Commentary on Subjective Spirit, Chapter 38
The Structures Side by Side
What the authors change in Hegel’s structure can be read off the tables of contents — and more changes than the title pages would suggest.
| Anthropology | Phenomenology | Psychology | Particulars | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hegel 1830 | yes | yes | theoretical / practical / free spirit | |
| Rosenkranz 1837/43 | yes | yes | yes | book form instead of paragraphs |
| Michelet 1840 | yes | struck out | yes | justification in the preface |
| Erdmann 1840/42/47 | yes, with death | yes | yes | work on the transitions |
| Rosenkranz 1850 | matter / force / life — own architecture | § 567: four derivations | ||
| Michelet 1878 | yes | still struck out | yes | little new compared to 1840 |
| Schaller 1855/60 | organism instead of soul | — | — | Hegel’s concepts without Hegel’s name |
Three findings emerge from this.
First: Michelet changes once and stays with it. Thirty-eight years lie between 1840 and 1878, and the two-part division remains unchanged. What changes is the front he is fighting on — in 1840 against the duplication with the Phenomenology of 1807, in 1878 against “the materialism and atheism sprung from empiricism, which necessarily bring pessimism in their train.”
Second: Rosenkranz changes twice, and the second time fundamentally. The Psychology of 1837 retains Hegel’s structure; the System of 1850 replaces it with matter — force — life. The same restructuring as in his philosophy of nature of the same year, where the same triad replaces mechanics, physics, and organics.
Third: Erdmann does not change the structure but the justifications. His three editions differ in the transitions — he says so himself — and in the extent of the cross-references. The structure stays.
What the deviations have in common. None is arbitrary, and each has an identifiable reason: Michelet wants to avoid a duplication, Rosenkranz seeks an architecture that will be accessible to the reader, Erdmann works on the points where “the necessity was not really apparent.”
And none of them says that he is deviating from Hegel — except Michelet, who justifies it. This is the situation from which Exner draws his argument.