In brief: Not with the Phenomenology, not with the Logic, and on no account with a preface. Begin with a short text that Hegel wrote for readers and not for listeners — and read it to the end before opening a major work.
Three short texts to begin with
- Who Thinks Abstractly? (1807) – about 1,800 words. A newspaper piece about an execution and a market woman. Whoever has read it knows why „abstract“ is a reproach in Hegel — and that he could write when he wanted to.
- The Oldest System-Programme of German Idealism (fragment, 1796/97) – about 700 words. In Hegel’s hand; the authorship is disputed. Shows in two pages what that generation actually wanted.
- Encyclopaedia, Introduction (1830) – about 6,500 words. The best text for finding out why Hegel thinks the whole apparatus is necessary.
If you want to read further after that: the Preliminary Conception of the Encyclopaedia (§§ 19–83) is the most accessible introduction to Hegel’s relation to Kant, to empiricism and to immediate knowing that we have from his own hand.
The major works and how they hang together
The commonest beginner’s mistake is to take three books for three competing accounts of the whole. They are not:
– Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). The path of ordinary consciousness up to the standpoint from which science can begin. A ladder, not a storey.
– Science of Logic (1812–1816, volume I newly written in 1832). Begins where the Phenomenology leaves off. The investigation of the determinations of thought themselves.
– Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817, 1827, 1830). The whole system in outline, printed as a guide for lectures — terse, but complete: logic, nature, spirit.
– Groundlines of the Philosophy of Right (1820; the title page bears 1821). The working out of a single section of the Encyclopaedia — objective spirit — at book length. That is why § 2 says that the science of right is „a part of philosophy“ and takes its concept as given.
To these come the lectures on the philosophy of history, on aesthetics, on the philosophy of religion and on the history of philosophy. They are by far the easiest to read — and the least by Hegel: they were assembled after his death from his hearers’ transcripts. What that means is set out in the answer to Is this sentence even Hegel’s?
What you should not begin with
The Preface to the Phenomenology. It is famous, it is magnificent, and it is useless as a way in — it presupposes the book it introduces. Hegel supplied the irony himself: in that very preface he warns against trying to get at philosophy through prefaces.
The beginning of the Logic. Being, nothing, becoming — these are the three hardest pages Hegel wrote, and they stand right at the front. Why that has to be so is explained in the answer to Where does a system begin that may presuppose nothing?
And the Preface to the Groundlines, if this is the book you want to read. It is polemical, it aims at disputes of 1820, and it contains Hegel’s most misunderstood sentence — see What is rational is actual.
And if you want to stay here
Then begin with § 1 and read straight through. How a paragraph of this edition is built up, and which layer helps when, is set out in How do I read a paragraph of this edition?
Further: Which edition should I use? · Do I have to have read Kant first? · Do I need to know the Logic? · How long will it take me to finish? · Collection of quotations · Overview of the editions