Hegel's overlooked thoughts brought to light in latest edition

He is widely recognized as having had a profound impact on philosophical thinking for 200 years, but the person and writings of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel have largely been neglected in recent decades in China.

The publication of a new series of books in Chinese may change that and re-establish the authority of a man whose ideas once held great sway in the country.

The first four volumes of the Chinese version of Hegel's Collected Works were recently published by People's Publishing House, after 10 years in the making. Five more volumes will be published over the next two years. There will be 20 volumes when the complete set finally sits on bookshelves.

Although the German philosopher's works have been published sporadically in China since the 1940s-the 1960s were particularly fertile in producing some excellent versions - no previous editions have been as comprehensive or as academically precise as the latest version, Xin Guangwei, editor-in-chief of People's Publishing House, said at a Beijing seminar about the new books last week.

"Many previous works in China were based on versions that had been translated into English, French or Russian rather than on the German originals. So there was a great deal of divergence from what Hegel in fact said."

The four newly published volumes are: The Phenomenology of Spirit; Philosophy of Mind; and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, which is divided into two parts. The next volume to be published, Works during the Jena Period, will mark the first time for Hegel's manuscripts written during that period (1801-07) to be translated into Chinese.

The 20 volumes are directly translated from the Theorie-Werkausgabe edition first published by Suhrkamp Verlag in the 1960s, which is widely considered the most reliable and the most-used version in Germany. Twenty scholars, from institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University and Renmin University of China, have contributed to the project.

"It's impossible to get it absolutely right when you are translating," says Wang Shuren, an editorial board member of the series for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

"Hegel's works are notorious for their ambiguity, and many concepts are highly abstract and fiendishly hard to translate," says Wang.

wangkaihao@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 07/31/2015 page28)