Introduction

The Phenomenology of Spirit is Hegel's first great work, which Marx called 'the true birthplace and secret of Hegel's philosophy'. It traces the journey of consciousness from the simplest sense-certainty through perception, understanding, self-consciousness, reason, spirit and religion, step by step up to 'absolute knowing'. At each stage consciousness believes it has grasped the truth, only to discover a contradiction within itself that drives it on to a higher stage. Its most famous passage is the dialectic of master and slave: the master wins recognition through the slave's labour yet falls into dependence, while the slave, working for the master and transforming the world, comes to know his own power and attains true independence. 'The true is the whole'; 'substance is subject': these words from the Preface are the keys to his whole philosophy. The work is translated in several volumes.