Diary: Éric Chevillard, Hegel‘s Cap

Hegelʼs cap, preserved in the philosopherʼs childhood home in Stuttgart, inside a windowed shrine, like a relic, like his brain itself, is, more precisely, a sort of toque, a toque of black velvet that appears in good condition, barely greening after nearly two centuries, though of course weʼd have to be able to turn it over to examine the other side, the inside, eroded or singed, perhaps, by the overheated cogitation of the author of Phenomenology of Spirit, pot-roasted by the incessant ebullition of his intellect, or at least greasy from his hair; a toque that has, at its center, or its summit, like a pom-pom—though given the grave questions of morality and law debated beneath it, said pom- pom would have been entirely inappropriate—a second patch, round in shape, and brighter, barely yellowing for its part after almost two centuries, made from the same very fine, very soft velvet, and stitched with golden thread.

Itʼs something to be seen.

Itʼs something to be seen, this cap. It is already, in itself, by its own virtues, without Hegel beneath or inside it, quite impressive. Letʼs face it, we no longer wear hats like this, nor do philosophers still make use of them. Now, neither do philosophers still formulate concepts as powerful and compelling as those that took shape in Hegelʼs brain, not since they gave up—for reasons that remain obscure, come to think of it—wearing this kind of cap while they ruminated.

Iʼm not claiming these things are related. Iʼm merely, dispassionately, positing a coincidence. Besides, what would it cost for one of our trendy modern philosophers to give it a try, to don a cap of the same model, a toque-like number in black velvet and topped with a brighter patch—why not this cap, Hegelʼs cap, with the permission of the conservator or, boldly, without it, a first audacity that would be well worth appreciating—and then wait, beneath or inside it, for ideas to come, and then weigh up their pertinence, evaluate their originality? Will no one, none of our trendy modern philosophers, venture to try at least this?

I donʼt regret having seen it.

I donʼt regret having seen this cap. Itʼs heavy and wide, soft and sagging, but all the same this is the cap that covered the egg that was Hegelʼs head, that brooded it for as long as the ideas took to germinate and then hatch, until all eight hundred pages of the Phenomenology of Spirit were written in their entirety. Itʼs a cloche cap, a cap that covered Hegelʼs head in full and almost certainly flattened his hair— how comical it must have been when he took it off in the evenings—but also almost certainly prevented his thoughts from roaming or rambling outside the orbit of his skull, thereby facilitating, when necessary, his faculties of concentration. Nothing got out of there except through Hegelʼs mouth or hand.

You have to have seen it.

You have to have seen it, then, this cap, in Stuttgart, in its reliquary. Itʼs a moving testament, a concrete trace of Hegelʼs thought, the substrate or precipitate of his philosophy.

Not to mention proof that he was, moreover, a man like us, sensitive to nips and chills, concerned with his comfort and with his elegance too, even if weʼve come quite a long way on the latter point since the early nineteenth century and it would no longer occur to any of us to wear such a hat for the sake of elegance. But then of course there are many ideas that no longer occur to any of us, not since we stopped wearing caps like this for fear of ridicule.

Then I went back.

I went back one year later, to Hegelʼs childhood home, in Stuttgart, to see, once more, in particular, his black velvet cap with the patch stitched in golden thread, and I was wrong to. Iʼve made a few mistakes in my life, and this was one of them. You have to have seen it, this cap, I donʼt take that back—but once is enough. And even the first time you donʼt need to linger in front of the windowed shrine. You can just walk by. And nothing says you canʼt quicken your step, either. You can just take a quick look at Hegelʼs greenish velvet cap with a yellowing patch on top. A distracted glance, cast without stopping, is sufficient to appreciate the lesson, and to meditate on it, in the same stride that carries you briskly away from the reliquary. And the mistake not to make—the mistake that I nonetheless made—is to go back.

To be completely honest, the second visit is redundant. Even the first time, now that I think about it, the second already felt long. Boredom was creeping in. A visit to Hegelʼs cap is an experience like so many others: it should remain singular.

You can go once to kill some time if you have absolutely nothing better to do in Stuttgart.

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Éric Chevillard is the author of more than twenty works of fiction in French, of which The Valiant Little Tailor, Prehistoric Times, and Palafox (among others) are available in English translation. “Hegel’s Cap” appears in his new book from the Margellos World Republic of Letters, Museum Visits. Translator Daniel Levin Becker is the author of Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature and What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language. He is a member of the Parisian literary collective OULIPO.

From Museum Visits by Éric Chevillard, translated by Daniel Levin Becker, edited by Daniel Medin. Published by Yale University Press in the Margellos World Republic of Letters series in January 2024. Reproduced by permission

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, by Julius Ludwig Sebbers (1828), lithgraph by L. Sachse & Co., Berlin (also 1828) from an original aquarelle which is either lost or in a private collection, depending on whom you ask.