Method of Philosophy

            Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit posses many great questions and uses an unconventional method to find answers to these. Using the English translation of Science gives me a warped view of his method. To me science would be more structured, like Hobbes or Kant. After reading the Introduction and Sense-Certainty, I see no discernable pattern of scientific method. But after learning that the German word Hegel uses better translate to Philosophy, his method makes much more sense. He is not giving us a clearly written formula, as I would imagine a scientist would. He is going through words and phrases that we usually say without knowing what we truly mean and dissecting the words. Words such as Now and This, that we so frequently use, have so much more meaning than we know we are using. By saying “this” pen or paper or book, we simultaneously are saying the thing is not everything else. Even though we think we are being specific with are giving of this or now, we never can mean what we truly want to say. We try to use these words to describe specific events, or particulars, but since these words are not particular words, in the sense that they only describe a single thing, we never can fully mean what we say.

            When I look at the example of night and day, his method of philosophy is clearer. It reminds me of Socrates’ dissection of words in Euthyphro or Hobbes’ meticulous defining of every term in Leviathan. In a sense, Science fits his method of philosophy, bit it takes a more in depth look into his work to find it.

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