such a plane that we understand Heidegger when he asks: “Is it not rather such that the work makes possible an interpretation of the biography?”6 This question is a warning that the work should be viewed not as a by-product of life, but rather as a central light which colors and tunes the contingencies and inevitabilities that are called life.
The independent and integral character of the work of thinking is central for Heidegger’s own work and applies to the works of others as well. In order to preserve this independent and integral character and to stress the need for taking up the work as it claims one’s thinking in its immediacy, the volumes of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe are published without an interpretive introduction and a commentary. This is a significant point and has direct bearing on the character of the present text. Thus, it needs to be addressed briefly here.
When we come to a work of thinking, we should entertain no illusion as to what awaits us in reading the work. We do not come to grips with a work if we seek refuge in the convenience which an introduction or brief commentary provides. Either we are prepared for confronting the task with all its demands, or we are simply not yet prepared. No interpretive introduction or commentary will change that. We must be sincere with ourselves. More than anything else, a work of thinking calls for sincerity. Such a sincerity already knows that the labyrinthian device of an introduction cannot circumvent the actual encounter with the work of thinking. We must face the work as it is. If we fail to do so, if we get into the work in accordance with the suggestions made in the introduction, then we run the risk of learning later that those suggestions are peripheral, external to the work, and inappropriate. Thus, they will need correction. But since the correction of those views or suggestions is accomplished by getting into the work itself, then why not begin with the work in the first place? That is why volumes of the Gesamtausgabe of Heidegger’s works are not supplemented with an introduction or brief commentary. Instead, the reader should face the work in the freedom in which the work comes forth as a work of thinking. This freedom is not preserved when the work is considered to be a riddle whose basic solutions are expected to be found in a brief commentary or introduction.
The text of Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes appears without an introduction or brief commentary, because nothing should stand between this work and its readers, who attentively participate in the work of thinking therein. This present text needs not to have such a commentary or introduction, because the character of this text—as a reading that participates in the movement of the work of thinking that is opened up for us in the text-work—demonstrates above all else the inappropriateness of such an introduction. There is no question that, when an introduction is added to a work, a specific way of reading the work is suggested. But this specific way of reading the work is not the only way to read the work. An exceptional and extreme case—but nevertheless relevant—is Jacques Derrida’s French translation of Husserl’s Ursprung der Geometrie. When Derrida supplements his translation of this work with an introduction and commentary, he suggests a certain way of reading this work, which is certainly not the only way to read it. Whatever the merits of Derrida’s commentary—and these merits are certainly there—there is no doubt that his introduction and his comments stand between the reader and Husserl’s work. By contrast, we can say: The absence of an introduction in the original edition of Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes safeguards the independence of the work of thinking as it occurs in the space of freedom that is necessary for the flourishing of the work itself.
The Tension of Translation. The work character of the work of thinking, whether it is the Phenomenology of Spirit by Hegel or Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit by Heidegger, is primarily manifest in the language of the work. In both Hegel and Heidegger, this language takes on a unique character. In order to say what needs to be said, both Hegel and Heidegger speak a rigorous and precise language that goes beyond the traditional language of philosophy. In this new territory that language traverses, as it is molded in the works of Hegel and Heidegger, thinking itself enters new territories. It is easy to accuse both Hegel and Heidegger of taking inappropriate measures with language, of wanting to be deliberately abstruse, obscure, and unclear. This accusation comes from the reluctance to recognize that in both philosophers language manifests new territories of thinking. If we grasp the urgency of what these philosophers want to think, then we realize that they cannot say what they think without saying it in their own way.
But precisely this demand that the work of thinking places on both Hegel and Heidegger, as language was molded in their thinking, sometimes leads to virtually insurmountable difficulties for the translator. The difficulties in translating Hegel and Heidegger arise mainly in pointing, in another language, to the territories that these thinkers have opened up. It goes without saying that there is no general rule or universal method for doing this. Beyond bending and twisting the existing resources of a language, in order to let it fit the needs of what is being translated, we as translators are mindful of the realms or territories that this work opens up. (The desire to deal as adequately as possible with these difficulties prompted us to work closely with the French translation of this volume, by Emmanuel Martineau.)7
Aware of these difficulties and with an eye or ear toward letting those difficulties resonate for the reader of this English translation, we offer here the following reflections on significant tensions that arose in our work of translation and how we have chosen to resolve them:
1. As already mentioned, the phrase “die Phänomenologie des Geistes” appears in the German edition without italics. Sometimes it refers to Hegel’s text and is a title; and sometimes it refers to the process or movement of the thinking that is underway: the phenomenology of spirit as the very work of thinking. In each case we have tried to determine which sense of the phrase was operative. In this translation, Phenomenology of Spirit (in italics and capitalized) refers, obviously, to the Hegel text, whereas the phrase “the phenomenology of spirit” (without italics, in lower case, and without quotation marks) refers to that movement in thinking that is the work of the phenomenology of spirit. (The same problem, distinction, and solution apply to the Logic—Hegel’s text—and to “logic”—the movement of logic in the work of thinking.) We are aware that there is interpretation involved in this procedure and, moreover, that we are thereby making a distinction that the German edition—and perhaps even Heidegger himself—did not or did not need to make. (Does the work of thinking that we the readers participate in suffer more with the distinction or without it?)
2. In consultation with the French translation, we have occasionally changed the paragraph divisions in order to make possible a smoother and more readable text.
3. The use of italics in the translation varies from that in the German edition. Italics in Heidegger’s original text serve to emphasize certain things within the context of oral delivery and are less appropriate for the written text. Moreover, italics are part of the language and should be used according to peculiarities of the particular language. Thus, our italics are not always those that appear in Heidegger’s text. We found that at times we could not wisely carry the italics over into our English rendition. On the other hand, we found that at times the English requires italics when the German does not. Thus, in some instances our use of italics varies from the original German, based on our understanding that the use of italics is not just a technical aspect that exists independently of the specific language being used, but is part and parcel of the language itself, one of its gestures.
4. We used A. V. Miller’s translation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, while making emendations to that translation. At times we found it necessary to deviate from the English Hegel terminology—e.g., that used by Miller—because we had to adjust his rendition to the context of Heidegger’s work with Hegel’s text, and thus to the context of our translation.
5. Given these various issues in general and within that context, we offer the following reflections on significant tensions within individual words:
absolvent. There is no English equivalent for this word. It is, of course, not really a German word either. The term absolvent is crucial for the work that Heidegger does with Hegel’s text. Thus, we kept the word in our translation, without ignoring entirely the possibilities offered by such English words as “detachment” or “the act