Talk:Lord–bondsman dialectic

message: It seems to me that this is an exceptionally poor article. It's confusing and presents conjecture and opinion as fact. As anyone who has studied Hegel in any depth will know, the master-slave dialectic is an archetypal example of how Hegel has spawned various interpretations and readings. This article shows no appreciation of this and thus needs serious revision.
I suggest that we need clearer exposition of the Master-Slave Dialectic (Personally I'd suggest drawing from Stern's and Houlgate's simple and clear introductions to the Phenomenology) and a section briefly outlining different readings and its legacy in both the Analytic and Continental tradition - essentially we need to start again with this one.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by ImmanentCritique (talk • contribs) 16:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Complete Revision Needed?

message: I can't help but notice the similarities of this myth to the Adam and Eve myth from the Bible.  Could the fruit of the tree of knowledge and Adam and Eve's disgrace symbolize the encounter between Hegel's two people?
Absolutely not. Adam & Eve is, as you say, a myth, a story or a tale which is meant to be believed as if fact. Hegel is not a story teller, he is a philosopher. This is a dialectic, not a story. Emeraude 17:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Similarities to the Adam and Eve Myth 

message: I have removed the image of Deacroix's Liberty Leading the People from the article. It is a commemmoration of the 1830 July Revolution in France and does not relate at all well to Hegel or the Master-slave dialectic - the picture and the revolution had nothing to do with master-slave relationships, but mass movements to overthrow the state; it is not about self-consciousness (just look at it). Emeraude 17:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Liberty Leading the People 

message: Calling Hegel's formulation of a Master-Slave (or lord-bondsman) dialectic a "Myth" seems to be a decidedly POV take on it. 128.239.152.92 11:45, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Myth?

message: The dialectical step expounded in the Master/Slave dialectic is not the step from consciousness to sef-consciousness at all, it is the step from self-consciousness to absolute knowledge, Spirit, or in Hegel's final formulation, Science.  This is not only a very different step, it is also the most debated conclusion of the Phenomenology of Spirit.  Kojeve might have overstated its influence in the 19th Century, but the Master/slave dialectic remains crucial for an understanding of this particular work.  
Dasein42 20:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Page needs a revision

message: Why is the only interpretation of the Master-Slave offered here the external interperetation? I have been lead to believe through several close readings of this section of the Phenomenology and through discussions with others that this may simply be a metaphor for what's going on inside the mind of a single human being. The only nod at that possible other interperetation is that it this one is described as a myth.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spozmo (talk • contribs) 17:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. On John McDowell's interpretation, this widely prevalent "social" reading is a complete and utter misinterpretation of what Hegel is doing here. But it probably deserves first place in an article on that passage for this reason: the only reason the Lordship-bondage passage is well-known enough to deserve its own article is its extensive appropriation by other scholars, rightly or wrongly, as an argument for the social/communal nature of self-consciousness.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.179.114 (talk) 08:09, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

text: You are exactly right.  I [blush] didn't read the 'Talk' page before editing a little, but have tried to correct this misapprehension in the gloss, at least.  I don't have time to go through and revise the whole page, which is sorely needed. I disagree entirely with the person above me, by the way, that this errant interpretation deserves first place here--certainly, it should be included, as it is (as you say) of great interest for the history of philosophy.  But leading with it really risks perpetuating a needlessly poor grasp of Hegel, and (over-)validating in readers' minds the intellectual authority of those perpetrating the misreading in the first place.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.20.8.96 (talk) 10:44, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Only One Interpretation? 

message: Like many of our philosophy articles, this could be made far more accessible to non-specialists; this is of particular concern, given that the concept frequently crops up in university courses offered to students with no philosophical background.  I've added the jargon cleanup tag. --The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 03:13, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overly specialized article

message: Hi this article probably has some connections to Derrida's book, the gift of death. i would have to read this again, and then come back to Hegel, but someone might recognise it before I do that work. —Fred114 00:09, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Derrida's The gift of death 

message: "The Phenomenology exists, for reasons that are part of its nature and place in Hegel's work, in two places - as an independent work, apparently considered by Hegel to be an a priori for understanding the Science of Logic, and as a part of the Science of Logic, where absolute knowledge is explained." (from Wikipedia page)
Could someone please clarify this sentence? What is meant here by "the Phenomenology"? The whole Phenomenology of Spirit or just the Master-slave dialectic? Hegel does not, afaik, reproduce the whole Phenomenology of Spirit in the Science of Logic (though he does in the Encyclopaedia). If what is meant here is just "the master slave dialectic", then it is strange and misleading to refer to it as "the Phenomenology", which usually means the entire text.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.173.235 (talk) 04:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing sentence 

message: I found this article confusing. It seems to be using a different definition of self-consciousness to the one in the Self-consciousness article. It is also unclear to me, as another user has also found above, what is meant by "the Phenomenology". Some specialist terms are not Wikilinked on their first appearance, but only later in the article. They should be Wikilinked on their first appearance instead as: i) this makes it clear they are specialist terms and ii) it allows the reader to look them up when they first encounter them Atomice (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing 

message: Mrcrumplar has removed all reference to Master–slave morality and Friedrich Nietzsche from this article. While I accept that the previous reference to these topics may have been misleading and/or unsubstantiated, I think it is important that this article should mention the existence of a similarly named concept, perhaps either in the See Also section or in the hatnotes. RichardVeryard (talk) 11:26, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Master–slave morality]] ([[Friedrich Nietzsche]]) 

message: A Wikipedia editor put the following caveat above this article: “This article may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help us clarify the article; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (January 2012).” Unsurprisingly, Atomice wrote, “I found this article confusing”;  someone else understandably wrote, “I totally agree.”  In truth, the earlier article was not only confusing and unclear but almost totally inaccurate and, in places, fantastic in its interpretations.  Example: Two paragraphs refer to Hegel’s concept of “the end of history” in ways that make the concept both undefined and absurd, whereas Hegel is really referring to the end of dialectically structured thesis-antithesis-synthesis history, not to ordinary history, which he knows will continue beyond his history dialectic’s synthesis stage (“Germanic monarchy”).  The article was obviously written in the 1958-2012 Gustav Mueller era, when it was fashionable to assert that Hegel never actually used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics.  There is no recognition that dialectics pervade both the master-and-slave parable and the overall Phenomenology context where the parable sits.  Accordingly, the article failed to recognize that master-and-slave is indeed a parable in which two dialectical triads are hidden.  The parable and the dialectics encapsulate the hidden atheistic message of Phenomenology: humanity, not the imaginary God of theism, is the true God, and “freedom” is release from bondage to religion.  The master is God, the slave is man, and Spirit’s self-realization (escape from bondage to religious superstition) occurs when the slave becomes the master (when man becomes an atheist and treats himself as “God”).  Atticusattor (talk) 22:42, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it looks like it's been munged by the religious/spiritual minded. I'd get involved, was a contributor to the former state, but have given up on Wikipedia because of the futility of battling just this sort of thing. 76.180.168.166 (talk) 22:01, 8 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major Revision 

message: "To understand the master-and-slave dialectic, one must first understand that Hegel was an atheist and that Phenomenology is a work that covertly espouses atheism – covertly because an open display of atheism would have constituted professional suicide."
See the main entry on Hegel. This is by no means the majority view, and it should not be presented as such in this entry.70.174.155.35 (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This a behavioral issue with a particular editor. I have reversed his edit. — goethean 18:00, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncritical, one-sided assertion of atheism 

message: There actually was an explanation in the change log but it was spurious, the text is not a glorification of anything. Unclear about the facticity of the text, can follow up on that as needed. Lycurgus (talk) 14:54, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kojève &para; deletion from Conclusions &sect; 

message: The German title of this section of the PhG is "Herrschafft und Knechtshafft". As all of the English translators recognize, going back even to Baillie, this translates to "Lordship and Bondage." While other accurate translations may also be possible, to speak of a master and his slave is to misrepresent the text. The translational error is noted in the lead, but then the article proceeds, more often than not, to use the bad translation anyway. Is there any justification for this? 
I would suggest correcting throughout and perhaps adding a para on when and how it became known as the master-slave dialectic in some parts of the literature. (I am guessing Kojève is to blame, although I don't have a source to hand confirming this. It's hardly likely, though that a German would change Hegel's own terms, and the English translators seem to have gotten it right.)
If no one objects, I'll come back at a future date and put in the request.
Thanks! PatrickJWelsh (talk) 15:38, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could we please correct title of this article?