Abstract

The long, complex editorial history of Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion comes in a sense to a happy end now with this impressive penultimate German edition. The final, historical-critical Gesammelte Werke edition will apparently not be completed before the mid-1990’s. Nevertheless the present edition’s German test as critically secured by Walter Jaeschke in conjunction with Ricardo Ferrara and Peter C. Hodgson provides truly reliable access to Hegel’s lectures of 1821, 1824, 1827, and to a lesser extent of 1831 as well. The present edition and particularly the first volume will be examined here in four steps: 1) historical context, 2) the first volume as a whole, 3) editorial principles concerning and remarks on each of Hegel’s four lecture series, and 4) further research opportunities opened by this edition.