Submitted by EvenHair4706 t3_z8e89f in worldnews
EvenHair4706 OP t1_iyb64st wrote
The British philosopher Bertrand Russell described him as “the hardest to understand of the great philosophers”.
PimentoCheesehead t1_iyba2bu wrote
I always kind of assumed he was indecipherable because his original writings were in German. Everything I’ve ever tried to read in translation from German has been incredibly dense and hard to follow.
Spoonfeedme t1_iybdnus wrote
A greater part of the problem is that much of Hegel's work is transcripts of lectures for people who also spoke the highly technical philosophical language he did. The lay audience was not the intended reader.
conspicuousperson t1_iybtkug wrote
Hegel assumes a high amount of knowledge of early 19th-century German philosophy, and many of his technical terms are untranslatable. He especially loved compound words.
EvenHair4706 OP t1_iybapmw wrote
Some translations of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer are quite good. They were better writers
Modal_Window t1_iyblb2b wrote
They also lived in different time periods and had different audiences.
changeusername555 t1_iybne3r wrote
Schopenhauer was a contemporary of Hegel's
guysguy t1_iybq8tf wrote
And Schopenhauer invented the word "hegelei" to basically describe incredibly smart sounding bullshit. The word was then used by Nietzsche and others to describe the same thing. Still in use today, though not as much anymore.
I can’t find an English article but here’s the German wiki for it. Maybe readable with a translator.
gazongagizmo t1_iyc12nj wrote
In North-West Germany "Hegel" has become a slang insult, used sarcastically and non-maliciously.
"Was für ein Hegel!" (or in dialect, "Watt'n Hegel!") is said about someone to call them a sort of buffoon. "What a Hegel you are."
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