacation?)

While I am an expert on Hegel, I am a novice to Wikipedia. And so it would be wonderful if someone more knowledgeable about Wikipedia's style guidelines and best practices would review the entry to assess for adherence.

It would also be helpful, of course, to flag any content that is overly technical, in need of supporting citations, etc.

My thanks in advance to whomever might take this up —

Cheers, PatrickJWelsh (talk) 17:52, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

The article seems to be quite comprehensive concerning the topics covered. From what I can tell, all the main claims have a source. But, as was pointed out in the GA review, some sections rely too much on one source such as "Pinkard 2000" in the section "Life". The Britannica article has a lot of info on this topic so it could be used to add some extra references. A shorter section on this topic is also found in the Stanford article. I didn't spot any major linguistic problems. In many cases, rather long quotations are used in the text. In my view, they should be used more sparingly and mainly as an additional source of information, not as the main way to explain a topic. This is the case, for example, in Terry Pinkard's quotation in the subsection "The Phenomenology of Spirit" and the subsection "The Philosophy of Nature" is almost entirely made up of quotations. Since the article is about Hegel, I think it should include some quotations of his texts. My suggestion would be to paraphrase or shorten some of the quotations made by other authors and to make sure that the main points are always explained or rehearsed outside the quotation as well.

As for the contents, I had some ideas of what could be added, though I'm not an expert on Hegel. One could expand in the section "Influences" on how Kant, Fichte, and Schelling influenced Hegel since Hegel is often presented as the culmination of German idealism by building on and transforming their thought. It might also be worth mentioning somewhere that various philosophers criticized Hegel for his obscurantism, see for example, Obscurantism#Hegel. Another optional addition would be to talk about his legacy in analytic philosophy, which was initially minimal due to various criticisms made by philosophers such as Russel and Moore but increased in the second half of the 20th century, see for example here and here. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:23, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Phlsph7,

Thank you for volunteering your time to respond to my request for peer review!

To your suggestions:

Terry Pinkard's biography is the most comprehensive and the most recent in English. Citing other encyclopedia sources by authors who have not dedicated their professional lives to the interpretation of Hegel's life and work would, in my view, probably only harm the article.

I agree with you that the article relies too heavily on (often lengthy) quotations. Yet, I have been frustrated in the past, trying to improve an article, and being accused of "original research" when I cite to primary sources. (If I were in charge, secondary sources would be discouraged on Wikipedia philosophy pages in the same way they are in undergrad term papers.)

While I agree with you that explanation and rehearsal of quoted material is beneficial, the article's GA reviewer @BennyOnTheLoose does not. Hence (among other things) my reliance upon the exact words of acknowledged experts in the field. I am more than capable (and happy, upon request!) to additionally rephrase any quotations as might benefit the article.

As to the specific influences of Kant, Fichte, etc., I agree the article would benefit from further discussion. I plan to address this with a new top-level section on "Intellectual Context" in the near future. I do not think, however, that this should be required for GA status.

Earlier versions of this article did devote more space to allegations of obscurantism. I have opted, however, to cite only philosophers who have either critically engaged with Hegel's actual texts or who have had an outsized influence on Hegel's reception (Schopenhauer's trash-talk, e.g., does not merit mention, nor do Russell's dismissive comments).

If there is something major that Hegel has contributed to analytic philosophy that I have not mentioned in the "Criticisms and legacy" section (particularly, in "American pragmatism"), please do add it! I do not see what I am missing from your links.

Thanks again for your time and the attention you've given to this article —

Cheers, PatrickJWelsh (talk) 00:08, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your clarifications and I'm sorry if you are getting conflicting feedback from different reviewers. You may be right that the suggested additions are not of central importance to the GA status so I'll try to focus more on improving what is already there. I've added a few references from the Britannica article and the Stanford article to the section "Life". Free free to prune them if you think that it is too much now. I'm not sure what to do about the long quotations. Many of them are difficult to paraphrase and I agree that quoting is better than original research. But if they are difficult to paraphrase, then they are probably also difficult for the reader to understand. However, this may not be entirely avoidable since Hegel's philosophy is known to be difficult. I've simplified a few passages in this edit to make the text more accessible. However, there are still various rather long sentences in the text that could be improved by reformulating them and/or splitting them up into several shorter sentences, for example:

• Terry Pinkard, however, attempts a single-sentence synopsis: Hegel tried to show that there are no 'given' objects of direct awareness that determine the judgments we make about them; that 'consciousness' already involves 'self-consciousness,' and that self-consciousness itself is highly mediated and dependent on structures of mutual recognition among self-conscious agents; that attempts to establish 'successful' patterns of mutual recognition have foundered because of their inability to sustain allegiance to themselves when set under the microscope of reflective self-criticism; that what we therefore must take as authoritative for ourselves has to do with what has come to be required of us by virtue of the failures of past attempts at sustaining normative structures of mutual recognition and that to understand what is required of us at the present, we must understand how the past came to demand that of us; and that the attempt to understand such reflective, social activity in modern life requires us to rethink a Christian view of the nature of religion as the collective reflection of the modern community on what ultimately counts for it; and that only such a historically, socially construed philosophical account of that whole process can adequately introduce us to such a fully 'modern' standpoint and provide us with an elucidation of both itself and its own genesis.
• According to Hegel, "every philosophy is essentially idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the question then is only how far this principle is carried out" because there can be no workable distinction between "immediate" experience and "mediated" thought, as conceptualisation runs through all cognitively relevant levels, making it impossible for the empiricist to question our faith in thinking without ending up in total scepticism: for to claim that we should not trust our conceptual capacities when it comes to theorizing about the world is to imply that we should not trust our experience of it either.
• According to Hegel's presentation, the rational state of his time is a constitutional monarchy, the constitution of which "mirrors and at the same time sublates the difference between democracy (rule of the many, who are involved in legislation), aristocracy (rule of the few, who apply, concretize, and execute the laws), and monarchy (rule of the one, who heads and encompasses all power)… [and] Hegel insists on the cooperative and mutually inclusive character of the three powers [Hegel 1991a, §286R]
• Standing at the transition from nature to spirit, the role of the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit is to analyze "the elements necessary for or presupposed by such relations [of objective spirit], namely, the structures characteristic of and necessary to the individual rational agent" by elaborating "the fundamental nature of the biological/spiritual human individual along with the cognitive and the practical prerequisites of human social interaction."
• Frederick Beiser observes that Hegel's theory is "his attempt to rehabilitate the natural law tradition while taking into account the criticisms of the historical school" and adds that (contrary to "non-metaphysical" interpretations of Hegel's philosophy) "without a sound interpretation of Hegel's theory of natural law, we have very little understanding of the very foundation of his social and political thought."
• For, although Hegel embraces the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers with his concept of spirit, he rejects the core Lutheran doctrines of sola gratia and sola scriptura, and affirms instead as the "fundamental principle" of Protestantism "the obstinacy that does honor to mankind, to refuse to recognize in conviction anything not ratified by thought."

Phlsph7 (talk) 14:41, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, Phlsph7. As you may have seen from the GA review, I was nervous about changing the text myself. Unfortunately, "conflicting feedback from different reviewers" is quite common on Wikipedia, in my experience. I know I've had my own frustrations with the inconsistency in different reviewers' expectations! If you want to add anything to the GA review page then, as it says at the list of nominations, "additional comments are welcome". However, I'll obviously keep an eye on the peer review too. Regards, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:06, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the notification. I've kept an eye on the GA review as well. But, unfortunately, I don't have much experience with the GA criteria. It might be better to shift the whole discussion there since the main point seems to be the GAN. This way, we don't have to switch back and forth between the GAN discussion and the peer review. Phlsph7 (talk) 18:04, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it seems sensible to have the discussion in one place; if there are further peer reviewers then we'll work out how to proceed. Thanks, BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 17:48, 19 September 2022 (UTC)