The class will include reading selected parts from the first part of Hegel's Encyclopedia which deals with logic. Hegel's Logic is the most systematic formulation of the Hegelian system as such and the most complete attempt at its justification. As any logic, it deals with the form of thinking as such but does so differently from Aristotle and Frege. Specifically, it goes beyond the formal aspects of thought towards the questions of the relation between thinking and being and the subject's relation to the world. As a result, part of our discussion will include the concepts of life and substance and other concepts which are not commonly thought of as part of Logic. Thus, the class is not a class in Logic in the ordinary sense and will not deal with formalizations and proofs. 

In the first part of the course we will deal with Hegel's understanding of what Logic is. Then we will read about essence, and about Hegel's theory of possibility, actuality and necessity. We will understand the subject's place in the logical system through the concepts of life, truth and the good. Finally we will see how Hegel's argument leads to the concept of the Idea and to the justification of the dialectic as a whole.

We will read mostly from Hegel's Logic in the Encyclopedia version, but also from the earlier The Science of Logic and other texts by Hegel. The reading will be in English.