Die Unruhe Des Anfangs

How do we begin to philosophize? What are the main features of natural, prephilosophical consciousness, and what is its relation to philosophical consciousness? This study investigates the answers given to these questions in Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" and in his phenomenology. Husserl stresses that the transition to philosophy is not a continuous one, but requires something like a leap. Hegel underlines that entering into philosophy has the character of a path. In spite of this difference in emphasis, there is a discontinuous as well as a developmental aspect of such a transition in each of the two philosophers. Husserl, in his later philosophy, moves closer to Hegel's position when he develops a historical introduction to phenomenology. Although both philosophers view history as a teleological process, an important difference remains: For Hegel, history can be completed; for Husserl, it is an open, unending process.