{"id":903010,"date":"2026-09-17T08:46:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T06:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/?page_id=903010"},"modified":"2026-09-17T16:30:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T14:30:23","slug":"why-does-hegel-use-ordinary-words-in-unusual-meanings","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/grundlinien.de\/en\/why-does-hegel-use-ordinary-words-in-unusual-meanings\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does Hegel use ordinary words in unusual meanings?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is the commonest complaint about Hegel, and it touches a peculiarity that lies exactly the other way round from what one supposes. Hegel\u2019s difficulty is not<\/em> technical vocabulary. Technical vocabulary can be looked up. His difficulty is that he uses ordinary German words and, in context, gives them a meaning the dictionary does not supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The examples one comes to grief on<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Wirklich<\/em><\/a>, actual, does not mean \u201epresent at hand\u201c but: corresponding to its concept. Begriff<\/a><\/em>, concept, does not mean a general representation but the inner structure of a thing. Aufheben<\/a><\/em>, to sublate, means both at once: to do away with and to preserve. An sich<\/a><\/em>, in itself, does not mean \u201ereally\u201c but: according to its potentiality, not yet actualized. Spekulativ<\/a><\/em>, speculative, does not mean \u201eunfounded\u201c but the opposite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of these words can be read in its everyday sense without stumbling \u2014 and one then has before one a sentence that is false but free of contradiction. That is the real trap: one does not notice that one is wide of the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In translation the difficulty is doubled. An English rendering has to choose one sense of a word that means two things at once, and the choice is often invisible on the page. That is why this edition states its choices: they are collected in the glossary<\/a>, together with the German word behind each of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why he does it<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Hegel regards it as an advantage of the German language that it has \u201ewords which have a speculative meaning in themselves\u201c \u2014 words, that is, which already carry within them the thought that philosophy must laboriously develop. Aufheben<\/em> is his model case. Where others introduce a coined term, he reaches for the existing one and lays bare what is in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this he accepts being misunderstood, and does little about it. Hegel means everything exactly as he says it in each case, and hardly ever considers himself obliged to forestall possible misunderstandings; correct understanding follows, for him, from the system and the context. An author who meets his readers halfway he is not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What helps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Three things. First: grow suspicious of every word that passes too easily in the sentence \u2014 it is precisely the inconspicuous ones that are the traps. Second: use the glossary<\/a>, which for each of these expressions gives the supporting passage verbatim. Third: remember that the meaning grows in the course<\/em>. What \u201efreedom\u201c means in \u00a7 15<\/a> is less than what it means in \u00a7 260<\/a>; Hegel takes the same word and fills it along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature.<\/strong> Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary<\/em>, Oxford 1992 \u2013 the most usable reference work for exactly this problem; Robert C. Solomon, \u201eTeaching Hegel\u201c, Teaching Philosophy<\/em> 2 (1977), who describes Hegel\u2019s language not as technical but as underdetermined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n