Only someone completely drunk on the logos could write the Phenomenology of Spirit. And only those who have tasted the logos for themselves and read the Phenomenology with care--taking note of the author's mania, the signs of his affliction--can rise against it and through it to the pinnacle of their own genius.
But this is only as it should be: for the Hegelian thesis demands antithesis. The ensuing conflict is the source of profound creativity and productivity. And no one understood this--nor could have understood this--better than sly Hegel himself.
Without Hegel, Kierkegaard would not have been Kierkegaard, nor Feuerbach Feuerbach, Marx Marx, Dewey Dewey, Sartre Sartre, etc.
If we do not bother to revisit Hegel from time to time, we cheat our intellects; he was a volcanic force of nature, withering in its intensity but, for all of that, indispensable.
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