It could certainly be argued that the way in which Hegel criticizes Newton in the Dissertation, the Philosophy of Nature and the lectures on the History of Philosophy, has done more than anything else to prejudice his own reputation. At first sight, what we seem to have here is little more than the contrast between the tested accomplishments of the founding father of modern science, and the random remarks of a confused and somewhat disgruntled philosopher; and if we are persuaded to concede that it may perhaps be something more than this - between the work of a clearsighted mathematician and experimentalist, and the blind assertions of some sort of Kantian logician, blundering about among the facts of the real world. By and large, it was this clear-cut simplistic view of the matter which prevailed among Hegel's contemporaries, and which persisted until fairly recently. The modification and eventual transformation of it have come about gradually, over the past twenty or twenty-five years. The first full-scale commentary on the Philosophy of Nature was published in 1970, and gave rise to the realization that to some extent at least, the Hegelian criticism was directed against Newtonianism rather than the work of Newton himself, and that it tended to draw its inspiration from developments within the natural sciences, rather than from the exigencies imposed upon Hegel's thinking by a priori categorial relationships.

The existence of God as demonstrated from motion has preoccupied men in every age, and still stands as one of the critical questions of philosophic inquiry. The four thinkers Father Buckley discusses were selected because their methods of reasoning exhibit sharp contrasts when they are juxtaposed. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

To the scientists and philosophers of our time, Hegel has been either a ne glected or a provocative thinker, a source of irrelevant dark metaphysics or of complex but insightful analysis. His influence upon the work of natural scientists has seemed minimal, in the main; and his stimulus to the nascent sciences of society and to psychology has seemed to be as often an obstacle as an encouragement. Nevertheless his philosophical analysis of knowledge and the knowing process, of concepts and their evolutionary formation, of rationality in its forms and histories, of the stages of empirical awareness and human practice, all set within his endless inquiries into cultural formations from the entire sweep of human experience, must, we believe, be confronted by anyone who wants to understand the scientific consciousness. Indeed, we may wish to situate the changing theories of nature, and of humankind in nature, within a philosophical account of men and women as social practi tioners and as sensing, thinking, feeling centers of privacy; and then we will see the work of Hegel as a major effort to mediate between the purest of epistemological investigations and the most practical of the political and the religious. This book, long delayed to our deep regret, derives from a Symposium on Hegel and the Sciences which was sponsored jointly by the Hegel Society of America and the Boston University Center for Philosophy and History of Science a decade ago.

Hegel is regarded as the pinnacle of German idealism and his work has undergone an enormous revival since 1975. In this book, David Gray Carlson presents a systematic interpretation of Hegel's 'The Science of Logic', a work largely overlooked, through a system of accessible diagrams, identifying and explicating each of Hegel's logical derivations.

Confirms that Hegel's philosophy of nature continues to have great significance for our understanding of the natural world.

The present study, which investigates the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on Hegel's account of 'civil society' or "biirgerliche Gesellschaft", is based on my PhD thesis, submitted to the University of Cambridge in September 1983. Its publication provides me with a welcome opportunity to acknowledge the help and encouragement I have received over the years from scholars, friends, and relations. At the Ruhr University of Bochum where I began my studies, I am indebted to Professor Otto Poggeler (Director of the Hegel Archives), to the other, past and present members of staff at the Hegel Archives, and to Professors Jiirgen Gebhardt, Jiirgen von Kempski, Heinz Kim merle; and Leo Kofler. It was my time at Bochum under the guidance of these scholars that kindled my love for the study of Hegel, which proved to be a lasting romance. In Scotland, where I continued my studies and spent two fruitful and happy years, I am indebted to George Elder Davie and Richard Gunn, who first introduced me to the Scottish Enlightenment, and to Professors R. H. Campbell and T. D. Campbell, who supervised my research in that field. At Cambridge, where most of this study was prepared, my greatest debt is to Duncan Forbes. I am grateful for his supervision of my research, but also, beyond the scope of my research, for what I have learned, genuinely learned, from the man.