 | The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity: The Doctrine of Humanity The publication of volume 2 of Philip T. Grier's translation of The Philosophy of Hegel as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Humanity completes the first appearance in English of any of the works of Russian philosopher I. A. Il'in (Ilyin). Most of the contents of volume 2 will be unknown even to those who have read the 1946 German version prepared by Il'in, because in that version he omitted eight of the original ten chapters. These omitted chapters provide an extended reflection on the central categories of Hegel's moral, legal, and political philosophies, as well as of the philosophy of history. The topics examined are, in order: freedom, humanity, will, right, morality, ethical life, personhood and its virtue, and the state. Contained within these chapters are some notably insightful expositions of core doctrines in Hegel's philosophy. Il'in's colleague A. F. Losev accurately observed in the same year the text first appeared: "Neither the study of Hegel nor the study of contemporary Russian philosophical thought is any longer thinkable without this book of I. A. Il'in's." I. A. Il'in (1883-1954) was born in Moscow and educated in the Faculty of Law of Moscow University. He served as head of the Psychological Society of Moscow from 1920 to 1922, when the society was disbanded and he along with many other "irreconcilable" anti-Bolshevik intellectuals were arrested, condemned to execution, and then forcibly exiled. He taught at the Russian Academic Institute in Berlin until forced out by the Nazis in 1934. Il'in escaped to Switzerland in 1938, where he resided until his death in 1954. Philip T. Grier is Thomas Bowman Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Dickinson College. He is author of Marxist Ethical Theory in the Soviet Union and the editor of Identity and Difference: Studies in Hegel's Logic, Philosophy of Spirit, and Politics (2007). He is a past president of the Hegel Society of America. |
