{"id":1938,"date":"2023-10-19T11:11:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T09:11:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/notes\/"},"modified":"2026-09-19T13:00:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T11:00:15","slug":"notes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Citation and Navigation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>General introduction to Hegel: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n<li>Number in the title of the post= paragraph of the &#8220;Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts&#8221; by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Individual paragraphs can be accessed by directly entering the Internet address (e.g. http:\/\/<strong>grundlinien.de\/en\/2<\/strong> for paragraph 2).<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The authority for this edition is Hegel&#8217;s <strong>first printing of 1820<\/strong>. The German text was transcribed from the Suhrkamp Werkausgabe (vol. 7) but checked throughout against the first printing; where the two diverge, the first printing stands. Its page numbers run through the text. This English version is a translation of that German text \u2014 what that means for quotation, and what has and has not been checked, is set out on <a href=\"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/notes\/textual-note\/\">On the Text of this Edition<\/a>. The <a href=\"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/notes\/textual-note\/concordance\/\">concordance of page numbers<\/a> sets the first edition&#8217;s pagination beside that of the Werkausgabe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Remarks and Comments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>The indented passages in the posts are the &#8220;remarks&#8221; added by Hegel to the printed edition.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The comments of &#8220;G.W.F. Hegel&#8221; are the handwritten <em>notes<\/em> from Hegel&#8217;s own copy (up to ca. \u00a7 180).<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The comments of &#8220;Eduard Gans&#8221; are the &#8220;additions&#8221; compiled by the same.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>The comments by Homeyer, Wannenmann, etc. are those from their lecture notes.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Tags<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The posts are additionally tagged with one of the labels &#8220;Concept,&#8221; &#8220;Actualization,&#8221; or &#8220;Transition&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>&#8220;Concept&#8221; marks paragraphs that develop the relevant concept (e.g. of the will, property, duty) in purely conceptual terms.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Actualization&#8221; marks paragraphs that apply this concept to concrete institutions and practices.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Transition&#8221; marks the few paragraphs in which Hegel himself passes from one sphere to the next.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These tags can be filtered via the &#8220;Search by Tag&#8221; pills on the search page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">About this Site<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>English and Spanish translations<\/strong> were produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed editorially. The German text is authoritative. Details under <a href=\"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/notes\/textual-note\/#translation\">On the Text of this Edition<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cOnly that which is completely determined is at the same time exoteric, graspable, and capable of being learned and becoming the property of all. The understanding of science is the path to it offered to everyone and made equal for all; and to attain reasonable knowledge through the understanding is the legitimate demand of consciousness that joins with science; for the understanding is thinking, the pure \u2018I\u2019 as such; and understanding is what is already familiar and common to both science and unscientific consciousness, through which the latter is enabled to enter directly into the former.\u201d<\/p><cite>Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, Preface<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<!--nextpage-->\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">A Note on the Translation: Why &#8220;Groundlines&#8221;?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Readers of G.W.F. Hegel&#8217;s <em>Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts<\/em> (1820) meet a translation difficulty already in the title. English editions have taken several different approaches to the word <em>Grundlinien<\/em>, and none of them fully captures its sense of foundational, continuous lines of argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This translation renders the title as &#8220;Groundlines.&#8221; The reasoning behind that choice is set out below, together with a brief account of how earlier translations have handled the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Previous Translations of &#8220;Grundlinien&#8221;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">English translators have taken three main approaches to the title:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Omission (Dyde, Knox, White):<\/strong> The word is dropped, and the work appears simply as <em>Hegel&#8217;s Philosophy of Right<\/em> or <em>The Philosophy of Right<\/em>. This is accurate but leaves out Hegel&#8217;s own framing of the text as a tracing of lines of thought, rather than a finished system presented all at once.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>&#8220;Elements&#8221; (Nisbet\/Wood):<\/strong> The widely used 1991 translation renders the title as <em>Elements of the Philosophy of Right<\/em>. This captures a sense of foundational building blocks, echoing Euclid, though in English &#8220;elements&#8221; can also suggest discrete, separable parts rather than a continuous line of reasoning.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>&#8220;Outlines&#8221; (Houlgate, revising Knox):<\/strong> Houlgate&#8217;s 2008 revision uses <em>Outlines of the Philosophy of Right<\/em>. This is close to <em>Grundlinien<\/em> in register, though &#8220;outline&#8221; in English can suggest something provisional or sketch-like, which understates the systematic weight Hegel intended.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-medium-font-size\">Why &#8220;Groundlines&#8221;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Groundline&#8221; is an established English word meaning &#8220;foundation&#8221; or &#8220;basis,&#8221; and its more technical uses point toward what Hegel appears to mean by <em>Grundlinien<\/em>. In descriptive geometry, developed shortly before Hegel wrote this text, the groundline (<em>ligne de terre<\/em>) is the axis along which a three-dimensional form is projected onto a plane &#8212; a foundational reference line, not a finished picture. This translation uses the term in a similar sense: these paragraphs are the guiding lines along which Hegel traces the concept of right into its actual, institutional forms &#8212; family, civil society, the state &#8212; rather than a static summary of conclusions already reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The word also has a more modest, coincidental resonance in English: a &#8220;ground line&#8221; or &#8220;ground wire&#8221; is the connection that gives an electrical circuit a stable reference point and a safe path to earth. Hegel cannot have had this in mind, but the association is not an unreasonable one to keep in view: the <em>Grundlinien<\/em> can be read as the work that gives the abstract idea of freedom exactly this kind of stable, grounded reference within the institutions Hegel describes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">None of this is meant to claim that &#8220;Groundlines&#8221; is the one correct translation &#8212; each of the existing options captures something real about Hegel&#8217;s text. It is used here because it keeps both the foundational and the continuous, line-tracing sense of <em>Grundlinien<\/em> in view.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Citation and Navigation The authority for this edition is Hegel&#8217;s first printing of 1820. The German text was transcribed from the Suhrkamp Werkausgabe (vol. 7) but checked throughout against the first printing; where the two diverge, the first printing stands. Its page numbers run through the text. This English version is a translation of that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1938","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904602,"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1938\/revisions\/904602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}