In brief: There are good videos, but not the one you would most likely be looking for. For the Phenomenology a complete reading course exists; for the Science of Logic as well. For the Groundlines of the Philosophy of Right there is no continuous video course at all — only a quarter of an hour of overview.
English
- Gregory B. Sadler, „Half Hour Hegel“ – the gold standard: some 376 half-hour videos going through the Phenomenology of Spirit paragraph by paragraph, down to the closing section. Nine years of work. Anyone who wants to know how slowly Hegel has to be read can see it here.
- Stephen Houlgate, „Hegel’s Science of Logic“ (Hegel Society of Great Britain) – eighteen lectures on the Science of Logic, the best freely available course on it.
- Kevin Thompson, „Hegel’s Science of Logic Lecture Course“ (DePaul University, September 2024 – March 2025) – 40 videos going through the Science of Logic in full, from the historical orientation to the end. A real university course, not an explainer format: session by session at the text, systematically strict. Especially rewarding for readers of this edition, because Thompson is at the same time the author of the most important recent work on the method of the Groundlines (see below) — the logic course is the groundwork for it. The recording is on the channel of a course participant.
- Ken Foldes, „Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit“ – nine lectures in 36 videos; the compact alternative to Sadler.
- Robert Brandom, Hegel lectures (LMU Munich 2011) – a demanding systematic reading; not for the beginning.
German
- „15 Minuten Hegel“ (Sebastian Ostritsch, University of Stuttgart) – ten episodes of about a quarter of an hour each, sound in substance and still listenable. The best first approach in German. Episode 8 deals with the philosophy of right; episode 7 with the Logic.
- Sternstunde Philosophie: conversation with Dina Emundts (SRF, 2020) – barely an hour in conversation with a distinguished Hegel scholar. For a first overview the most sensible thing available in television format.
- Lecture series „Das Wahre ist das Ganze“ (University of Stuttgart, 2021) – around ten lectures of an hour and a half, ordered by parts of the system, among them „Hegel und die praktische Philosophie“. Specialist level, for advanced readers.
- Gert Scobel, „Hegel – wer ist der Jahrhundert-Philosoph?“ (3sat) – popular, but not shallow.
- Julia Peters, „Hegels Philosophie des Geistes“ (LMU Munich) – a genuine university lecture course, freely accessible, not on YouTube.
The gap
On the Groundlines there is no continuous video course. The closest are Ostritsch’s fifteen minutes (see above); indirectly Thompson’s logic course — whoever reads his book on the method of the philosophy of right has the lecture course to go with it there — and, as an audio recording only, a complete lecture course by Richard Dien Winfield in twenty sessions, in English. That is where matters stand.
Anyone looking for a controversial present-day reading will find it in the five-part interview with Todd McGowan on Emancipation After Hegel – Hegel as a thinker of irreducible contradiction rather than of reconciliation. That is not an introduction but a thesis, and it should be read as one.
One reservation
Videos explain what someone has understood. They do not replace the carrying out — see Why read Hegel laboriously when AI can explain it? They are most useful alongside the text, not instead of it: watch an episode, then read the paragraph, then check whether the two fit together.
Literature. Kevin Thompson, Hegel’s Theory of Normativity. The Systematic Foundations of the Philosophical Science of Right, Evanston 2019 – the book version of what is prepared methodologically in his logic course. – Note. The details were checked in September 2026; channels and playlists may change. Running times and upload dates have not been verified individually.