Hegel's Concept of Intellectual Development in Human History (original) (raw)
A CRITIQUE OF HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
This paper aims at demonstrating the Hegelian concept of the philosophy of the History. The terms, Spirit, Universal History and Truth, are widely used in the Hegelian notion of the History. The unity of these terms sheds light on the route of the History which is viewed as to be pre-destined to reach a particular goal, the freedom. The freedom is only attainable if imperative stages are reached. The progress, in History, plays an indispensable role to accomplish the goal of the History. The paper ascertains the role of each notion in depth to display the overall structure of the Hegelian philosophy of the History. INTRODUCTION Hegel's philosophy of the History is criticized due to its lack of tangible data and speculative content, even though it does not address the concrete existences. 1 Firstly, Hegel has not written on the philosophy of the historiography. The major works of Hegel concerned with the questions related to metaphysical aspects of the History such as history of philosophy. Hegel represented the history of philosophy or thought in a historical way by examining the characteristics of each well-known culture such as Chinese, Indian, Persian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman and German respectively. Hegel's philosophy of the History is somewhat similar to the philosophy of historicality which investigates the main driving forces behind the major events in history. 2 Hegel, by following the traits of the History demonstrated that the aim of the History is the emancipation of the Spirit. 3 Nature, in its incipient form, is the obstacle ahead of human beings to reach designed subjectivity. Nature, put the humans in the confinement of irrational environ. The Reason and Nature are in conflict on the way to the freedom. Nature must be defeated to achieve greater spiritual freedom. History is the medium of this conflict. Hegel defines the history as a rationally motivated phenomenon destined to set free itself for itself. History is the development of Spirit in time and nations can be ordered according to their present levels of the Freedom. However, Hegelian development concept takes the thought as an indicator of progress, not the time. 4 Hegel's history of philosophy was the first treatment of the history of philosophy in a philosophical sense. 5 Hegel was ahead of his peers in terms of speculative penetration and sharpness of universal criticism.6 Furthermore, Hegel can be classified as the most influential philosopher after Plato and Aristotle in a context of prevalence in the philosophical world.
The paper aims to focus on the subchapter on World History, both from Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and from the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, which marks the transition from the objective to the absolute Spirit within the frame of the Hegelian system. The threefold goal of the paper will be, a) to show the immanent connection between World History and the Hegelian Conception of objective Spirit and, thus, the necessity of human history within the Hegelian System; b) to elaborate on the crucial position of World History in the architectonic of the Hegelian system and, c) to bring into light and evaluate the latent tension between Hegel’s undertaking to reconstruct in a logical and necessary way the development of a subject so full of contingencies and randomness such as human history. In concrete the paper firstly will focus on the reason why World History, to wit the perpetual change and struggle between peoples and states is necessary according to Hegel. It will be argued that this perpetual struggle is not a mere given from Hegel, but intrinsically intertwined with the Hegelian understanding of objective Spirit as the perpetual activity of realizing itself. Secondly it will be shown that the reason for the transition from World History to the Absolute Spirit depends on Hegel’s view that the agents (states or world individuals) of world history are not conscious of their specific part within the development of world history. This function of self-awareness of the underlying logic of each historical phase is ascribed to Art, Religion and, ultimately, Philosophy. It is only within these realms, as the paper will further argue, that Spirit according to Hegel reaches its ultimate goal, to wit the consciousness of its freedom and its overpowering of its natural and historical limitations. Furthermore it is this function of the Absolute Spirit that sheds light to the specific systematic position of World History: World History creates the rational historical reality within which the (absolute) Spirit can recognize itself as free. In the concluding part of the paper I will try to show that the Hegelian conception of World History is ultimately not free from internal contradictions, the first of them being the aspect of necessity within his conception of world history, which actually revokes the character of world history as history completely. Furthermore Hegel’s categorization of World History shows itself as well to be problematic: Hegel’s logical argument regarding the reason of history is the perpetual self-realizing nature of Spirit’s activity. But since this activity is being retained in the final epoch of history (the Germanic World), the necessary development of history shows itself not to be justifiable from a systematic point of view. In a word, since the end of history preserves the main aspect of the Spirit, the rise and fall of states for the sake of the perpetuation of the Spirit ́s self-realizing activity, the existence of historical development of the four main worlds (Oriental, Greek, Roman and Germanic world) in the Hegelian narration of history is from a logical point of view not necessary anymore. To conclude, the paper aims to throw light into internal connections between Hegel’s understanding – and of his systematic use of World History, while hinting at the same moment at the internal limits of the Hegelian approach.
'Freedom and the Logic of History'
Palgrave Hegel Handbook. Ed by M. Bykova and K. Westphal, 2020
A key problem in Hegel’s philosophy of history is how to understand the world historical development it depicts. A standard interpretation of this has been to see it as secularised eschatology, as the transposition of divine providence onto reason. On this view, the realisation of freedom that unfolds in the philosophy of history from antiquity to 19th Century Europe is a path laid out in advance by reason. This paper argues that while there are teleological elements to Hegel's philosophy of history, these cannot be understood as the driving force in Hegel's understanding of historical development. There is a fundamental tension at the heart of Hegel's philosophy of history. On the one hand, he assumes a central role for self-determining agents in world history, and on the other hand, he describes historical development as the cunning of reason. The developments of history take place largely through individuals who are able to discern in a collapsing shape of life the seed of a new shape of life. They may not know this, as something that they could articulate, nevertheless through their passion they pursue it. They discern somehow the tension between an emerging concept and the concepts that govern an existing form of life and they bring to a head the dissatisfaction at play in society. The deficiencies in an existing form of life collapse and transition into a new form of life. The philosophical role is to understand the necessity at play in these transformations. At the heart of what Hegel is trying to understand is how we can provide a justification for the emergence of a new concept. The argument of the paper is that Hegel’s logical and methodological terms such as the negative, being at home with oneself and otherness, reason and the understanding provide a far better basis for understanding historical development than teleology. In the first instance they allow us to understand how it is that a form of life comes to be satisfied, and why it ultimately falls apart. This approach will allow us to the understand the central role of the state in world history, and why he thinks of it as the realisation of freedom.
Hegel sees history as the dialectical movement of Spirit. This dialectical movement involves the thesis, the antithesis and the synthesis. At the thesis, Spirit is an abstract entity which embodies its antithesis. Spirit becomes real through its antithesis of human consciousness. Man, the opposition of Spirit, helps the Spirit to actualize its self purpose of freedom. When the Spirit finally attains its purpose it becomes the synthesis. This process continues but in higher form than the first. For inherent in every synthesis (which in turn becomes the thesis) is its antithesis, then to synthesis. This paper critically analyzes the underlying assumptions of Hegel’s conception of history with the philosophical tool of criticism. With the tool of criticism, we aim to show that history as a dialectical movement of Spirit is necessary but not sufficient to deal with the details of human history. It is necessary because it acknowledged the history of human society; but is not sufficient because it fails to conceive history in light of man creating his own history rather it conceived history as Spirit actualizing Self-knowledge. This paper draws much insight from Karl Marx in establishing that history is made by man and for man and not by any absolute spirit.
History as the Progress in the (Un)Consciousness of Freedom?
Hegel and Kant on Normativity, 2019
The article deals with the Enlightenment conception of freedom as propounded by Kant and as re-interpreted by Hegel. Although for Kant, the source of normativity is practical reason as embodied in the categorical imperative and good will, Hegel contends that this criterion removes the essence of action from the world into a subjective intention. Against Kant, Hegel emphasizes that in focusing on the subjective side of action, we fail to understand that freedom is always realized in concert with others. In this sense, he emphasizes that there are social conditions that enable or disable free acting, and above all, one’s freedom depends on the quantity of the freedom of others: The more there are free people, the more evolved the freedom is. As essentially plural, freedom is conditioned by an institutional framework, the “syntax of objective thought.” The author argues that due to this institutional dimension of freedom, the outcome of Hegel’s philosophy is paradoxical. It is only as long as man is not free that he needs an explicit consciousness of freedom; once he or she finds himself or herself in a free society, i.e., in a society with institutionally secured basic freedoms, he need not maintain a vigilant sense of freedom.
LONDON: GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COYENT GARDEN. , 1884
From the Pharaohs of Egypt to the Prophets of Christianity: A Comprehensive Historical Survey of Ancient Egypt, Asia, India, China, and the Evolution of Religious Thought" CONTENTS - Inroduction. Various methods of treating History: Original, Reflective, and Philosophical. I. Original History: Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Caesar, Guicciardini, p. 1-4. II. Reflective History: (1) General or Universal History: Livy, Diodorus Siculus, Johannes von Müller. (2) Pragmatic History. (3) Critical History—the German method of modern times. (4) The History of special departments of life and thought—of Art, Law, and Religion, 4-8. III. Philosophical History: Reason, the Infinite material and the Infinite Formative Power of the Universe, 8-12.—Anaxagoras’s dictum that nous or Reason governs the world, 12-17.—The Destiny or Final Cause of the World. History, the Development of Spirit, or the Realization of its Idea, 17- (1) The abstract characteristics of the Nature of Spirit—Spirit as the antithesis of Matter—Self-Contained Existence, whose essential characteristic is Freedom, 18—Successive stages in the appreciation of the inalienable Freedom of the Human Spirit: The Oriental World knows only that One is Free; the Greeks and Romans recognize Some as free. The German Nations, under the influence of Christianity, have attained the knowledge that All are Free, 19. The Final Cause of the World is the realization of its own freedom by Spirit, 20. (2) The means by which this consciousness is developed—human activity originally stimulated by desires and passions, but in which higher principles are implicit, resulting in the State, 21. In the State, these universal principles are harmonized with subjective and particular aims, and the passions of individuals result in the restraints of law and political order, 22-30.—Great Men, the founders of political organizations in which this Harmony is realized, 30. Standard by which Great Men are to be judged, 31, 32. Heroes and Valets, 33. The cunning of Reason, 34. Claims of religion and morality absolute, 35. Ideals, under what conditions realized, 36, 37. The true Ideal, that of Reason, always tending to realize itself, 38. (3) The object to be attained by the processes of History—the union of the Subjective with the Objective Will in the State, 40. Idea of the State—its abstract basis referred to the Philosophy of Jurisprudence or Right, 41. Erroneous views confuted—Man is not free in a merely natural condition, 42. The Patriarchal principle is not the only legitimate basis of government, 43. It is only a transitional one, 44. The consent of all the members of the community is not necessary for a legitimate government, 45. Question of the best Constitution, 46. The Constitution of a country is not the result of deliberate choice, but of the genius of a people, 47 . Successive phases of government. Elective Monarchy,Aristocracy,Democracy,and Constitutional Royalty,48.Political idiosyncrasies,49.Connection of Religion,Art,and Philosophy with the State,51-56.The course of the World's History,56.Natural and Spiritual Development contrasted,57.History exhibits the gradations in the consciousness of Freedom,58,59.Fiction of a Golden Age.Frederick Von Schlegel’s theory.Researches in Oriental literature stimulated by this fallacious view,60,61.Conditions essential to History—Intimate relation between legal and political Organizations and the rise of Historical literature,62,63.Contrast between India and China in this respect,64.Ante-Historical period—the growth of Peoples and of Languages,65.Dialectical nature of the Idea,66.Empirical objections,67.Reason and Understanding,68.Distinctions in National Genius,in Poetry,Philosophy,&c.,ignored,69-74.Prima facie aspect of History—Mutability of Human Things— Metempsychosis—The Phoenix,75,76.Activity characteristic of Spirit—Nations are what their deeds are,illustrated in the case of England—Culmination,Decline and Fall of Nations,77,78.Chronos and Zeus,79.Spirit expands beyond the limits of each successive nationality and annuls it,80.SummaryGeographical Basis of History.Influence of Nature on Historical Development—Should not be rated too high nor too low,83.The Temperate Zone the true theatre of History,84.Division of the World into Old and New—Physical immaturity of Australia—South Americans physically and psychically inferior,84,85.Modern Emigration and its Mediaeval analogies,86.South and North America—Catholicism and Protestantism,87.Puritan colonization and industrial tendencies in their bearing on the character of the United States—Multiplication of Religious Sects—Necessity of consolidated political organization not felt in North America,89.Relation of the United States to neighbouring countries different from that of European nations—America as the echo of the Past or the Land of the Future,has little interest for the Philosophy of History, 90.The Old World; its ancient limitations.The Mediterranean Sea,the centre of World-History,91.Special Geographical distinctions:(1) The Uplands—Mongolia,the Deserts of Arabia,&c.,92.(2) The Valley Plains—China,India,Babylonia,Egypt.In such regions great Kingdoms have originated,93.(3) The coast land—Influence of the Sea,94.Classification of the three portions of the Old World according to the predominant physical features.—Africa.(1) Africa Proper,(2) European Africa- the coast-land on the North,(3) the Valley Land of the Nile,connected with Asia,95,96.African type of character,97.Sorcery and Fetish-worship,98.Worship of the Dead—Contempt for Humanity—Tyranny and Cannibalism,99.Slavery,100.Political condition of Africans,101.Frenzy in war,102.The merely Natural condition which African character exhibits is one of absolute injustice—Africa dismissed from further consideration as lying only on the threshold of History,103.Asia.Siberia eliminated as out of the pale of History.(1) Central Upland of..Asia.(2) Vast Valley-Plains of China,India,the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates,&c.(3) The intermixture of these physical features in Hither or Anterior Asia—Syria,Asia Minor,&c.,104,105.Europe.Physical features less marked than those of Africa and Asia.(1) Southern Europe—Greece,Italy,South Eastern France,&c.(2) The heart of Europe—France,Germany,and England.(3) The North Eastern States—Poland,Russia,the Slavonic Kingdoms,106,107.Classification of Historic Data.The course of History symbolized by that of Light,109.Begins with the East—Gradual development of the consciousness of Freedom,110.Oriental Empires,111.Invasion of Tartar hordes—Prosaic Empire of China,India,&c.—Persian Empire of Light—Transition to Greece,112.Greece,the Kingdom of Beautiful Freedom—the Youth,as Rome is the Manhood of History,113.Claims of Personality formally recognized—Crushing influence of Rome on individual and national genius,114.Christianity and the German World—Mahometanism,115.The Church—Its Corruption—The Ideal of Reason realized in Secular life—The emancipation of Spirit,116.Part I.The Oriental World.Principle of the Oriental World,the Substantial,the Prescriptive in Morality—Government only the prerogative of compulsion,116,117.With China and the Mongols—the realm of theocratic despotism—History begins.—India,118.Persia—the symbol of whose empire is Light,119.Syria and Judea.Egypt—the transition to Greece,120.Section 1.China.Substantiality of the principle on which the Chinese Empire is based,121.Antiquity of Chinese traditions and records—Canonical books,122.Population—Complete political organization,123.Fohi,the reputed founder of Chinese civilization—Successive dynasties and capital cities,124.Shi-hoang-ti—His Great Wall,and Book-burning.Tartars;Manchu dynasty,125.Spirit of the political and social life of China—The principle of the Family that of the Chinese State,126.Relative duties strictly enforced by law,127.Merits of Sons 'imputed' to their Fathers—"Hall of Ancestors,"128.The Emperor is the Patriarch—the supreme authority in matters of religion and science as well as government—His will,however,controlled by ancient maxims—Education of Princes,129.Administration of the Empire,130.Learned and Military Mandarins—Examinations for official posts—The Romance,Jn-Kiao-li,131.The Censors—Instances of their upright discharge of duty,132.The Emperor the active soul of the Empire,133.Jurisprudence—Subjects regarded as in a state of nonage—Chastisements chiefly corporal—corrective,not retributive,134.Severe punishment of the contravention of relative duties—No distinction between malice prepense and accidental injury: a cause of dispute between the English and Chinese,135.Revenge...occasion of suicide—Serfdom,136.Great immorality of the Chinese—The Religion of Fo, which regards God as Pure Nothing,137.Religious side of Chinese polity—Relation of the Emperor to Religion—Controversy in the Catholic Church respecting the Chinese name of God,138.Geni—Bonzes,139.Chinese Science,140.Written distinguished from Spoken Language—Leibnitz’s opinion on the advantage of the separation,141.Obstacles presented by this system to the advance of Knowledge—Chinese History, Jurisprudence, Ethics and Philosophy,142.Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy—Acquaintance with the Art of Printing,143.Chinese painting, working of metals,&c.—Summary of Chinese character,144.Section II. India.India the region of phantasy and sensibility, contrasted with China,145.India presents us with Spirit in a state of Dream—Analogy to certain phases of female beauty,146.Indian Pantheism, that of Imagination not of Thought—Deification of finite existence,147.Extensive relations of India to the History of the World—Sanskrit,148.India the Land of Desire to Conquerors: Alexander—Conquests of the English—Topographical divisions,149,150.Political life—Castes,&c.151-154.Brahm; the Brahmins; the Yogis,155.Religious suicide,156.Brahmins are by birth, present deities,157.Observances binding on Brahmins,158.Brahminical dignity and prerogatives,159.Diffic...
The Spirit's Historical Consciousness in Hegel
Transylvanian Review, 2012
Not only because of the notoriously difficult style of his texts, but because his fundamental ideas are exhaustively put to their work as to reveal their inner substance, is the reason for which Hegel's work is often cited as an obscure or absconded narrative. Usually, the next step for the common reader is to dismiss it without appeal as nonsense or to interpret it in various ways 1 which make nothing but to contribute even worse to a greater distortion of its real meaning and significance. That is the case with famous interpreters or readers who do not give justice to the Hegelian text, sometimes not having even the good intention to judge it without prejudice. 2 However, let us proceed into the Hegelian text of the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History in such a way as to give Hegel the occasion to express his own words and concepts as he has originally intended:
Hegel’s Idealistic Approach to Philosophy of History
Abstract Philosophy of history is the conceptual and technical study of the relation which exists between philosophy and history. This paper tries to analyze and examine the nature of philosophy of history, its methodology and ideal development. In this I have tried to set the limits of knowledge to know the special account of Hegel’s idealistic view about philosophy of history. In this paper I have also used the philosophical methodology and philosophy inquiry, quest and hypothesis to discuss the Hegel’s idealistic concept of philosophy of history. It also examines and demonstrates the views of other idealist philosophers like, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. It also shows the how history of mathematics is a complementary of idealism as most of philosophers who were idealists are also great mathematicians. In this paper we are investigation the epistemological approach, logical and metaphysical approach to study the nature of history, meaning of history and structure of history