Does Hegel's Perception of the World History Mean More Than Just a Popular Quotation?
Does Hegel's Perception of the World History Mean More Than Just a Popular Quotation?
As an absolute idealist with an absolute mind, Georog Wilhelm F. Hegel claimed that the only real thing that had ever existed was "the ideal" itself. Ideal in everything: from a human being - to the development of human history, from the very beginning - to the acme of the highest potential, from the emergence of absolute mind - to its culmination within the history.1 Such was the approach of the Great German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, born at Stuttgart on August 27, 1770, to the universal things, i.e. spirit, mind, essence, freedom, nation, state, history, consciousness etc. In the course of historic development, Hegel's philosophical and theological paradigms greatly influenced the standpoints of many prominent thinkers both of the past and modern historical methods and studies. This paper generally outlines the core features of Hegelian perception of the world's history through the progress of the consciousness of freedom, attitudes of prominent thinkers to his paradigm, as well as contemporary value of such approach.
Hegel perceived history as a complex and organic process that was hardly ever comprehended by his contemporaries. Hegel used historical facts to prove that history itself displays a rational process of development, and, by studying it, we can understand our own nature and place in the world. Therefore, according to Hegel, the world should be transformed in order to fully understand the principle of individual freedom.2 The central theme of The Philosophy of History (1830) is that all the historical events are caused by reason which is the struggle for freedom of human kinds, i.e. "The only Thought, which Philosophy brings... to the contemplation of History, is the simple conception of Reason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the world, that the history of the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process."3 In fact, Hegel's perception of the world progressing toward freedom, rationality, and understanding was typical of one strain of nineteenth-century European thought.4 "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom... The destiny of the spiritual world, and... the final cause of the World at large, we claim to be Spirit's consciousness of its own freedom, and ipso facto, the reality of that freedom... This final aim is God's purpose with the world; but God is the absolutely perfect Being, and can, therefore, will nothing but himself."5 Therefore, according to Hegel, "history means progress in the consciousness of freedom or the World-Spirit comes to explicit consciousness of itself as freedom that is attained only and through the mind of man. But even then the study of history concentrates on the study of nations and not the individual."6 Furthermore, Hegel's conclusion that "The History of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom; a progress whose development according to the necessity of its nature it is our business to investigate" is also proven by his perception of spirit as the ultimate subject of history and the essence, to which it tends, towards the realization of which its movement is directed, is Freedom. In other words, Spirit gets itself embodied in Peoples, Nations, Volk, and peoples are to be judged by how much and in what way they have apprehended this essence of Spirit in them.7
Considering the issue from another angle, it is apparent that in his philosophy Hegel considers history as dialectical progression: "world history is thus the unfolding of Spirit in time, as nature is the unfolding of the Idea in space." Hence, the dialectical process is what the history means for Hegel, i.e. Hegel recognized that not all historical events or facts would be identifiable through the dialectic Hegel recognized that not all historical events or facts would be identifiable through the dialectic. Indeed, as we shall see, contingency is a necessary component of Hegel's world-view, for without contingency, the Absolute could not continue the self-realization of Freedom. Emil Fackenheim is most insistent and most persuasive in The Religious Dimension in Hegel's Thought on this issue. He points out that the philosophy of the Absolute in Hegel does not necessarily involve the absorption of all of reality within the one Idea. Indeed, it is only in the victory of the Absolute over its antithesis (contingency) that an affirmation could be complete. Whence does this contingency arise? From the Absolute itself. Necessity (which is defined by the Absolute), "consists in its containing its negation, contingency, within itself." Or, stated in a bit more arcane but complete form: "it is therefore necessity itself which determines itself as contingency -- in its being repels itself from itself, and in this very repulsion has only returned into itself, and in this return, as its being, has repelled itself from itself." Thus the antithesis, which is contingency, must be "overreached," but can never be abolished else the dialectic be destroyed. As Fackenheim argues, "the entire Hegelian philosophy, far from denying the contingent, on the contrary seeks to demonstrate its inescapability." Contingency must exist for absolute freedom to realize itself.8
To conclude the analysis of Hegelian dialectic paradigm, I would like to present the following statements from his studies on the correlation between universal history, consciousness and freedom. According to Hegel, Universal History exhibits the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial purport is the consciousness of Freedom.9 Consciousness alone is clearness; and is that alone for which God (or any other existence) can be revealed. In its true form - in absolute universality - nothing can be manifested except to consciousness made percipient of it.10 In its turn, freedom is nothing but the recognition and ...
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To conclude the analysis of Hegelian dialectic paradigm, I would like to present the following statements from his studies on the correlation between universal history, consciousness and freedom. According to Hegel, Universal History exhibits the gradation in the development of that principle whose substantial purport is the consciousness of Freedom.9 Consciousness alone is clearness; and is that alone for which God (or any other existence) can be revealed. In its true form - in absolute universality - nothing can be manifested except to consciousness made percipient of it.10 In its turn, freedom is nothing but the recognition and adoption of such universal substantial objects as Right and Law, and the production of a reality that is accordant with them - the State.11 Universal history shows the development of the consciousness of Freedom on the part of Spirit, and of the consequent realisation of that Freedom. This development implies a gradation - a series of increasingly adequate expressions or manifestations of Freedom, which result from its Idea.12 Te question of the means by which Freedom develops itself to a World, conducts us to the phenomenon of History itself. Although Freedom is, primarily, an undeveloped idea, the means it uses are external and phenomenal; presenting themselves in History to our sensuous vision. The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that such needs, passions and interests are the sole springs of action - the efficient agents in this scene of activity. Among these may, perhaps, be found aims of a liberal or universal kind - benevolence it may be, or noble patriotism; but such virtues and general views are but insignificant as compared with the World and its doings.13
To a great extent I agree with the statement that Hegel's followers have become the most prominent and influential historians of all time, for instance, "Marx's materialistic interpretation of history and David Strauss' attempt to discover the "true" life of Jesus are some of the finest examples of the original "new history" that the modern world has produced since Hegel."14
As Hegel's devotee, Marx participated in a group called the "Young Hegelians"; where he revised and developed Hegel's theory of History.15 Hegel's notions of evolution through history, and the idea of the dialectic were adopted by Marx who furthered these notions and eventually replaced Absolute spirit with human material desire, and reinterpreted Hegel's dialectic.16 Despite Marx rejected Hegel's idealism, nonetheless, he "retained many of the latter's ideas, most notably the idea of history as a social process involving change and contradictions."17 According to Marx, "The point is not to interpret the world, but to change it."18 In Marx's Historical Materialism "history is seen as a social process of conflicts and contradictions. Nevertheless, the difference between Hegel's and Marx's approaches is apparent, "whereas Hegel thinks that the motor of history are ideas and ideals, and usually those of the philosophers, Marx argued the motor of History is the economic activity of societies: more precisely Marx argued that it is the mode (type) of production of a society which is the motor of human history."19 In such a way, Marx ultimately emphasized on the core role of economic relationships in society, and applied Hegel's thesis that "for every old idea, there is a new one which conflicts with it; Out of the struggle a new idea is created (Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis), and history is just the product of conflict"20 to classes of people throughout history. According to Marx, "any ruling class controlled the means of production which gave them wealth and power to rule. Whenever a new method of production occurred, there was conflict between the older ruling class and a newer class using the newer and superior means of production.21
As well as Marx, Walter Benjamin, perceives the class struggle as "a struggle for the rough and material things, without which there is nothing fine and spiritual. Nevertheless these latter are present in the class struggle as something other than mere booty, which falls to the victor. They are present as confidence, as courage, as humor, as cunning, as steadfastness in this struggle, and they reach far back into the mists of time. They will, ever and anon, call every victory which has ever been won by the rulers into question. Just as flowers turn their heads towards the sun, so too does that which has been turn, by virtue of a secret kind of heliotropism, towards the sun which is dawning in the sky of history. To this most inconspicuous of all transformations the historical materialist must pay heed."22 And concerning the notion of Hegel's progress in history, Benjamin's standpoint is the following: "The concept of the progress of the human race in history is not to be separated from the concept of its progression through a homogenous and empty time. The critique of the concept of this progress must ground the basis of its critique on the concept of progress itself."23
Not being a historian, Darwin took Hegel's idea and applied it to science. His biological application led to the Origin of Species. With respect to the means of modification, Darwin "attributed something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, that is, to the effects of habit, but he likewise believed in a law of progressive development; and as all the forms of life thus tend to progress, in order to account for the existence at the present day of simple productions, he maintains that such forms are now spontaneously generated."24 In addition to this, Darwin claimed that "the belief that species were immutable productions was almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of short duration; and now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of time, we are too apt to assume, without proof, that the geological record is so perfect that it would have afforded us plain evidence of the mutation of species, if they had undergone mutation."25 Later on, Herbert Spencer and others used his biological ideas to support their ideas that a struggle among races of people and differing nations led to the strongest and most able nations ruling the world.26
In his "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View (1784), Kant developed own thoughts on themes of world history, progress and enlightenment in a bold and programmatic fashion. Overall, Kant perceives the history of mankind "as the realization of Nature's secret plan to bring forth a perfectly constituted state as the only condition in which the capacities of mankind can be fully developed, and also bring forth that external relation among states which is perfectly adequate to this end."27 Furthermore, he claims that "a philosophical attempt to work out a universal history according to a natural plan directed to achieving the civic union of the human race must be regarded as possible and, indeed, as contributing to this end of Nature.28
Utilizing his physiogmatic approach, Spengler was confident of his ability to decipher the riddle of History -- even, as he states in Decline's very first sentence, to predetermine history. As he put it, "Human history is the cyclical record of the rise and fall of unrelated High Cultures. These Cultures are in reality super life-forms, that is, they are organic in nature, and like all organisms must pass through the phases of birth-life-death. Though separate entities in themselves, all High Cultures experience parallel development, and events and phases in any one find their corresponding events and phases in the others. It is possible from the vantage point of the twentieth century to glean from the past the meaning of cyclic history, and thus to predict the decline and fall of the West."29 The following are his basic postulates:
. The "linear" view of history must be rejected, in favor of the cyclical. Heretofore history, especially Western history, had been viewed as a "linear" progression from lower to higher, like rungs on a ladder -- an unlimited evolution upward. Western history is thus viewed as developing progressively: Greek, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern, or, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. This concept, Spengler insisted, is only a product of Western man's ego - as if everything in the past pointed to him, existed so that he might exist as a yet-more perfected form;
2. The cyclical movements of history are not those of mere nations, states, races, or events, but of High Cultures. Recorded history gives us eight such "high cultures": the Indian, the Babylonian, the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Mexican (Mayan-Aztec), the Arabian (or "Magian"), the Classical (Greece and Rome), and the European-Western;
3. High Cultures are "living" things -- organic in nature -- and must pass through the stages of birth-development-fulfillment-decay-death. Hence a "morphology" of history. All previous cultures have passed through these distinct stages, and Western culture can be no exception. In fact, its present stage in the organic development-process can be pinpointed.30
The aforementioned conclusions of prominent thinkers on the Hegel's dialectic paradigm have proven the necessity of his thesis both in historic context and other fields of social life, as well as the fact that his political and social philosophy found interest and support. Although, today, the question of whether, in spite of a current appreciation of diversity, the world isn't inevitably moving toward homogeneity, and if so, whether that homogeneity will embody the ideals which Hegel posited or some other conditions, is more than justified.31 In a matter of fact, Hegel's philosophy of history also generated considerable influences to some contemporary philosophers of history even if these influences are generally critiques rather than affirmations.
Hegel insists that men really create history. Hence the activities of the individual cannot help being important in history. Change never takes place by itself; it always needs the intervention of man.
George Simmel too is uneasy about the role of the spirit in history. In The Problems of the Philosophy of History, he says that the materials that enter into historical knowledge are comprised wholly of human experience. Unless an occurrence is human, that occurrence is not material which can be formed into history. Rickert argues on the side of Simmel. He explicitly denies a particular historical development using man as an instrument of the spirit. He says that the empirical reality becomes nature when we regard it with reference to the particular and the individual. All this critiques deny the reasonability of an unhistorical historian.32
The today's concern for the fundamental freedoms - all human rights are ultimately dependent on the concept of fundamental freedoms - is one of the constants of history. According to Hegel the history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom. For other historians, freedom is not a product of history; man is born free to work out his own destiny. Whatever our starting-point, however, the political problems posed by man's freedom in society, basically the relationship of the individual to the state and to his fellow men, generate a variety of questions the relationships between freedom and equality, freedom and justice, freedom and the rights of the state, freedom and law - which have had different answers in different cultures and at different historical moments. Although the philosophical or theological conception of freedom has common roots in all cultures, the way in which that conception is translated into specific institutionalized human rights is, as we know, historically determined, and changes with the evolution of cultures and social systems.33
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Philosophy of History presents a version of history based on his own dialectic philosophy. He interprets the events of the past and tries to assign each event a place in his philosophy. Thus, this kind of history seeks to uncover the true nature of reality in the past. It is a philosophical position. Hegel's philosophy of history was the first of its kind in Germany. The kind of history he proposed doing was thoroughly subjective and uncritical, but it was nonetheless critical in that it studied the nature of history itself, as a means for arriving at a dialectic conception of history.34 In this paper, I reflected Hegel's paradigm from different angles and showed how it was perceived by prominent thinkers. Therefore, Hegel' theory of the history through the progress of the consciousness of freedom remains relevant under the conditions of modern world, and, of course, impacts approaches to understanding history by today's scientists.
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The Frankfurt School Important Philosophical Notes. http://home.case.edu/~ngb2/Pages/Impor_Phil_Notes.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
2 Metareligion Hegel's Philosophy of History. http://www.meta-religion.com/Philosophy/Biography/George_Hegel/works.htm (accessed April 15, 2006)
3 From The Philosophy of History. http://www.island-of-freedom.com/HEQUOTES.HTM (accessed April 15, 2006)
4 Hegel, G.W.F. Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History. (1840 edition)
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/hegel.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
5 From The Philosophy of History. http://www.island-of-freedom.com/HEQUOTES.HTM (accessed April 15, 2006)
6 Felicilda, Maxwell. The Unhistorical Historian: A Careful Examination of Hegel's Philosophy of History. http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/philosophy_of_history.htm (accessed April 15, 2006)
7 Hegel, G.W.F. The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree, introduction C.J. Friedrich (New York: Dover Publications, 1956). p. 19.
8 Burrell, David. A Historian Looks at Hegel Philosophically: Critical Examination of Hegelian Dialectic, Determinism, and Contingency. (1991) http://www.historicalinsights.com/dave/hegel.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
9 Blunden, Andy. Hegel's Philosophy of History III. Philosophic History (§ 24) http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/history3.htm#011 (accessed April 15, 2006)
0 Ibid. (§ 63)
1 Ibid. (§ 68)
2 Ibid. (§ 72)
3 Ibid. (§ 24)
4 Metareligion Hegel's Philosophy of History. http://www.meta-religion.com/Philosophy/Biography/George_Hegel/works.htm (accessed April 15, 2006)
5 Marx: An Introduction. Historical Materialism. http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/print/MarxAnIntroduction.shtml (accessed April 15, 2006)
6 The Frankfurt School http://home.case.edu/~ngb2/Pages/Impor_Phil_Notes.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
7 Marx: An Introduction. Historical Materialism. http://www.sociologyonline.co.uk/print/MarxAnIntroduction.shtml (accessed April 15, 2006)
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
20 Historiography. How historians DO history. http://www.cusd.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/ib/histo.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
21 Ibid.
22 Benjamin, Walter. Theses on the Philosophy of History, in Illuminations; Essays and Reflections, edited and with an introduction by Hanna Arendt (New York: Schocken Books, 1988) 253-267.
23 Ibid.
24 Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. (London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1859). Preface
25 Ibid.
26 Historiography. How historians DO history. http://www.cusd.chico.k12.ca.us/~bsilva/ib/histo.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
27 Kant, Immanuel. Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View. (1784). Translation by Lewis White Beck. From Immanuel Kant, "On History," The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1963.
28 Ibid.
29 Spengler, Oswald, The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by Helmut Werner. English abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson. (New York: Oxford University Press. p. 199.
30 Ibid.
31 Hegel, G.W.F. Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1840 edition) http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/hegel.html (accessed April 15, 2006)
32 Felicilda, Maxwell. The Unhistorical Historian: A Careful Examination of Hegel's Philosophy of History http://www.geocities.com/philodept/diwatao/philosophy_of_history.htm (accessed April 15, 2006)
33 Herrera, Amilcar, O. Human rights and scientific and technological development. Edited by C.G. Weeramantry United Nations University Press (c) The United Nations University, (1990) (Introduction) http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu06he/uu06he05.htm (accessed April 15, 2006)
34 Anderson, Stewart. The Need for Self-Criticism in History. http://www.westminstercollege.edu/myriad/index.cfm?parent=2514&detail=2679&content=2844 (accessed April 15, 2006)
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"Does Hegel's Perception of the World History Mean More Than Just a Popular Quote?" PAGE:
DATE: April 17, 2006
