The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

Peter Kalkavage’s The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit guides the reader through Hegel’s great work. Given the book’s legendary difficulty, one may well ask, “Why even try to read the Phenomenology?” In his preface, Kalkavage explains why he thinks a reader should try. There is much to commend the study of Hegel: his attentiveness to the deepest, most fundamental questions of philosophy, his uncompromising pursuit of truth, his amazing gift for characterization and critique, his appreciation for the grand sweep of things and the large view, his profound admiration for all that is heroic, especially for the ancient Greeks, those heroes of thought in whom the philosophic spirit first dawned, his penetrating gaze into modernity in all its forms, the enormous breadth of his interests, and the sheer audacity of his claim to have captured absolute knowing in the form of a thoroughly rational account. No genuine philosophic education can omit a serious encounter with this giant of the modern age, the giant who absorbed all the worlds of spiritual vitality that came before him and tried to organize them into a coherent whole. Anyone who is interested in Hegel will want to own this book. Peter Kalkavage is a member of the senior faculty at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he has taught for thirty years. He is the author of numerous articles on philosophy. He translated Plato’s Timaeus and co-translated Plato’s Phaedo and Sophist.