lviii, 600 pp. (8vo) 20.2x15 cm (8x4½"), period pastepaper boards, paper spine label with ink ms. title, modern custom half morocco folding box. Third and final edition, revised with a new introductory statement.
Very Rare and Important Presentation Copy of Hegel’s final published work, in which Hegel’s vision of philosophy finds its greatest expression. The last great universal philosopher, Hegel saw philosophy as a dynamic self-clarifying process which begins and ends in “The Absolute Idea.” In keeping with this vision of philosophy’s essence, Hegel both conceived himself to be the culmination of all previous thought and he further deemed his 1830 Encyclopedia to be the highest statement of his philosophy.
The Encyclopedia was the third of Hegel’s major works. The most accessible entrance to Hegel’s thought, the work encompasses the totality of Hegel’s philosophy in its three dialectically-related phases – Logic, Nature, Mind – and contains the most explicit formulations of both his dialectical method and his system of categories. Originally conceived as a textbook for use in Hegel’s university classroom (and written with a compactness of thought and language not elsewhere found in Hegel), the Encyclopedia was Hegel’s most popular book, going through three successively revised editions. This third edition was Hegel’s final life-time published work.
The present is a highly significant presentation copy of the Encyclopedia to Philip Marheineke. Philip Marheineke was a prominent Protestant theologian and Hegel’s colleague at the University of Berlin. An ardent Hegelian, Marheineke sought to explain all orthodox Christian doctrines in the terms of Hegel’s philosophy. After Hegel’s death, Marheineke acted as a principal in the preservation and transmission of Hegel’s legacy: he co-edited Hegel’s collected works (in 18 volumes) from 1832 to 1845, which first brought into print all of Hegel’s famous lectures on Art, History, Philosophy, and Religion – Marheineke himself compiling the lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Marheineke ultimately came to be regarded as the leader of the politically and religiously conservative “Hegelian Right” (vs. the more reactive “Hegelian Left,” typified most famously by Engels and Marx).
Books inscribed by “the Giants of Philosophy” are extremely scarce across the board, and presentation copies by Hegel in particular are of a very great rarity. We know of only one other Hegel presentation copy in commerce in the past 40 years.