This Book is quite difficult to read.

The first reason is that the white text doesn’t always stand out well enough from the dark grey / black of the background on certain pages.

The second reason is that I’m not 100% sure I understand what’s being said. There’s not much doubt that Hegel’s influence is not just confined to Philosophy – it has had dramatic consequences in the spheres of political ideas and politics.

There is the example of the Master and the Slave.

Out of respect for the master, the slave is shaken out of narrow self-interest. The slave is put to work and learns self-respect and comes to see himself reflected in the work of his hands. The master remains in the state of dependence while the slave gradually educates himself to independence. Desire, consciousness, and self-consciousness, dread, alienation – the true struggle in all this is shown as the struggle for recognition, which is why this example has such resonance with Marxists and Existentialists.

Philosophy always comes on the scene too late to give instruction as to what the world ought to be. As the thought of the world, it appears only when actuality is already there, after its process of formation has been completed.

It is only with the fall of dusk that the owl of Minerva spreads its wings.