This volume of the Academy Edition presents Hegel’s early writings from Jena and texts from his time in Bamberg. It begins with the Fragments of a Critique of the German Constitution, which Hegel started writing in Frankfurt.
The individual sections are arranged in chronological order, reflecting the multiple revisions of this text that Hegel never completed. The volume also includes Texts for Hegel’s Habilitation. Following these are Fragments from Lecture Manuscripts prepared by Hegel for his first two lectures in the winter semester of 1801/02 in Jena. Next is the manuscript draft of the System of Ethical Life, also preserved as a fragment and dating to the winter of 1802/03. Further Fragments from Lecture Manuscripts from the summer of 1803 follow. The final section from the Jena period is the clean copy of the short piece Who Thinks Abstractly? from 1807, marking the beginning of texts attributed to Hegel’s Bamberg years. These continue with articles from the Bamberger Zeitung, which Hegel edited in 1807 and 1808. The volume concludes with a section of Additions, including texts from secondary sources. These address themes such as On Logic and Metaphysics, On Natural Law, and On the System of Philosophy. The appendices include the poem Resolution, Hegel’s contribution to H.E.G. Paulus’s Spinoza Edition, and several calculations from Hegel’s handwritten legacy between 1799-1808 that bear no connection to the other texts.
The comprehensive editorial report in the appendix provides extensive new insights into the creation of these texts, especially the Fragments of a Critique of the German Constitution.
Simon Gros 
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