The nature of the order of being as it is given, together with man’s place in it, is obliterated: the being of world and ego is restricted to the knowledge of the immediate or existent; questions about the context of the order of being in which this knowledge occurs are declared irrelevant; the prohibition of questions is solemnly made a principle of the speculation. From this beginning the substance of the order of being — which, for the philosopher, is something given — is systematically construed as a succession of phases of consciousness which proceed in dialectical development from the initial consciousness of sensible certitude. In its language the Phänomenologie is philosophical; in its substance and intention it is radically anti-philosophical. It must be recognized as a work of magic — indeed, it is one of the great magic performances.
– Science, Politics, and Gnosticism (2004), pp.46-7