Maggs Bros.

The important and much enlarged second edition of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, almost twice as long as the first edition (1817) and with a new preface.

The Encyclopaedia was principally written for use as lectures notes and stands as Hegel’s most complete exposition of his philosophical system, divided into sections on logic, the philosophy of nature, and the philosophy of mind. Hegel wrote it in compressed numbered paragraphs, each of which he would elaborate in his lectures – a procedure made explicit in the subtitle of this second edition. The 1817 edition was published less than a year after Hegel’s arrival in Heidelberg. In 1818 he was called to Berlin as successor to Fichte, and there his lectures on the topics covered in the Encyclopaedia greatly expanded, hence the need for this new version. The third edition of 1830, the last to be published in Hegel’s lifetime, is only a modest revision of the second.

Provenance: from the library of Karl Weidner (1887-1959), with neat ownership inscription dated ‘1923’ to verso of front flyleaf and purple ownership stamp to the title page. Weidner earned his doctorate at Bonn as a mathematician and philosopher of science; later he published numerous works on astrology under the pseudonym ’Dr. Christian Wöllner.