This page explains Hegel’s Preface paragraph by paragraph, in simple language. You find Hegel’s own text through the link at the end of each page.
Why does this book exist? Hegel says so plainly, right at the start. He is a professor in Berlin. There he gives lectures on the philosophy of right. His students should have something in hand to hold on to: a guide.
The thoughts are not new. The basic concepts are already in an earlier book of his, the “Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences” of 1817. There, however, they are only sketched in brief. Here Hegel sets them out at greater length and more exactly.
Hegel’s text: Preface, paragraph 1 →