Commentary on the Philosophy of Nature, Chapter 45
Petry: The State of Knowledge, Passage by Passage
Petry’s three-volume edition places Hegel’s text alongside a translation and a commentary that identifies the natural-scientific source for every passage. Its yield for this volume has become visible at two points: the list of errors, which turns out shorter than its reputation suggests, and the text-critical finding that a portion of the notorious passages actually stem from Michelet’s additions and reflect a state of knowledge twenty years older.
What both have in common: they do not ask whether Hegel can be rescued, but what he actually said and where he got it from. This is the least spectacular of the six stances, and the precondition for all the others — one cannot carry forward or reject a position one does not know precisely.