ABSTRACT
This chapter purposely simplifies Hegel's connection to Aristotle. It explains that Hegel's reading of Aristotle is both needed to better understand Hegel's own notions of soul and Spirit, and helpful in the clarification of perplexing Aristotelian conceptions. The chapter argues that Hegel's pervasive employment, in the Philosophy of Spirit, of Aristotelian conceptuality (mostly from Metaphysics and De Anima) is enlightening with respect to his uses of Geist as well as to the specific meanings of Seele, of the living body, and of their unity and distinction in various conditions (not least empirical human conditions like insanity, prenatal life, or sleep). Hegel's Aristotelianism has been recognized for most of the past two hundred years. This chapter discusses Hegel's debt to De Anima with regards to the hylomorphism and entelechism of being-soul. It also argues that Hegel's notion of a self-dirempting Spirit sheds useful light on an enigmatic feature of Aristotle's nous.
