Impress Your Friends with Hegel’s Master-Slave Dialectic

Date
October 29, 2010

Speaker
Leigh-Anne Mathieson

Abstract
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher who published some highly influential works at the beginning of the 19th century. Even though this was 200 years ago, his incomprehensible writing style still brings fear to the hearts of many all over the world. Here, I will decode an excerpt from the “Phenomenology of Spirit” where Hegel introduces his famous Master-Slave dialectic. After this talk, try mentioning “Oh yeah, I read Hegel once and it was no big deal,” and watch anyone who has read Hegel gasp in amazement, or possibly accuse you of lying.