The Philosophy of History (Dover Philosophical Classics) by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel wrote this classic as an introduction to a series of lectures on the "philosophy of history" — a novel concept in the early nineteenth century. With this work, he created the history of philosophy as a scientific study. He reveals philosophical theory as neither an accident nor an artificial construct, but as an exemplar of its age, fashioned by its antecedents and contemporary circumstances, and serving as a model for the future. The author himself appears to have regarded this book as a popular introduction to his philosophy as a whole, and it remains the most readable and accessible of all his philosophical writings.
Eschewing the methods of original history (written during the period in question) and reflective history (written after the period has passed), Hegel embraces philosophic history, which employs a priori philosophical thought to interpret history as a rational process. Reason rules history, he asserts, through its infinite freedom (being self-sufficient, it depends on nothing beyond its own laws and conclusions) and power (through which it forms its own laws). Hegel argues that all of history is caused and guided by a rational process, and God's seemingly unknowable plan is rendered intelligible through philosophy. The notion that reason rules the world, he concludes, is both necessary to the practice of philosophic history and a conclusion drawn from that practice.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction, Classics, Politics, German Literature, 19th Century

Paperback Bunko

First published January 1, 1831

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marx says somewhere that he had to take Hegel’s method and turn it on its head to make sense of it. And while I always thought this was a really brilliant image, I also thought it was probably one of those extremes of overstatement that philosophers are a bit prone to. However, if nowhere else, Marx is proven right with this book. It is hard to underestimate the change that Marx wrought to Hegelian thought – and to the study of history generally, and, to me at least, that seems most clear after reading this book.

Hegel is not really all that interested in history itself – at least, he says he’s not particularly interested in history per se (the 'one damn thing after another' bit of history) – but rather what history can tell us about what he calls the world spirit. This is a complicated idea, and one I’m not entirely sure I have fully understood. Still, it might help to sort of personalise this spirit. In one way I guess this is what Hegel intends. He wants you to think that there is a single ‘god’ that is using human history as a way to either manifest itself, or perhaps better, to come to a full realisation of its own actual essence. The spirit does this by literally using people and the kinds of societies they develop to realise or understand itself - a kind of reflection through alienation idea. To Hegel the highest realisation of this spirit – something he is often (and rightly) criticised – is the Germany he just happened to be living in at the time. Here the spirit, which had alienated itself into various realisations of various human societies, finally is in harmony with itself – in a kind of dance between necessity and freedom, which to Hegel is the highest realisation of freedom.

You know, if your philosophy makes the society you just accidentally happened to be born into the ideal form of all societies, it might just mean that rather than you being critically aware and your thinking being a pure manifestation of rational disinterestedness, that in fact you are just proposing a kind of self-congratulation that is, well, somewhat unworthy.

Still, Hegel takes us on a tour of world history showing the diversity and development of the world spirit. Some of this history seemed, to me at least, rather quixotic, I mean, I couldn’t see why one thing was discussed in some length when a million other things were skirted over or even not mentioned at all. The lessons in relation to the development of the world spirit seemed rather obscure to me – but this might well be just me. I suspect there are commentaries I really ought to have read while reading this that might have explained this and that I’ve completely missed important bits along the way.

He makes it clear early in this that the world spirit doesn’t climb a ladder all at once and so develop in the way we like to think humans did in that standard monkey walking left-to-right to become an ape to become a man. But rather that all aspects of the history of the development of the spirit co-exist in the world and all are ongoing aspects of the spirit. It is in this sense that there is a national spirit and so nations like China and India – that had once been the bloom of the pinnacle of the world spirit – have languished while the spirit has gone on to find more fertile soil to continue its development.

Progress is toward increased freedom, as I said before – and this is a freedom that is strongly linked with what was, at the time, the recent birth of capitalist freedom. The individual as the core of society and their enterprise unfettered by caste and feudal restrictions as the highest realisation of that freedom.

What is interesting about all this is in relation to Marx’s inversion is perhaps made clear by thinking about Diamond’s book ‘Germs, Guns and Steal’. For Hegel a people have a particular character – often highly associated with the kind of religion they practice. These ideas structure and constrain the amount of freedom these people can have and thereby determine how far their society will be able to develop and progress. The world spirit uses these various characteristics of these people to understand itself. For Diamond – and Marx too, obviously, but Diamond is very clear on this – the reason why Europe ruled the world and China didn’t isn’t really linked to Chinese ‘character’, but rather to a series of local conditions that went to structure that character. That is, the geography of China in the first instance where, once conquered, the nation tended to remain conquered. The plants and animals available – rice providing quite different relations to work than wheat does. And, related again to geography, the possibility of competing civilisations on your doorstep that will overthrow you if you don’t ‘keep up’ was much more evident in Europe than it is in China. Rather than history being a product of a spirit and idea, national characters become a product of real conditions of life, character has a physical, rather than purely mental series of causes.

This transformation in how we understand history – the kinds of things we look for so as to explain differences between societies – isn’t just superficial. As Marx said, it is a complete inversion. I found this book particularly interesting because in it we glimpse into a world where ignoring the physical and geographic conditions of societies and resting human progress on spirit has reached its highest point. Not that Hegel doesn't discuss these physical conditions at all – his discussion of Greece and Rome, for instance, does focus on geography, but even here this seems less causal than yet another factor that goes to composing the national spirit which seems much more important than these physical constraints.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Evolution & Perfection of Germany

Hegel’s Lectures on the ‘Philosophy of History’ are considered to be valuable as an accessible introduction to his system. Since he works with familiar historical examples here to illustrate his metaphysical system, it is certainly an easier read than some of his purely abstract works (this reviewer ought to know, having entered those hallways and retreated in incomprehension and terror many times by now).

Here Hegel visualizes the major instances of history (for the most part just regurgitating Herodotus) from inside a new theoretic framework, wherein he tracks the movement of the Idea of Freedom and of the Spirit of History (or rather the Idea of Germany! :) ) through the whole of human history and points out its evolutions and the condition that felicitated these changes to his readers.

Samples

“The life of the ever present Spirit is a circle of progressive embodiments, which looked at in one respect still exist be-side each other, and only as looked at from another point of view appear as past”.

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God is thus recognized as Spirit, only when known as the Triune. This new principle is the axis on which the History of the World turns. This is the goal and the starting point of History. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son,” is the statement of the Bible. This means nothing else than that self- consciousness had reached the phases of development [Momente], whose resultant constitutes the Idea of Spirit, and had come to feel the necessity of comprehending those phases absolutely. This must now be more fully explained.

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...“Part IV: The German World.
The German Spirit is the Spirit of the new World. Its aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unilimited self-determination of Freedom — that Freedom which has its own absolute form itself as its purport.25 The destiny of the German peoples is, to be the bearers of the Christian principle. The principle of Spiritual Freedom — of Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective], was introduced into the still simple, unformed minds of those peoples; and the part assigned them in the service of the World- Spirit was that of not merely possessing the Idea of Freedom as the substratum of their religious conceptions, but of producing it in free and spontaneous developments from their subjective self- consciousness.”

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“Germany was traversed by the victorious French hosts, but German nationality delivered it from this yoke. One of the leading features in the political condition of Germany is that code of Rights which was certainly occasioned by French oppression, since this was the especial means of bringing to light the deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an Empire has utterly vanished. It is broken up into sovereign states. Feudal obligations are abolished, for freedom of property and of person have been recognized as fundamental principles. Offices of State are open to every citizen, talent and adaptation being of course the necessary conditions. The government rests with the official world, and the personal decision of the monarch constitutes its apex; for a final decision is, as was remarked above, absolutely necessary. Yet with firmly established laws, and a settled organization of the State, what is left to the sole arbitrament of the monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It is certainly a very fortunate circumstance for a nation, when a sovereign of noble character falls to its lot; yet in a great state even this is of small moment, since its strength lies in the Reason incorporated in it. Minor states have their existence and tranquillity secured to them more or less by their neighbors: they are therefore, properly speaking, not independent, and have not the fiery trial of war to endure. As has been remarked, a share in the government may be obtained by every one who has a competent knowledge, experience, and a morally regulated will. Those who know ought to govern, not ignorance and the presumptuous conceit of “knowing better.” Lastly, as to Disposition, we have already remarked that in the Protestant Church the reconciliation of Religion with Legal Right has taken place. In the Protestant world there is no sacred, no religious conscience in a state of separation from, or perhaps even hostility to Secular Right.
This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these are the principal phases of that form in which the principle of Freedom has realized itself; — for the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom. But Objective Freedom — the laws of real Freedom — demand the subjugation of the mere contingent Will — for this is in its nature formal. If the Objective is in itself Rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with the Reason which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element — Subjective Freedom — also realized.45 We have confined ourselves to the consideration of that progress of the Idea [which has led to this consummation], and have been obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed picture of the prosperity, the periods of glory that have distinguished the career of peoples, the beauty and grandeur of the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to their fate in weal or woe. Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the Idea mirroring itself in the History of the World. Philosophy escapes from the weary strife of passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of contemplation; that which interests it is the recognition of the process of development which the Idea has passed through in realizing itself — i.e., the Idea of Freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of Freedom and nothing short of it.
That the History of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is this process of development and the realization of Spirit — this is the true Theodicaea, the justification of God in History. Only this insight can reconcile Spirit with the History of the World — viz., that what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not “without God,” but is essentially His Work.”

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Reader, Beware

This approach means that Hegel is quite disappointed with those civilizations which, according to his framework, stayed static and did not move in the required directions. So china and India gets a very dismissive treatment, which should be enough to irk most readers from those parts of the world. And then Europe gets a very favored and biased treatment as Hegel waxes on about the perfection it has attained in the current stage where the Idea of Freedom has finally triumphed. It is almost an advocation of the End of History and of Perfection already attained.

The book is interesting only as a way to understand Hegel’s system. If one attempts to use it so as to understand history itself or goes in with such expectations, it is going to be a very tiresome ride. Hegel is not an easy co-passenger to have when having a tour of the highlights of history.

[Xander · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the winter of 1830-1831 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel lectured on the philosophy of history. This was the third time in his career that he lectured on the subject; it would also be his last – he succumbed to the complications of cholera. Posthumously the lecture notes were collected and published in 1837 – in case of contradictions with earlier lectures the editors decided to stick to the last course of lectures Hegel presented. Hegel’s son Karl (himself a historian) decided to revise bits and pieces and do some re-structuring and published a second edition of the book in 1840.

Anyways, this is the short history of Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which shows how this is not really a book, but then again it is. As Karl Hegel explains in his short introduction, Hegel’s main thoughts remained the same over the course of his life while he continuously revised his own lecture materials. Also, son Karl explains how his father didn’t really stuck to definite concepts: sometimes he called the Eastern religion Buddhism, sometimes Lamaism – the concept remaining the same but the words changing.

I open this review with these remarks, because it goes to show how easy it is for readers to stick meanings to Hegel’s words that he never meant himself (more on that later). This is a peculiar characteristic of Hegel and it not only makes his work very hard to interpret (or simply to read) – leading to a booming industry of academics offering their own studies – but it also offers us the problem of generality (also more on that later).

So what is the book about? As Hegel himself explains in the introduction, these lectures were dealing with the philosophy of history. This sounds very simple and self-evident, but one has to remind oneself that this hadn’t been done up to that moment (with hindsight everything looks easy) and also that Hegel meant a very particular thing with his statement: he views historical facts as the material, the data, from which the philosopher has to abstract meaning. So the book is more about Hegel’s interpretation of history than it is about history itself. This is a significant point that many Hegel readers seem to overlook (judging by the reviews on this site).

But Hegel also makes another very significant statement in the middle of his (long) introduction. He clearly states that the philosopher of history is powerless if he doesn’t know what he’s looking for beforehand – he can study facts endlessly but he will not understand their meaning.
To illustrate this, Hegel draws an analogy with Johannes Keppler, a seventeenth century astronomer. Keppler wanted to describe the planetary orbits around the Sun in mathematical terms – to be precise: he wanted to explain the circular paths planets travel around the Sun (astronomy wanted to describe everything in terms of ‘perfect’ circles). Since he was already very familiar with geometry, he was able to interpret the data and recognize the impossibility of fitting the orbits into circular paths and discover the fact that the planets travel in elliptical paths. Without his geometrical knowledge, he wouldn’t have been able to discover the truth.

Now Hegel sees himself as the Keppler of history – he doesn’t want to study historical facts, he wants to discover their underlying reality. And he is able to do this, since he already knows how the world is (literally) the development of consciousness. He knows how Spirit (‘Geist’) develops itself out of simple sense-certainty (the simple, basal certainty that the subject perceives an object – ‘this, here, now’). Reflection on this sense-certainty leads to consciousness of the self as subject. After this, consciousness perceives the material world and discovers this phenomenal world is itself a manifestation of consciousness (like Kant, Hegel claimed we impress, e.g., natural laws through force on ‘Nature’). But there’s a problem: there seem to be other subjects. Reflecting on this leads to the master-slave dualism, in which subjects try to destroy one another, ultimately ending in a relationship of master (‘Herr’) and slave (‘Knecht’).

Initially the master is content, but he lets the slave work for him on the objective world. Doing this, the slave subject gets to know the world better and through this itself. Ultimately, Hegel sees stoicism, epicureanism and scepticism develop as consequences of these unhappy subjects.
Anyways, the process is still a very long one to Spirit, but this would mean offering a summary of his longest and most difficult book and there’s no place for that here. Suffice to say, Hegel sees Spirit developing from simple sense-certainty through consciousness and self-consciousness to Reason. Reason has a major place in Hegel’s system, since it is able to distinguish itself as self-conscious subject as thing in itself and this self-same self-conscious subject as object. This antithesis leads to a resolution through Spirit.

The main points to understand is that Hegel views the development of Spirit as not only a metaphysical process, but also a historical process, and even a political process. This process itself develops dialectically, where thesis and antithesis annihilate one another and a synthesis follows, which then forms a new thesis in itself, continuing the process. This means (in the case of history) that all prior development is contained in the historical epoch that one studies. So history is literally the development of Spirit, objectifying itself in the world.

Another important point to grasp is that Hegel’s system is heavily dependent on the ancient distinctions of subject-object and universal-particular. Hegel follows Kant in claiming that the subject is unified self, unifying all thought in one Ego. The dialectic consists in the fact that a subject is universal – its thought is abstract, general, universal, not occupied with particular objects – but as soon as the subject thinks about itself it has to view itself as object – i.e. it has to become a particular. This antithesis continuously resurfaces in different disguises.

Now, all the above is simply the underlying framework that Hegel uses to interpret history – this one has to understand PRIOR to starting the introduction. The introduction itself, which spans about 25% of the book, then makes matters even more abstract and hard to follow.

The main gist seems to be this (it is hard to summarize Hegel, since all minor details are important…): Reason, as self-conscious Spirit, steers the world on its historical course. The goal of subjective Reason is to realize its Idea of Freedom in the objective world. Put differently, when Reason is identical with its Idea it is Free Spirit. This is the goal of history, according to Hegel. Now, if one understands Free Spirit as Absolute Knowledge – knowledge of the totality of all (both the finite and infinite), and recognizes this Absolute as that which Wills itself and realizes itself through its own unrestrained Freedom, it makes matters only harder to understand. Right?

But what thing is called infinite, all-knowing, perfectly free (all-powerful) and – literally – the creator of the objective world? Ah! Now we see where Hegel is going. He identifies the Absolute with God, more specifically the Christian God. One could say that History is God Becoming itself, on the way to Freedom; History is God’s development into Free Spirit and the World is God (as Free Spirit) Objectified. Human beings partake in God, since they are part of the world and through the use of Reason they can attain the level of self-consciousness Hegel calls Spirit. (Hegel’s God, by the by, seems to be a rather peculiar God, more like the God of Spinoza than the God of Luther.) And in this, one can see how Hegel influenced a whole new generation of German scholars and theologians who finally could reclaim God after Kant made Him redundant.

Anyway, when we study history, we notice the Spirit developing itself towards Freedom, and the material it uses is Man. This means humanity, not a particular human – although certain individuals can act as catalysts in the world-historical development (more on that later). Spirit needs Man – just as Man partakes in Spirit and is on his way towards unification with Absolute Spirit – because the Idea of Reason has to manifest itself in the phenomenal world. To accomplish this, it uses a civilization as medium and its individual human beings as mechanism.

Human beings have a will; they follow their passions, which motivate their actions. And it is these actions that have effects on the historical epoch. In general, all the individual passions constitute society, but certain individuals have such strong wills that they press themselves against their society. It is in these geniuses that the Idea is able to manifest itself and work history to the next phase, so to speak. An example of this is Julius Caesar, who followed his own self-interests (fame, power, legacy, etc.) and destroyed the contemporary stagnant Roman Republic. Through his violent actions and conquests, he ushered in a new Roman phase (the Roman Empire). So the Spirit manifests itself through Caesar’s passions and unifies with these into a more Free historical stage.

Hegel mentions the fact that the historical individual (like Caesar) is unhappy, since he is the determination of the Idea. When one is determined, merely a vessel of the Absolute Will, one is not free, hence not happy. In that sense, the historical figure has to offer himself to the altar of history. But in a broader perspective, Hegel also seems to mean that the individual offers his own people to the altar of history, and that the people have to accept this implicitly. Hegel’s perspective on history is one of necessary struggle and bloodshed, all for the greater good of the Spirit becoming Free.

But there is hope for Man. According to Hegel, as world-history proceeds, the notion of Freedom starts to manifest itself more and more. This is, because all earlier developments are contained in the current historical phase. The Greeks knew a morality of custom (one simply had to do what was best for society) and were determined externally (through the material universe), while the Romans developed the notion of the autonomous individual (at least de jure, if not de facto). Christianity replaced Roman morality and offered Man a conception of himself as an individual of infinite value and equality to all others.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, German tribes supplanted the Romans as world-historical people, while adopting Christianity. Initially kingdoms developed, which then grew and fell apart through strife, ending with feudalism – the state of German lands lacking any central authority where individuals had to ask for protection from local lords in exchange for giving up their lands. Feudalism is intrinsically incompatible with Freedom, so we see it develop more, over time, into States, led by the strongest princes, and parallel to this the growth of the Church.

The Church served as the protector of human subjectivity, but over time it started to objectify its own subjective ideas – rituals, idols, saint worship and even ordinary indulgences started to replace the Christian Idea. Then Luther comes along the scene – the most important moment in History for Hegel – and reclaims the human subject. Now Man is free to think for himself and use his Reason to judge good and bad.

The Reformation then leads to the Religious Wars in Europe and the establishment of Protestant regions. The seventeenth century then serves as the main spring for the Enlightenment: Man has now discovered Reason – the material world is studied, and this doesn’t just include the physical side of things – morality is studied in the same way as well. In the eighteenth century, with the subjective Freedom (Morality) enabled by Luther and Protestantism, Man starts to look at his own society in the same light. One discovers inequality and a state that is far from Free. The application of Reason to society leads to the conclusion that society has to be ordered according to Reason. This means, in effect, that the Law, the Government and the Disposition of the people all have to be instituted in such a way to reflect subjective Freedom. These together comprise the State, which then is Freedom objectified. According to Hegel, this can be called Religion – the cultivating of moral behaviour within society through objective measures mirrors exactly the subjective disposition of the individuals involved.

So we end with the conclusion that History culminates on the paper on Hegel’s desk as he was writing these things; just like the Absolute Knowledge (i.e. the knowledge of the totality) culminated in Hegel’s mind grasping all there is to know in his Phänomenologie des Geistes. Talk about solipsism…

To me, the way Hegel outlines his whole system and is able to string together such diverse subjects as metaphysics, history, politics, law and morality into one consistent whole is impressive. The whole idea, or rather complex of ideas, has a even certain intrinsic beauty. And compared to Kant, he is also much more apt and consequential in dealing with the problem of the metaphysical foundation of reality.

But there are simply to many objections to his way of philosophizing. For starters, he is very selective in picking the civilizations that are part of World-History. He leaves out contemporary newcomers like the USA and the whole of Africa – a stagnant continent suffering under the African temperament and superstition. Though this might sounds racist, he does reject slavery outright and his stance on Africa was not unique among intellectuals of his time.

Second, he starts his study with China, India and Persia, but why not earlier civilizations? This seems a bit arbitrary. Also, he sees the stagnation of China and the degeneration of India throughout history (his own views), which would refute his own theory of development, but then he arbitrarily claims these civilizations (just like Africa) are a-historical, they are not part of World-History. At best, the served as the spring for History to start developing.

Third, because he is forced to apply his own logic of antithetical resolutions, he sees in every historical event a conflict with another event, which then has to be resolved. And so on. In other words: not only is Hegel’s view of history highly deterministic (there are laws guiding historical development) but also highly arbitrary. If I want, I can literally make an antithesis out of any historical fact – which makes Hegel’s history a bit quaint. Also, as Karl Popper writes in his Poverty of Historicism (1944) deterministic views on history are logically impossible, since this implies that the future is already known, which it is not by definition. The determinist claims that the future is already contained in the past, but this would mean that we could learn the future. But by studying this, we would by definition change the future (or our studying history should be included in the future contained in history, and so on ad infinitum).

Fourth, the most simple rejection to Hegel’s Philosophy of History is simply the flawed data. No matter how more important interpretation is (according to Hegel), the facts are essential. And when he wrote and lectured, history simply was a flawed science. There is much missing in his exposition on the civilizations he describes; many new facts were discovered later on; and many facts have been nuanced at best, refuted at worst. So Hegel builds his historical system on faulty, incomplete and biased data – leaving not much for us to interpret…

A final objection I want to state is the ingenious use Hegel makes of historical facts he likes. When he was young, he witnessed the huge event called the French Revolution from Germany, as the news gradually spread over Europe. He called this the most magnificent thing he knew about – and in his Philosophy of History both the French Revolution and its intellectual parent the Enlightenment, play an important role. The aftermath of the Revolution led to the application of all the ideals into practice, which clearly didn’t work and heralded in the Terror. It is completely understandable that such a major event leaves a lasting impression.

But it seems a bit too coincidental if this personal event plays the main role in modern (German) history in your own system. It smells of bending the facts to your own goals, and throughout the work there are many more instances like this. For example, the role Christianity plays – both as a humanizing and elevating force destroying the despotic Roman power and as an emancipating return to true religion in the Reformation – needlessly fits in with Hegel’s own Protestant worldview. Another example is the use Hegel makes of the magnificent Greeks – founders of the notion of the subjective self (albeit in a spiritual form) – especially when contrasted to his approach of the despotic, dim-witted Persians – whose only historical role was the discovery of the principle of Light (in Zoroastrianism) and the derivative worldview dividing everything into Good and Bad. After this, history could do without them.

And then there’s the Jews – laying in hiding, waiting for a chance to send off a sect to end Roman times. In short, Hegel seems to shop very selectively and only pick those historical facts that fit his preconceived system. The problematic facts are dealt with in an ad hoc fashion, almost obliquely, as if the only thing we should focus our attention on is the lecturer’s developing system.

But to end this review on a more positive note (and to be fair to Hegel), I’d like to state that his conception of history as evolutionary process, and especially the conception of history as different epochs, each with their own key figures, events and cultural contexts. This approach to history was new when Hegel was lecturing, and he is the starting point of a whole trend in history, with people as diverse as Marx, Spengler and Toynbee all starting from the same basic Hegelian assumptions. Also, Hegel’s emphasis on the importance of ideas – as influencing development through shaping culture – is an important and healthy antidote to the one-sided materialism of later thinkers (especially Marx and Engels).

Can I recommend this book? Well… To be honest, I think one needs to understand Hegel’s phenomenology of mind/spirt first – his dealings with social and historical phenomena can only be understood as factors in the last phase of mind developing itself into Self-Consciousness as Absolute Knowledge. If one doesn’t understand this phrase, I’d suggest pick up Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) first.

[مثقف · Rating 4 out of 5]

في البداية أريد أن أعطيكم نتيجة نهائية توصلت لها وهي أن قراءة فلسفة التاريخ عند هيجل تحتاج إلى من يشرحها فمحاضرة هيجل معقدة ولغتها صعبة (أو ربما تكون المشكلة من الترجمة) وغير مرتبه ولا مفهرسة وبالتالي هي نص مهم لكن يحتاج لمختص يفككه ويشرحه ويبسطه

وقد قام الدكتور إمام عبد الفتاح إمام وهو مترجم الكتاب ومقدم له ومعلق عليه في الثلث الأول من الكتاب بمحاولة توضيح أفكار هيجل وإعطاء نبذة عنه وشرح الخطوط العريضة في الكتاب ومع ذلك ما يزال الكتاب يحتاج لتعمق أكثر

أما محاضرة هيجل الطويلة فتعتمد على ثلاث مناهج في دراسة التاريخ وهي التاريخ الأصلي والتاريخ النظري والتاريخ الفلسفي وهذا الأخير هو المبحث الأساسي لهذه المحاضرة ومعناه هو دراسة التاريخ من خلال الفكر لأن التاريخ هو تاريخ الإنسان والفكر جوهري بالنسبة إليه فهو الخاصية التي تميزه عن الحيوان . إذا ً هو يتعامل مع التاريخ بوصفه تجليا ً لحركة الروح العالقة في الزمان حسب وصفه. أو كما قال في موضع آخر التاريخ بصفة عامة هو تطور الروح في الزمان كما أن الطبيعة هي تطور الفكرة في المكان !

ولا تقتصر محاضرة هيجل على الجانب التاريخي فقط بل تغوص في الكثير من المعاني المهمة لفهم سلوك الإنسان والحياة والسياسة والمجتمع والأديان والحرية ... وربطها في عقل التاريخ فمثلا ً يبدأ معك بهدم أحد المسلمات التي تقول أن الإنسان يولد حر ويقول أن الحالة الطبيعية للإنسان ليست سوى حالة همجية تسودها الأهواء والانفعالات الوحشية لهذا يغلب عليها الظلم والجور والعنف ومن ثم فإن الحد من النزوات والمشاعر الأنانية ليس قيدا ً على الحرية وإنما هو شرط لازم للتحرر لذلك هو يشترط في تحقق الحرية أن يكون هناك قانون وأخلاق وإلا أصبحت الحرية قمة العبث .

طبعا ً سترى بوضوح احتقار هيجل للأفارقة والسكان الأصليين لأمريكا وتبجيله لأوربا وأمريكا ما بعد الاستعمار بل أنه يعتبر الكثير من حروب الاستعمار كانت عمل شريف لأن فيه تصدير لثقافة أوربا التي يضعها على قائمة الثقافات في زمنه وستجد غيرها من النقاط السخيفة التي تستغرب كيف يتفوه بها فيلسوف كبير مثل هيجل ؟

لكن هذا لا يقلل من قيمة الكتاب ومن ولا من شأن هيجل كفيلسوف كبير

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost can't believe I read this book. Seeing it on the "Books Read 1/8-11/30/80" list had me running to the philosophy shelves and assuming it was Lectures of the Philosophy of History, a much shorter work. Then, to make sure, I checked the bibliographic card file, found both titles and looked again. There it was--an old copy, the title barely visible on the spine, and some annotations in my hand within. For instance: "Hegel begins here with the rational solipsism whereby human understanding-reason (the two are not clearly distinguished in the Kantian sense) is recognized as entirely constituative of the world as it is knowable. From there--a demonstrable premise--he takes the step whereby our (possibly) qualified knowledge is potentially identified with the Gnosis itself. This step, however, is a major one. Hegel may be accused of (in a Kantian sense) confounding Reason qua Absolute with the all-too-human Understanding, degrading the former while inflating the latter to a dangerous level of hubris and confusion. At best this is a rational faith--one to which I subscribe, I hope, humbly."

Although that rather lengthy marginal note is typical of notes running throughout my copy of Kant's First Critique and Kemp Smith's Commentary, I find that subsequent notes in the margins of The Philosophy of History are few and quite short. And now it comes back to me! I read this thing mostly in the Volume II Bookstore/Cafe on Sheridan Road across from Loyola University Chicago's Lake Shore campus. After Hegel's introduction, I got frustrated with his tendentious generalities and no longer expected much of the book, finishing it simply because it is hard to let off on a book once it's been started and because the prefatory materials are over a hundred pages long.

Ah, Hegel was so exciting during the first readings of him in seminary, so disappointing when seriously pursued!

[Roy Lotz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know Bill Watterson read Hegel:

http://staff.harrisonburg.k12.va.us/~...

[J.D. Steens · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "Philosophy of History" is Hegel's story about the unfolding of God in history. The world is God's creation, but that realization is not at first readily apparent. Man (humans are) is immersed in nature, a slave to his self-interest and its very material accoutrements. Only through the conflicts and opposition in history does man realize his spiritual essence that is God's essence in him. Just as Christ is both man and divine, humans and the divine are essentially one. This means that man is free of his bondage to the material world, and is able to construct a new reality by the laws of reason that operate and apply universally. Freedom, Reason, Universality constitute man's divine essence and these are the culmination of God's plan for the world.

That culmination occurs in the German world (i.e., those from northern Europe). While Hegel's historical theory receives the most attention, Hegel's grasp of historical detail (Orient, Greece, Rome, Europe, Germany) is impressive. But Hegel approaches all of this rich information within his own religious frame of reference, and either abstracts his theory from history, or interprets history to fit his theory. Hegel is strikingly self-oriented (subjective) and uncharitable about the virtues and capacities of people other than his own.

To be fair, Hegel's focus is on the reality for everyday man in everyday life, and whether these individuals were free (fully self-determined selves who, through the institutions of the state, self-govern for the good of the whole). But this overlooks the rich tradition of the East that struggled with the issues of freedom and self-governance, and the proper relationship between the individual and the state. Perhaps as a general statement, there's truth to Hegel's perspective that individual freedom and universal laws of the state emerged first in the democratic movements of the West. Yet, as beneficial as these developments may have been, it is problematic to argue that this union between the divine and secular (the free divine essence that operates rationally and universally in the material world) served objective and universal ends. Those who suffered under Western colonialism, for instance, would likely have a different perspective from the subjective "our way" that the West universalized and objectified.

Judged from this viewpoint, Hegel's theory may be quite wrong. History is linear for Hegel. That perspective is challenged by some thinkers from "the Orient" that Hegel dismissed as thought from the backwater -- thought that was "outside the world's history." Some of those thinkers, contemporary with the Pre-Socratics, tended to view history cyclically. At its core, that world was and always will be never-ending change that is characterized by force and counter-force, resolution and balance, that regenerates itself in perpetuity. In a way, this this is the essence of Hegel's dialectic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). But where Hegel saw purposeful progression toward ever higher levels of freedom toward an eternal Absolute (man's union with God), these thinkers from the East saw the only permanent reality as change itself.

Hegel captured something fundamental in history. He traced the development of freedom (the capacity to make free choices), but he overlooked the tie of that freedom to man's (and history's) biological core. At that core, man is immersed in self-interest, despite the aspirations of many that man can (should?) have the capacity to operate for the good of the whole. In this this view of the world, self-interest confronts self interest. Tension and conflict are resolved through cooperation or overcoming until new cycles of self interest emerge that again must be dealt with (new power dynamics, new laws, etc.), and this dialectical cycle repeats itself through time and space, endlessly. Perpetual conflict, not permanent harmony, could be the essence of our history.

[محمود النويشي · Rating 3 out of 5]

التاريخ عند هيجل

أولا تاريخ أصلي: كتبه المؤرخ واصفا عصرا يعيشه

ثانيا تاريخ نظري: كتب في حقبة مختلفة وينقسم إلى:
+ نوع يقترب من التاريخ الأصلي من جهة الأسلوب وتأثير روح العصر
+ نوع يمكن وصفه بالتاريخ العملي. تاريخ برجماتي يهتم باستخلاص العبرة والعظة ويرى هيجل أن الشعوب لا تستفيد من هذا النوع لأن التاريخ لا يعيد نفسه
+ التاريخ النقدي: الذي يعود إلى الروايات المختلفة ليقوم بفحصها ودراستها ونقدها وبيان مدى حقيقيتها ومعقوليتها. وللمقارنة بين كتاب التاريخ لحقبة ما.
+ نوع يحمل خاصيتين متعارضتين هما الجزئية والعمومية. جزئي لأنه يتحدث عن جزء من تاريخ الإنسان وشريحة محددة أيضا (قانون - فن - دين - …) وهو عام لأنه يتحدث عن القانون آو الفن أو الدين بشكل عام وليس لفئة بشرية محددة. وهي نوع من الكتابة فلسفية للتاريخ الذي يبحث فيه عن تفسير أو صلة تربط أجزاء الموضوع ككل.

ثالثا: التاريخ الفلسفي:
دراسة التاريخ من خلال الفكر
ثم يتكلم عن تأثر الجغرافيا على صناعة التاريخ لأمة من الأمم مقسما الأراضي جغرافيا إلى أراض مرتفعة وأخرى سهلية وأخرى ساحلية ثم يتحدث عن تأثير كل منها

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

Whatever there is of history herein is ruined by the imposition of a theology lain over top of it. And when that isn't the problem, Hegel is convinced that 'the German people' (whatever that may be) have some sort of World-Historical role to play, as God's plan unfolds, which just seems conceited (see last part, "Part IV: The German World" passim, consisting of one third of the book). There's an awful lot of endless blather in this last part, especially, for example sentences like these: "[T]he Christian World has no absolute existence outside its sphere, but only a relative one which is already implicitly vanquished, and in respect to which its only concern is to make it apparent that this conquest has taken place." (Part IV, first paragraph). Or, "Time, since that epoch [the Reformation], has had no other work to do than the formal imbuing of the world with this principle, in bringing the Reconciliation implicit [in Christianity] into objective and explicit realization." (Part IV.III.1) There's some sort of triumphalism here, touting the Western/Christian (specifically Lutheran) world as a model to be imposed over all, for reasons that remain opaque, even after reading the whole book.

It's cringeworthy how --throughout the book-- he insists on throwing shade on non-Germans, the French, the English, the Italians, the "Hindoos" (e.g. "Brahmins are especially immoral."), indigenous North Americans (viz. "American savages"), the "Negroes" of Africa, etc. Perhaps this tendency of Hegel is worst in the "Introduction" that rambles on incessantly, where he most resembles a curmudgeonly racist exhibiting his prejudices. Because of its sketchiness, it would be best to skip the lengthy introduction, get to the body of the text, and only then come back to the author's introduction. As Hegel speaks with no particular authority on "the Oriental world" (Part I), you might also want to skip ahead to Parts II, III and IV: "The Greek, Roman and German Worlds".

Otherwise, this so-called Philosophy of History, should be compared to those interpretations of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit according to which Hegel is best understood as a mystic, and not a philosopher at all: "we must understand Hegel as a Hermetic thinker, if we are to truly understand him at all." (Magee, Glenn Alexander, Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001, p. 2.) Here's a representative quote, illustrating the mindless gobbledygook in the Philosophy of History:

Subjective Spirit, although testifying of the Absolute, is at the same time limited and definitely existing Spirit, as Intelligence and Will. Its limitation begins in its taking up this distinctive position, and here consentaneously begins its contradictory and self-alienated phase; for that intelligence and will are not imbued with the Truth, which appears in relation to them as something given [posited ab extra]. This externality of the Absolute Object of comprehension affects the consciousness thus: – that the Absolute Object presents itself as a merely sensuous, external thing – common outward existence – and yet claims to be Absolute: in the mediaeval view of things this absolute demand is made upon Spirit. (from Part IV, section 2, Chapter I. "The Feudality and the Hierarchy")

How Hegel could convince himself he was saying anything at all in such passages is a wonder to me; I hardly recognize the author of The Philosophy of Right in this book. If you remove these sorts of passages --call them theological-- then the body of the text The Philosophy of History would be about 1/3 shorter. Perhaps what's needed is a "Jefferson edition" that excises all the obscure passages as the above, removing not the mentions of miracles but any passage insistent on "transcendence" or such things, in order to see what's left of the book, as a history. As it stands, because of the degree of obscurantism herein, I cannot recommend this book by Hegel--there's so much else out there that is more worthwhile reading! Much of the history herein (I refer to Parts II, III, and IV especially) is covered (and better!) by any decent textbooks, such as Politics in the Ancient World (1983) by Moses I. Finley; The Roman Empire , by Colin Wells (1984); The Oxford History of Medieval Europe (1988) by George Arthur Holmes, or Europe: Hierarchy and Revolt 1320-1450 (1976), also by George Arthur Holmes. q.v. Wiki entry for historian George Holmes

[David Huff · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first foray into reading Hegel, and I was definitely at the deep end of the pool for much of it, and sometimes underwater. Still, I'm glad I read it, and managed to assimilate at least a few ideas. I recently joined an online reading group that is reading, and discussing, The Great Books. The Philosophy of History was their current book underway when I joined. Of course, I didn't realize they were only reading Hegel's famous introduction (100 pages or so), and not the entire book (another 350 pages). So, yes, I read it all.

The introduction, which for me had moments of being nearly incomprehensible, lays out Hegel's philosophy of history, and his ideas about "spirit" (hard to explain, sort of like the impulse of humanity toward freedom and growth through various societal stages -- and that's probably a weak and rudimentary explanation), and also his views on freedom and the need for the rule of law as overseen by the state.

After the introduction, Hegel compares and contrasts the various maturity levels and stages of different cultures of the past. In order, these were China, India, Persia, Greece, Rome, and Germany. Interestingly, his writing seemed to get more clear and easier to follow as the book progressed, with the last section seeming the most straightforward of all to me.

A couple of examples: "... the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom". And "... the History of the World .. what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not 'without God', but is essentially His Work"

A mind-stretching read; probably would've been 4 stars if Hegel wrote more clearly -- or if I were smarter.

[Rowland Pasaribu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hegel's philosophy of history is very much a product of its times, the more so for the overarching context of "Reason" in which he interprets history. The Philosophy of History is not a work that Hegel lived to see published. The massive text we have today is a reconstruction of a series of lectures Hegel gave at the University of Berlin in the 1820s. His students, colleagues, and friends were shocked at his sudden death in a cholera epidemic in 1831, and, feeling that he had still had many contributions to make, set about organizing and publishing his lectures. This project resulted in the posthumous publication not only of the Philosophy of History, but also of the Philosophy of Art, the Philosophy of Religion, and the History of Philosophy.

Born in 1770, Hegel lived through a number of major socio-political upheavals: the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars, and the aftermath of those wars (in which Europe began to be re-structured according to early nationalist principles). Hegel followed all these events with great interest and in great detail, from his days as a seminary student in the late 1780s through his various appointments in high school philosophy departments and on to his days as the foremost intellectual of his time. The Philosophy of History, like his first major work, the Phenomenology of Spirit, strives to show how these major historical upheavals, with their apparent chaos and widespread human suffering, fit together in a rational progression toward true human freedom.

The Introduction to the Philosophy of History does not go into much specific historical detail--Hegel is laying the groundwork for that pursuit, insisting on iron-clad basics like the idea that Reason rules history. He does, however, make a few brief references to contemporary intellectual projects and theories from which he wants to distance himself. Chief among these is a loose school of formalism, which was becoming increasingly popular in Germany. Formalism, for Hegel, includes those theories that seek to universalize certain elements of culture across the globe and across time. The most common approach such theories were taking was to posit an originary, united human culture and to argue that our contemporary culture consists of the separated fragments of this original whole.

Thus, Hegel dismisses the "state of nature" arguments of his contemporary, Friedrich von Schlegel, and disparages similar schools of thought that seek to link Greek culture with ancient Indian culture or contemporary western ethics with Confucian morality. (Sanskrit had been "discovered" only twenty years prior to these lectures, and much new work was being done on Indian philosophy). Hegel is careful to distinguish his own theory (which involves a series of truly unique cultural stages) from this "Catholic" (i.e., universal) theory about common human culture; this universalizing of culture, he says, proceeds only on the basis of similarities in the form of culture, and ignores cultural content (which is what really makes cultures distinct).

It must be emphatically noted that translating Hegel is notoriously difficult. Translations take a wide range of approaches to Hegel's conceptual vocabulary (which depends partly on a certain overlapping of terms)--some translate each German word as one English word, and some vary the translation of each term according to its changing context and emphasis. In addition, many translators capitalize words like "Spirit" or "Reason" to show when Hegel is referring to absolute, large-scale concepts and when he is not (in German, all nouns are capitalized all of the time). The translation used for this note is by Leo Rauch (see bibliography), who borrows tactics from various translations and comes up with a solid, contemporary version. Nevertheless, be prepared for some degree of confusion if you are working with another translation. If you are using this note to assist you with a different translation, it may be helpful to pick up a copy of Rauch's translation for comparison.

Hegel sets out these three main divisions of recorded history in order to clear the decks for his own method of "philosophic" history. That concept receives very little clarification in this introduction to the Introduction, but what is said about it depends heavily on the notion of Spirit that Hegel has already begun to build.

Spirit is Hegel's best-known and probably most difficult concept. The basic idea is that all of human history is guided by a rational process of self- recognition, in which human participants are guided to greater and greater self- awareness and freedom by a rational force that transcends them (Hegel will emphasize that we need not think of Spirit as God). The only interest of this force, Spirit, is to realize its own principle of true freedom. It does this by unfolding as human history, where the consciousness of freedom is the driving force. Each type of history that Hegel addresses here participates in this Spirit-guided process to some extent, and so each allows Hegel to set up some of the groundwork for his idea of Spirit.

We first encounter this idea in the context of original history, in which the spirit of the historian's writing is identical to the "spirit" of the times covered. (If the translator has used a small "s" for spirit here and a capital one elsewhere, it's because Hegel is referring to the "spirit of the times" rather than Spirit as a whole, transcendent force). A fundamental feature of the operation of Spirit in history is that its nature is self-reflective. Human history progresses as humans become increasingly self-aware, and as they correspondingly become aware of their freedom (through the state). The stages of this progress seem to correspond roughly to the types of history Hegel sets out. Thus, original history seems to be the most basic with regard to Spirit, since it has little or no capacity to reflect on the spirit of the times--it is of the times, and therefore cannot transcend them.

Reflective history, then, takes us up a level to the point where the historian is capable of reflection on earlier times. The most advanced method of reflective history is specialized history, since it splits history along conceptual, thematic, and therefore universal lines (by choosing to focus on law, religion, etc). By bringing this universal viewpoint to bear, specialized reflective history comes closest to Hegel's own project (philosophic history), in which universal principles truly come first. Philosophic history taps directly into the Spirit that guides world history, because this Spirit is essentially a force of Reason. Philosophy (particularly in pure logic) comes to know the characteristics of Spirit first, then looks for them in the events of history. The characteristics of Spirit that it comes to know are, roughly, that Spirit seeks only to realize its own nature, which is freedom.

Thus, Hegel is already marking the rough outlines of what he means by Spirit, and is setting up his historical method (philosophic history) as the best one for understanding this guiding force in history (because philosophy knows it beforehand). We should note that this already gives Hegel a justification problem: he can only argue that he is right about Spirit based on 1) the logical analysis of Reason itself; or 2) the detailed study of history. There's no time for the former proof, and the detailed proof must come later (remember, this whole text is an introduction). Thus, Hegel says, for now we must simply have "faith" that history is rational.

Hegel's discussion of the means of Spirit allows him to bring us closer to the kind of "common sense" history we know, even as he advances some extremely intricate metaphysical theory. Hegel uses both of these aspects to continue his running battle against the apparent improbability of his proposition that Reason runs world history.

It may come as a relief to begin to hear about actual human beings, with their selfish drives, interests, and "passions." This seems suddenly to be a much more down-to-earth approach, especially when Hegel admits that history presents itself as a "slaughter-bench" inspiring "grief" and "helpless sadness." Unjust wars spring to mind as soon as any discussion of Reason in history is raised, and Hegel was witnessing his share of upheaval at the time of writing. The American and French Revolutions, each with their apparent advancement of human society and their simultaneous wanton butchery, were fresh in his mind (though we should keep in mind that neither of the World Wars were even on the horizon).

Nonetheless, Hegel cites these horrors of history only in passing, and one suspects that he wishes to dispose of the most difficult challenges to his theory at one blow--hence, Hegel immediately returns to his theory, implying that it is the only viable choice besides despair or irresponsible aloofness. We must, that is, believe that these tragedies are "sacrifices" to a higher purpose.

If this emotional discussion leaves us feeling that Hegel is more aware of the problems of concrete history than we thought, the next discussion launches us directly back into nearly total abstraction. Hegel wants us to grasp the sense in which human activity is the means used by Spirit to realize itself. What is particularly challenging about this proposition is that Hegel must explain precisely how Spirit "uses" humans for its own ends; in short, he must show a connection or even a unity between abstract Spirit and real human action. Hegel bases this unity on a proof that he attributes here only to "metaphysical logic": truth is the unity of the universal with the subjective particular. This actually makes intuitive sense (we might think of the framers of the U.S. constitution, who, through a unity of their own interests with a universal Idea of freedom, wrote the document taken as the essential truth of the State (whose purpose in history went on to transcend the purpose of any of the framers). Hegel wants to show that history unfolds only in as much as there is a relationship between human passion and universal ideas--a union of extreme opposites.

The metaphysical version of this union is complex. Spirit has freedom as its central principle, but this is a different sort of freedom than arbitrary human free will. The freedom of Spirit can also be called a necessity, since Spirit finds its freedom simply in realizing itself--it's almost as if it's free to do one infinite thing. In contrast, human will is free in a very finite, fickle, and particular sense; it is subjective, serving only its subject. The union of these two, the universal and the subjective, is the means of history. What they accomplish together (the founding of States, etc.) is history itself. We should note that this unity of opposites has much to do with what Hegel refers to elsewhere as the "dialectic": universal Spirit knows itself as an object, and struggles against itself (its particular, subjective aspect). In more worldly terms, humans struggle to know themselves, and progress by negating some particular aspect of themselves in favor of a universal (the principle of the State). Thus, there is a dialogue, a progressive back-and- forth, between the subjective particular aspect and the objective universal aspect of this spiritual unity that drives history.

[Jacob Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

(The page numbers come from the Brittanica Great Books Series, volume 46).

Hegel is trying to overcome the dilemma that social life poses: per man's subjective life the important thing is freedom of spirit. However, man also lives in community and the norms of the community often bind his freedom of spirit (it is to Hegel's credit that he recognized this problem generations before Nietszche and the existentialists).

Given Hegel's commitment about the fulfillment of spirit, it follows that communities grow. As seen above, Hegel's applies to history the problem of self-fulfillment. How does man realize the fulfillment of the Idea?

Eastern Cultures: Hegel notes that these cultures—India, China, Persia, Egypt—were unable to bring about a harmony of spirit and sense. The Greek world developed from the Oriental world because it was able to embody Geist in such a way to emancipate spirit from “dead matter” (258).

Jews: realization that God is pure, subjective Spirit. Ends up negating finite reality.

Greek: opposite of Jewish mentality. Harmonizes God with "natural expression." Ends up with idolatry. Greek polis is pariochial. Each state his its own God. A universal realization of spirit is thus impossible. Men were identified with Greek state. Democracy natural expression. There is a necessary contradiction within the Greek polis: only represents a part of finite reality.

Romans: Origin of the idea as "Person," bearer of "abstract right".

Christianity: the finite subject and absolute spirit can be reconciled. The task of history is to make this reconciliation public--this is the Church.

Germans: they were to take it to the next stage.

The rest of European history is a working out these processes, a transformation of institutions. It is hear that we see feudalism, etc. At this point we need to correct a mistake about Hegel: Hegel is not saying that world history climaxes with Prussian Germany. There is no sensible way he could have believed that. Germany was weak and defeated when he wrote (it would have been interesting and perhaps more perceptive to say that Russia was the bearer of the World Spirit, especially in light of 20th century politics). Nonetheless, as Hegel notes and as his critics routinely miss, history did take an interesting turn in the 19th century and the force of ideas does not simply stop because the historian wants them to stop.

Monarchy and the State

Hegel sees “the state” as the mode in which the individual enjoys his freedom, but only in the sense of the willing according to the whole. In order to avoid confusion, Hegel must be seen as continuing Herder's thoughts: healthy states are organic outgrowths of individuals and communities (170).

Another term of possible confusion is Hegel's use of “constitution.” By it he does not mean the vehicle of salvation that American conservatives think. A constitution is simply how society is arranged and not necessarily on paper (173).

Hegel writes, “Now monarchy is that kind of constitution which does indeed unite the members of a body politic in the head of government as in a point; but regards that head neither as the absolute dictator nor the arbitrary ruler, but as a power whose will is regulated by the same principle of law as the obedience of the subject (208).

American constitutionalists love to pretend that monarchy = despotism, but Hegel demonstrates that this is not the case. If we judge the world on how modern America develops, we will fail to understand Hegel. In Hegel's time, as per most of history, societies were often ethnically unified along a cultural (usually religious) center. Because of that, the monarch usually would not will something to the detriment of his subjects. Today's America, however, is officially predicated on the negation of that unifying center and Americans, even (especially!) conservatives, cannot understand that.

Hegel warns of the chaos of the Republicanism that plagued Greece and Rome. While it is good that man is free and makes decisions, the problem arises when all men are free and make decisions that contradict one another. This kind of Republicanism necessarily leads to oligarchy, for the the individual with the most power and money will make the most powerful decision (and thus negate the weaker individual's decision and free choice). By contrast, Hegel points to the monarch as the final arbiter (281).

Hegel's Christianity

From a historical Christian perspective, Hegel's form of Christianity is pretty awful and need not be defended. On the other hand, his criticisms of Roman Catholicism, while often unfair, are interesting and I want to focus on a few of them. While Hegel rejected the sacred matter views of ancient Christianity, per the Eucharist and relics, he charged that this view chained the spirit to matter and institutions. While I don't think that is true, it is interesting that he phrased his critique that way. Orthodox theologians have always charged Rome's view of the Filioque as enslaving the Holy Spirit to institutions. Consider: if the Spirit proceeds from Father and Son because it is the Spirit of “Christ,” then the Spirit necessarily proceeds from the flesh of Christ. Keep in mind that “Christ” refers to the Incarnate Son, not to the Eternal Logos. This is a point all sides agree on. While technically speaking, the West teaches the Spirit proceeds from the Eternal Logos, that's not what the word “Christ” means. In that case, Hegel's criticism of Rome is quite interesting (the irony should not be lost because Hegel, too, accepted the Filioque).

Conclusion

This is probably the best place to start with Hegel. One should consult a history of philosophy manual and get reasonably familiar with Hegel's terms. Having done that, this text is fairly easy to read, if somewhat boring at times.

[أبو محمد · Rating 4 out of 5]

كما هي مشكلتي مع كثير من أطروحات المسيري ، أتفق هنا كثيراً مع هيجل في النظرية .. أختلف بعنف في التطبيق و الرؤية النهائية !
في الكتاب عشرات المقولات و النظريات الفسلفية لرؤية التاريخ تستحق التأمل و التقدير بصورة ممتازة .. فالتقسيم الأولى للمؤرخين و رؤية التاريخ لثلاثة أقسام يحتاج الى مذاكرة و مراجعة دائمين لفرط أهميته .. ثم يمضي الكتاب برؤى أتفق معها لدرجة التعصب مثل :

* " لقد أتى على الناس حين من الدهر كانوا يعلنون فيه إعجابهم بحكمة الله كما تظهر في الحيوانات و النباتات و بعض الأحداث الفردية المعزولة . و لكن ، لو سلمنا بأن العناية الالهية تتجلى في موضوعات الوجود و صوره هذه ، فلم لا نسلم بأنها تتجلى في التاريخ الكلي ؟ إن هذا التاريخ الكلي للعالم يعد أضخم من أن ينظر اليه على هذا النحو في نظر الناس .. غير أن الحكمة الالهية هي نفسها شئ واحد في الجليل و الضئيل من الأمور . و يجب علينا ألا نتخيل أن الله يبلغ من الضعف حداً يجعله لا يستطيع أن يمارس حكمته على نطاق واسع "

كذلك الحكمة الشهيرة التي أتفق و أختلف معها بنفس الدرجة (فنابليون استفاد من قرائته لتجربة الاسكندر مع المصريين و أهمية خداعهم بعامل الدين ) :

* " ما نتعلمه من التاريخ ، أنه لا يوجد أحد يتعلم من التاريخ " !


و عن علاقة الدين بالدولة :

" يرتبط الدين أوثق ارتباط بالمبدأ السياسي ، فلا يمكن أن توجد الحرية إلا حيث ينظر الى الفردية على أنها تمتلك وجودها الإيجابي و الواقعي في الوجود الالهي ، و يمكن أن يفسر هذا الارتباط بطريقة أخرى على النحو التالي : أن الوجود الدنيوي - بوصفه وجوداً زمنياً زائلاً فحسب - ينشغل بالمصالح أو الاهتمامات الجزئية ، وهو بالتالي نسبي و غير مشروع . و هو لا يبرر ذاته الا بمقدار ما تكون النفس الكلية ، التي هي مبدؤه ، و التي تشيع فيه مبررة على نحو مطلق ، وهي لا يمكن أن يكون لها هذا التبرير مالم يُنظر لها على أنها التجلي المحدد و الوجود الظاهري للماهية الالهية ..
و هذا ما نعنيه بقولنا أن الدولة تعتمد على الدين . "

و عن العلمانية :

" هناك حماقة أخرى نلتقي بها في عصرنا الحاضر ، و هي حماقة الزعم باختراع و تطبيق الدساتير السياسية بطريقة مستقلة عن الدين ... وهذا الانفصال (يزعمون) للأخلاق السياسية للدستور عن ارتباطها الطبيعي ضروري للمحافظة على الطابع الخاص لهذا الدين الذي لا يعترف أن العدلة و الأخلاق مستقلان و جوهريان ..
(رداً على هذا الزعم) لكن حين تُحرم مبادئ التشريع السياسي و مؤسساته على هذا النحو من القيمة الذاتية ، وتنفصل عن ملاذها الأخير ، ملاذ الضمير ، ذلك المستقر الهادئ الذي يرتكز عليه عرش الدين ، فإن هذه المبادئ و المؤسسات تصبح مفتقرة الى أي مركز حقيقي بنفس الدرجة التي تضطر معها مجردة وغير متعينة .....
الدستور السياسي المعين لا يمكن أن يوجد إلا مرتبطاً بدين معين "

و عن وضع الدين في مكونات الدولة :

"يحتل الدين وسط هذه الوحدة الواعية (الدولة و حياة الشعب) المركز الأعلى (فوق القانون و الفن و الأخلاق و العلم) ففيه تصبح الروح و هي ترتفع فوق تحديدات الوجود الدنيوي و الزماني ، واعية بالروح المطلق ، و في هذا الوعي بالوجود الذي يوجد بذاته تتخلى عن اهتماماتها الجزئية و مصلحتها الفردية فهي تتركها جانباً في سبيل التأمل و الخشوع . "

" بؤرة معرفة الانسان ووعيه هي الدين . اما الفن و العلم فليسا الا جانبين و شكلين متنوعين لهذا المضمون ذاته "

و عن التوافق :

" اذا كنا قد انتهينا أن قوام الحرية هو اتفاق الأفراد جميعاً في الدولة على تنظيماتها فإننا من الواضح أننا في هذه الحالة لم نتأمل الا جانبها الذاتي فحسب . و النتيجة الطبيعية لهذا المبدأ هي أنه لا يمكن لأي قانون أن يكون صحيحاً او صالحاً بدون موافقة الجميع ، و قد نحاول تجنب هذه الصعوبة بالقول أن الأقلية لابد أن تذعن للأغلبية . لكن جان جاك روسو سبق أن لاحظ أنه لن تكون هناك حرية في هذه الحالة طالما أن ارادة الأقلية لم تحترم ..
و لقد حدث في المجلس التشريعي البولندي أن كانت تشترط موافقة كل عضو من أعضائه قبل اتخاذ أية خطوة سياسية (التوافق) و كان هذا النوع من الحرية هو الذي أدى لانهيار الدولة . "

و عن مبدأ حاكمية الشعب و الرجوع له وحده دائماً :

" إنه من الأحكام المبتسرة و الخطيرة و الزائفة القول بأن الشعب وحده هو الذي يمتلك العقل و البصيرة ، وهو وحده الذي يعلم ما هي العدالة ، ذلك أن كل فريق من الشعب يمكن أن يزعم لنفسه أنه هو الشعب ، وفي مقابل ذلك فإن ما يؤسس الدولة هو العلم الن��ضج لا القرارات الشعبية "

حتى ان الأمر يستحق السخرية من شدة هذه المقولات كأنها مقتطفات من كتاب جهادي للحاج "هيجل" زعيم تنظيم الجهاد فرع ألمانيا القرن التاسع عشر !

لكن ..

نجئ عند التطبيق في الثلث الأخير نجد كوارث !
من تعصب للغرب و تبرير للاستعمار الأوروبي بل و تشجعيه بصورة كبيرة ، الى تعصب و احتقار لهنود الأمريكتين و رميهم بكل نقيصة ، الى عداء و احتقار و تشنيع مجنون على الأفارقة بكل القصص الرخيصة القذرة ، الى وصف لأمة العرب والمسلمين بأنها امبراطورية التعصب و السلب و النهب الى وصف المغول بالنقائص الى وصف الصينين والهنود بانهم اناس خارج التاريخ العام ..
اذن ما هو التاريخ العام عند هيجل ؟
تاريخ أوروبا عامة .. يضاف اليه الدول الملتصقة بها !
قمة التعصب الآري .. قمة التطرف الأبيض العنصري .. قبل أن يكتب فوكوياما نهاية التاريخ قال هيجل ما هو أبشع بأن الشرق تخرج منه الحضارة لكنها تنتهي في الغرب .. فاذا كان تصنيف فوكوياما على أسس النظرة الاقتصادية للتاريخ فنظرة هيجل على أساس النظرة العنصرية الأوربية المستعلية .. حتى عبد الفتاح امام لم يتحمل وكتب بغضب في الهامش أن نظرة هيجل تثير الغيظ و الحنق .. و الآن فقط فهمت لماذا اتهموه أنه أحد دعاة النازية المبكرين .. الحقيقة أنه كان داعية لنظرية (عبء الرجل الأبيض) لا النازية بصورتها النيتشوية ..
فلسفة تاريخ عام قابلة للنقاش و فيها الكثير من الحق .. تطبيق عنصري بشع !

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whenever you drive in my small burrough, the roads run fairly smoothly. People make full stops at the proper signs. They yield to those who have right of way. They know how to use traffic circles (sort of). They pull over for emergency vehicles. They more or less drive the speed limit. But when you venture closer to neighboring Chicago, your life is increasingly in the hands of others. You can smell the weed on the interstate in your car with the windows up (folks, that's a lot of weed!!!). You may be cruising above the speed limit, but there's always a line of freaked-out drivers who run up your rear, their car twitching like their brains, until they find a nanometer of space to slip into the other lane and weave around cars like a homing missile. Four lanes of traffic get blocked by dozens of these snaking vehicles forcing people to slam on the brakes, with accidents and traffic stops cluttering the shoulders. In the city itself, you get cars stopped in the middle of the street while they have an extended conversation with Joey from UPS. Pedestrians step right in front of your moving vehicle, as if they think that in a battle they will be victorious over machine. Similarly, hipsters, spending hundreds of dollars each month to board their own cars, scurry around like cockroaches on scooters and rented bicycles, obstructing traffic as they stare daggers at you for polluting the environment. And if you want to talk about the overall dangers of transport in the Windy City, you risk getting harassed, robbed, and I guess even set on fire on the "El".

What does this have to do with Hegel? Well, in his series of lectures that posthumously became "The Philosophy of History", Hegel is reviewing world societies throughout history for how well they reflect certain attributes. I'll discuss why he's doing this shortly. One of those attributes is freedom, and he seems to be making contradictory statements about it. He points out that there is more freedom in those states where the people voluntarily give up some of their freedoms. This isn't the only contradiction Hegel finds, and so his book is packed with them. This is also why readers assume Hegel is full of gobbledygook. But I think there's considerable truth to Hegel's reasoning, and considerable danger.

So back to my example of Chicago traffic, we can see with our own eyes the benefits of following laws that restrict our freedom for the greater freedom of the collective. We are free to travel from point A to B. But if how we chose to get there is entirely reckless and self-centered, then the reality is that we may never get to Point B, and we restrict the freedom of others to also go to point B. If we agree to abide by certain laws that restrict our choices, then we have a kind of order.

But Chicago has a lot of the same laws as my town, so the difference is not only found in the rules. It's in the sheer numbers of individuals in one place. It's in the thinking and behaviors of the people who live there. It's in the SPIRIT (geist) of the place. And that's what Hegel was interested in.

Hegel believed that it was through the push and pull of billions of individuals throughout history, each trying to asert their own will against Nature, that different nations developed their own spirit. Over time, the overall spirit of historical peoples began to show certain traits of an emerging consciousness of a Unified Mind or Spirit (God?), and Hegel concluded that History is the process of that Mind as it develops awareness of itself. Hegel's "Philosophy of History" follows the history of the world in VERY broad sweeps as he attempts to demonstrate how the collective thinking of a people evolved into a growing awareness of Mind. This awareness is brought about through the evolving phenomenon of the State that develops laws of ever-increasing wisdom and cultivates behaviors of its citizens that reflect awareness of the Universal.

Hegel's conclusion is that societies have progressed across various phases of State (despotism, democracy, aristocracy, and enlightened monarchy) through three main epochs. In the "Oriental" world (which includes the histories of East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa), one person was free, like the pharaoh or the emperor. In the Greco-Roman world, a group of persons were free, like the Patricians. In the Christian European world, all persons are considered free. Freedom is the essence of Spirit, the one unified Spirit in which we all share, and the Spirit evolves self-consciousness of itself through "system-identifying" concepts of truth throughout World History.

As Spirit is trying to figure things out, we get a lot of seemingly contradictory, self-negating behaviors. People in one society may be loathe to step on an ant, while refusing to help a starving person of a lower caste. Or the Yogi or Buddhist mystic may engage in self-harm behaviors to ascend to an understanding of the Universal.

And this is where things get very confusing. Hegel is often credited with developing and using "dialectics" to analyze history and support his views. This has impacted Hegel's own historical legacy. Dialectics refers to a dialogue, as in two people with opposing views conversing. But dialectical thinking can refer to negation of determinants of thought--whenever you consider an idea, you must also consider the antithesis, or negative idea. For example, if a system is vulnerable to police injustice, then consider a system with no police. Hegel never applied dialectics in this way, but he does get blamed, especially by the conservative right, for the ideological divide in the postmodern world.

After now reading both his "Phenomenology of Mind (Spirit)" and "Philosophy of History", I really don't see where Hegel "developed" or "used" dialectics at all. Dialectics had been around since at least Plato, and Hegel seemed to be merely observing the role of dialectics in all thought and behavior through history. Even the idea of self-consciousness is dialectical--how is the subject also the object of a cognition? The Christian Triune of Father and Son comprising Absolute Spirit is a seemingly contradictory concept. No, Hegel wasn't USING dialectics; he was being observant and speculative, so he wasn't being negatively rational, but positively rational.

Schopenhauer had his own response to this dialectical push and pull, and himself was not the biggest fan of dialectics. As a proponent of sufficient reason, Schopenhauer tried to stay in the realm of logic, which deals with the "a priori", as opposed to dialectics, which is "a posteriori" (derived from the conflict of two or more opinions of others instead of pure reason). While dialectics can be a method of discovering truths, he felt dialectics risked spreading errors in society because its power to convince was based on the obstinacy and forcefulness of the arguer (see his essay on "Logic and Dialectic"). People tend to defend their position no matter the evidence against it, and it is the skill of the art of "converse" that wins a dialectical argument rather than the soundness of reason, which can potentially lead to disastrous results. I do think Hegel also felt this way, which is why, in "The Philosophy of History", he points out how dialectics can both progress and hurt a society, which I'll address shortly. It was only after Hegel's death that dialectics went from being an historically observable "organic" guide of consciousness to THE active tool of CONTROLLING the course of progress, a post-Kantian Idealism that has widened the contemporary divide between those who want to be on the right side of future history. Ideas, language, and social context have become the basis of understanding "reality", and postmodern occultists, like William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, then took it a step further--control the ideas, language, and social context, and you control reality. None of that is Hegelian.

If I have any critique of my own towards Hegel, it would be that there is a very egocentric and nationalist attitude at play in this book. An assumption is made that the "Germanic" world (meaning the Christian European world, but Hegel was German, so go figure) is at a higher level of historical progression towards Truth than the rest of civilization. Granted, he didn't have hardly any sources until the Greek accounts of Herodotus and Thucydides, and Livy for the Roman period, so he is dismissive of cultures outside of the Western tradition who he says don't have much history and have largely remained stagnant. The Germanic viewpoint clearly gets biased representation here, and as a consequence, Europe is portrayed as Perfection already achieved!

Now, I am not saying that Hegel doesn't make some good points regarding freedom in the Western world--but I AM saying his bias is the same bias that has continued to plague us today. Let's continue Hegel's analysis into a present-day situation.

Citizens of Western nations do enjoy civil freedoms not always found in other parts of the world while still having consequences to decisions. For example, these consequences can and do involve codified punishment, but Western nations do not punish the innocent--only the individual is punished, not their families and friends, whereas in some other cultures, there may be found the idea of blood guilt. The West is taught that blood guilt is abhorrent and unjust, yet it is from the so-called "enlightened" Western societies that such ideas continue to take root precisely because of that freedom. ICE rounding up citizen and non-citizen alike to find transgressors of law is an example of suspicion aimed at a group of people purely based on ethnic lines, even though it is under the guise of enforcing the laws of the State. Critical race theory involves some of this idea of guilt inherent in your heritage and even your DNA, yet its adherents do not see this thinking as a "regression", but rather as a "progression". Racism is bad because it leads to inequality of freedom, so to negate racism, one must embrace racism to elevate historically oppressed groups over historically privileged groups. Dialectics are again in evidence, but not necessarily leading to Hegel's idea of self-awareness. He might say that both of these examples I've given are merely power grabs, not moving towards freedom and justice for all. But is it any wonder that we have such seemingly contradictory theories when people like Hegel with their religious and ethnic biases of history have been calling the shots for centuries?

What I would ask of Hegel and of any activist, policymaker, or philosopher is--how do we know when the spirit of our age is progressing towards Truth? Who gets to say so? Is the Absolute always speaking through our actions? Should we be actively trying to steer the State in a particular direction, and if so, how do we know that direction isn't backwards?

And so, in Hegel's excitement over his own biased conclusions, he did inadvertently leave an exploding trap for us to trip over. Just like Hegel, we see the present moment as the epitomy of thought, or at least an advancement of previous thought. Hegel assumed "Christian" and "Germanic" thought to be the right way 200 years ago, and now "our" way today is the right way. "Our" way operates on a higher level. And when we think we're operating on a higher level, we put ourselves in the position of priests, backed by a special understanding of the Absolute to tear down that which is "lower than", using destruction as a tool for transformation as though we were God. This is how we end up with Kentaji Brown Jackson not being able to answer publicly the question of "what is a woman". She can't even say if she herself is a woman. She must consult one of the new masters, since the old priests she'd known her whole life are obsolete.

To be clear, Hegel isn't pushing a particular dialectic, and he really isn't advocating for any particular direction for the future. In fact, he's quite cautionary about how historical change comes about. In his opening chapter, he warns that there are times when selfishness of individuals coalesce under the guise of progression, but is really just an excuse to renounce their current duty to the Collective. He even admits that as we grow in awareness, there will be more people trying to justify their actions as attempting to reach the Universal, but even when failing to find that connection, continue to "impeach the authority of duty generally under the claim of destitution of solid foundation" or "to show up the limitations in which (their aspirations) are fettered." It sounds like he's saying that no matter the circumstances or how harmonious the Spirit of the Age, there will always be kids who don't wanna. In fact, the better things are for people, the more they are free to bitch about it.

"At such a time, therefore, we are sure to see a people finding satisfaction in the idea of virtue; putting talk about virtue partly side by side with actual virtue, but partly in the place of it." He goes on to say that, "At the same time the isolation of individuals from each other and from the Whole makes its appearance; their aggressive selfishness and vanity; their seeking personal advantage and consulting this at the expense of the State at large."

He uses the original democratic experiment in ancient Athens as an example, which he believes ultimately failed because its effectiveness rested on the subjective convictions of its population. He points to the influence of the Sophists as encouraging individuals to bring everything to the test of their own conscience, resulting in a diversity of uninformed opinions on how things were going badly. A democracy only works, he says, when everyone is involved actively in public business, not through mere votes alone. Complacency among citizens of a democracy leads to low investment in the State and high individual subjective resentments, further propagating voting patterns based on such caprices as party loyalty, what policies will give out the most free stuff to the most deserving, and which candidate is better looking. Such a democracy does not reconcile the Subjective with the Objective, and thus is doomed to decay through the self-negating behaviors of its own citizens. In other words, Hegel says that Athens self-negated to the point of suicide.

Hegel's philosophy both has conservative and progressive elements. I wonder if all the right-wing criticism of Hegel comes from anyone who actually read Hegel, because much of what he says seems like it would be up their alley. Similarly, I would think progressives would find inspiration from his analysis of history, and both sides of the spectrum could benefit from the cautionary tales Hegel weaves. Hegel was issuing a warning to everyone about the "Sychophants" of our day who wield social justice as a self-serving means of grabbing power. I think that's something we all should be awake to before we jump on a political bandwagon.

But rather than uniting people in awareness, which is his vision for the end of History, Hegel's philosophy seems to please nobody, which would probably include himself if he were alive to witness his legacy. If he felt Germany was at a such high level of Statehood, he probably wouldn't appreciate how we've been running around with his ideas like a pair of scissors. Would he understand why there is a strong desire for redistribution of economic and social capital? Would he applaud the dilution of Christianity in Germany by mass immigration from those parts of the world he feels are less progressed? What would he think when faced with modern developments like social credit scores, e-currency, nuclear weapons, robot wolves, flying drones, and powerful NGOs touting social justice experiments scrupulously administered by non-Christian global authorities? Would he eat his words at the rise of the ultranationalist Third Reich in his own land a century after he said, "The destiny of the German peoples is to be the bearers of the Christian principle"?

So it's possible that, if Hegel could have lived to be 250-years-old and seen how history played out, he would have wanted to go back to the drawing board. But maybe not.

He explains, "...as soon as Thought arises, it investigates the various political constitutions: as the result of its investigation it forms for itself an idea of an improved state of society, and demands that this ideal should take the place of things as they are." This implies that no stone must be left unturned, no possibility of thought unexplored, in order to get to Truth--regardless of the human motivations of the constituent individual minds to do so, or who gets hurt in the process. If societies must fall, they must fall. If history stumbles backwards before falling forward, so be it. That's why, though Hegel lamented the decline of ancient Athenian Greece, he points out that they had to give way because they still had slavery, and no state reliant on slavery infinitely reflects the Absolute. Of course, he does mention there was a little thing called the Peloponnesian War, where an aristocratic society of really SERIOUS slavers called the Spartans subjugated the comparatively far more free and democratic Athenians, but whatever. Hegel's history is more poetic than accurate, more interested in the character of a people than a sequence of events.

In summary, Hegel's progression of history reminds me of high-speed video of a slime mold, feeling and branching its way with dendritic pseudopods around the various pathways of a maze, extending and withdrawing as it makes mistakes and comes across dead ends, until at last it finds what it seeks.

Is Hegel correct in assuming history is about humans rising from unconscious Nature to union with a Conscious Mind? Or are we as individuals really no more different than the cells of a slime mold? Perhaps our human condition is, like Œdipus, to be possessed of knowledge but ignorant of the character of our own actions, and thus of any "corrupting element". Maybe AI will complete the process of Absolute Self-Awareness for us, and thus bring the definitive End of History. None of us really know, but I, for one, am wary of our ability to actually learn and progress from history. Perhaps I'm just as pessimistic as Schopenhauer... But I might add that the most chilling thing Hegel says in this book is "evil lies in consciousness".

Despite the problems inherent with Hegel, I think he is not a philosopher we should casually dismiss in contemporary life, and, though I concede the difficulty, we should be careful to not misinterpret him and corrupt his ideas by only hearing what others have thought about him over the past two centuries. Of the two books of his that I've read, this one is far less abstract and more accessible. Therefore, go straight to the source and decide for yourself what you think.

My own conclusion? I think this book is a great tool for all of us to reflect on our own character, the quality of our desires and self-described virtues, and the spirit of our own age, so that maybe we can find the common ground from which we all spring.

REVIEW SUMMARY: There are interesting ideas that have a lot of observable truth, but it loses points because it contains conclusions based on preconceived notions, a cursory survey of world history, some questionable interpretations of societal character, and some fatal logical traps. On the other hand, the cultural significance is of the highest order. It's important to read Hegel for yourself, since his work has been assimilated, one way or another, into our current global sociopolitical debate. Total score: 4/5

[Kamyar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hegel’s philosophy may articulate a sophisticated case for human freedom, yet the same philosophy comes up with the coldest rationalization of genocidal murder and carnage. Such contradiction is built in the very structure of the Hegelian system of knowledge production. It is possible because Hegel’s philosophy of world history is based on a paradigmatic apartheid. He considers the vast majority of the world’s peoples, especially Africans, as unenlightened children, peoples of nature. Opposite them stands the altar of the high and mighty: the male, urbane, bourgeois, Protestant West.
Theodore Adorno, too, sees Hegel as the quintessential bourgeois philosopher, although he’s highly influenced by Hegel’s system of thought. He once called Hegel a “bourgeois idealist”.

[mohab samir · Rating 5 out of 5]

التاريخ هو تاريخ التطور ومن هنا ينقسم الى تاريخ تطور الطبيعة و يتم تصويره فى المنطق . ثم تاريخ تطور الروح اى التاريخ التطورى لفكرة الحرية التى هى الهدف النهائى لرحلة الروح الجدلية التى تظل تسلب ذاتها وتمزقها حتى تصل الى غايتها ولكن هذا التمزق هو فى حد ذاته بناء للروح وتقدم فى تجلى حقيقتها وماهيتها لذاتها التى هى الحرية اى انها تستخدم ارادتها للوصول الى ذاتها اى الى حريتها فالحرية هى حقيقة الروح لكنها فى بدايتها تكون حرية مجردة او حرية طبيعية اما الحرية الفعلية لا تتحقق الا باتحاد الارادة الذاتية والارادة الموضوعية اى باتفاق الحرية الذاتية مع القوانين الموضوعية البناءة .
والعمل هو المبدأ السائد طوال رحلة التاريخ والمعرفة هى صورة هذا العمل وهى ايضا لا تتم الا من خلاله وهى بالتالى تطورية اى معرفة تاريخية . والدولة هى غاية هذه الرحلة التاريخية فى نظر هيجل فالفلسفة تتوقف عند تفسير الواقع تفسيرا عقلانياً لا التنبؤ بالمستقبل الذى تنقصنا معرفة عملية به او بطبيعة الاحداث الحاسمة التى ستؤدى اليه . وبالطريقة السابقة يوضح هيجل نشأة الدولة التاريخية ويهضم فى منهجه الجدلى التاريخى كافة النظريات السابقة عليه فى هذه القضية اى كيفية نشأة الدول وتطورها كمفهوم وكواقع وهى عنده المجال الحقيقى للحرية الموضوعية والتى فى ظلها يمكن لمجالات الروح ان تعمل وتتقدم فى عملها وهذه المجالات هى الفن والدين والفلسفة وهى المجالات المؤثرة والمتأثرة بروح الدولة ويكون نموهما جماعياً مكونين صورة متكاملة ومنطقية فى كل عصر .
ولا يعنى هيجل وجوب الخضوع لروح الدولة وشكلها فالخضوع الكامل للروح اى لروح الشعب فى جملته يوقف عجلة التطور الجدلى فالمعارضة الحقيقية البناءة والرغبة الصادقة والعمل على النهوض بالواقع بما فيه من اوجه القصور هى التى تدفع البعض للتخوف من التغير المستمر فيقومون بتبرير الواقع والقيام بتحسينه بصورة ابطأ لتهدئة الأوضاع مع التمسك بالقيم والموروثات الاجتماعية التى تتحمل الجزء الأكبر من تبرير الواقع .
وهى نفس الجدلية التى يتحقق من خلالها بناء الشخصية الفردية فالشخص المستسلم تماما او الراضى تماما لا يتقدم خطوة ولا تتطور شخصيته حتى نهاية حياته اما اذا تفهم الشخص الواقع تفهما يجعله راضيا عنه وهو لفهمه يدرك وجود الكثير من اوجه النقص والقصور والاعتوار فى الواقع فيكون معارضاً لاستمرار هذه الاوضاع والمفاهيم القاصرة ويبحث عن مسلك له وسطا بين جفاف الواقع وبحار الخيال فينمو الشخص بنمو واقعه فهو حتى لو ظن انه يعمل لشخصه فقط فهو لا يدرك انه يعمل فى مسيرة التاريخ التى لا يخرج منها شىء او فعل او فكر .
وبهذا تصبح الطريقة التى تتطور بها الطبيعة مطابقة للطريقة التى تتقدم بها الشخصية الفردية والدولة اى الروح الذاتى والروح الموضوعى ويكون تطور كل منهما محفزا لتطور الاخر وعاملا على سلبه فى آن واحد .

[Felix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh wow, this book got kinda weird. There's a lot of broad generalisations about historic cultures in here, as well as extensive retellings of Herodotus. The introduction lays out the meat of Hegel's theory of history, and the rest of it is just a kind of 'proof' that his theory is true.

And is it convincing? Not in the slightest. Scholarship has moved on enormously since the time that this was written, and our understanding of many of these cultures has changed enormously. This is particularly true of the discussions about China and India which have not aged well at all. His discussion on Islam is hardly better, but at least it is mercifully brief.

Stylistically though, this book is good. Hegel is absolutely not a bad writer, he just inclines towards abstraction. The introduction is one of the most challenging things that I've ever read, but once you get I got my head around it (taking extensive notes helped), the rest of the book is a lot easier. Very little after the 25-30% mark was particularly difficult to get through at all.

Despite this, Hegel is at his best when explaining lofty theoretical concepts. In these cases, his writing can be hard because it's so abstract, but it ultimately comes together in a rewarding way. When Hegel is telling history - well, that's quite different. The prose may be good, but he can be overlong in his descriptions of history, as well as frequently twist things to fit his own worldview. A very large portion of this book is just Hegel telling history this way. Really it's the introduction which is the most valuable. Little of what follows has aged particularly well.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

[2 stars for the translation; 5 because it's Hegel.]

I have finally gotten around to looking into the matter. The Sibree translation of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History can now be and should be set up on the upper-most shelf and forgotten. Cambridge University Press has recently published a new translation based on the critically established German text and is presumably now the English version to read. The Sibree text is helplessly outdated and was based on a faulty text of the lectures. Lectures on the Philosophy of History translated by Ruben Alvarado should help bring this lecture series into the 21st century. The Sibree text is ubiquitous and cheap because it is in the public domain. Don't be tempted to save a few $$$ -- be sure you've got the latest scholarship at your finger tips.

I am going to lay aside my reading of these lectures and pick it up again when I find a copy of this new translation.

If one is not reading Hegel in German, finding a good translation is of utmost importance. Fortunately there has been a recent spate of new translations which are replacing the flawed and outdated translations of earlier generations. The Miller translations of the Phenomenology and the Greater Logic have been serviceable, but we now have newer translations available, or coming available, of these Hegel's most important and dense works.

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

This is the new translation of Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history and is based on a critically established German text -- the first English translation of the entire series of lectures in 150 years. It should replace the old Sibree translation which is ancient and based on a flawed German text. The Sibree is cheap and ubiquitous because it is in the public domain. Do not be tempted to save a few $$$ by settling for it. When reading Hegel in translation it is of utmost important to have the latest scholarship available and hopefully this new translation should bring this set of lectures into the 21st centurty.

[Kasparas Skuja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Europocentrizmo ir išankstinių nuostatų kupina istorijos suvokimo sistema, bet tikrai įdomiai suvokiamas tas hėgeliškas pasaulėlis:)
Labai patiko Šliogerio įvadas ir Hėgelio istorijos filosofijos priešpriešinimas istorizmui.

[Karl Hallbjörnsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

It pains me to have to tell you this but this is some of the Hegel Whichst Is Bad. Read the Phenomenology or the SoL instead. This is a shitty translation as well.

[Frank · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not like to rate books, but insofar as the idea that History is an intelligible and alive force, for Hegel the progress of reason realizing its idea culminating in Freedom, i find very useful. The racism and bad history is what gives it a lower view.

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's fun i guess, he mostly modulates history through his system of philosophy and explains how the organizations, religions, and cultures of the world developed with a focus on great men who arise (like Alexander, Napoleon, Charlemagne). Like the aesthetics you can see the ideas in practice a little more clearly, for better or worse; this is presumably how he developed his abstract development of the spirit for Phenomenology. Probably an essential book of his, if you're committed to reading hegel.

[Rosewater Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

Очень и очень относительно полезное и практичное (продуктивное) чтение, если читатель не является ни последователем, ни ценителем гегельянства.
Теория развития "абсолютного духа" до самоотождествления или слияния с собою самим (звучит дилетантски, знаю), как оправдания и объяснения (алиби) исторических процессов - это грубая попытка вместить данные всемирного значения, доступные на момент попытки уму, в заготовленную систему, вне зависимости от того, сколь полноценными выступают в этом случае факты. К тому же, Гегель воображает себя не обделённым правом уличать в несоответствии его системе, в недостаточной последовательности отдельные народы (деятельность и решения), как если бы они являлись конкретными личностями.
Акцент на германском духе, естественно, "ожидан", и напомнил о "Современных французах" Нордау - конкретнее, том, что пишет автор о Мишле-историке.
Без сомнения, имеют место любопытные исторические детали, вещи, достойные цитирования, но на фоне общей картины "уабсолючивания" (новояз) они представляются столь низкопробными, что та же критика Мопассана в "Современных французах" (или обличения Чуковского в буржуазной подоплёке его произведений для детей) возымеет большее влияние если не на характер слушателя, то на характер восприятия информации им.
Для примеров, с конца до начала (перевод Алексея Водана):
"Наполеон так же не мог принудить Испанию к свободе, как Филипп II Голландию к рабству."
"..субъективная добродетель, управляющая только на основании убеждения, влечёт за собою ужаснейшую тиранию."
"Практический интерес пользуется предметами, поглощает их; теоретический интерес рассматривает их с уверенностью, что они в себе не представляют ничего отличающегося от него."
(прежде всего, у автора данной рецензии интерес, кхе-кхе, теоретический)
"Когда речь идёт о свободе, всегда следует выяснять, не говорят ли собственно о частных интересах."
(что включает и философские труды о формировании, организации и раскрытии духа народов в историческом контексте)
"..инквизиция судила по подозрению и, обладая, таким образом, ужасной властью над духовенством, на самом деле имела опору в национальной гордости."
(это может быть соотнесено с "Виновностью германского народа" Ясперса)
"..рождение является оракулом, чем-то независящим от всякого произвола."
(речь о престолонаследии, уточню)
"У человека есть совесть, и поэтому он должен свободно повиноваться."
(обоюдоострое утверждение)
"Государства и законы суть не что иное, как проявление религии в отношениях, существующих в действительности."
"Человечество было освобождено не столько от порабощения, как скорее посредством порабощения."
(это положение защищается как теми, кто "был" порабощён, так и теми, кто способствует непрямому порабощению)
"Отрицательная сторона прогресса заключается в том, что он состоит в уничтожении произвола и изоляции власти; его утвердительная сторона состоит в возникновении верховной власти, которая есть нечто общее, в возникновении государственной власти.."
(ближе к концу это положение подтверждается и конкретизируется на примере революций)
"..города как первая законная в себе сила представляют собой реакцию против насилия, свойственного феодальному строю."
(в результате оборачивающиеся средством трансформированного технократического феодализма)
"Набожность не имеет отношения к истории, и у неё нет истории.."
"..Церковь заменяла собой совесть.."
(..и продолжает заменять во времена, когда "совесть" представляется слишком общим либо извне навязываемым понятием)
"Бесцеремонная наивность не нуждается в образованности.."
(когда ты ощущаешь указующий на тебя, читатель, перст)
"Религия также не может устоять без мысли, и она отчасти приближается к понятию, отчасти же, будучи принуждаема самой мыслью, она становится интенсивной верой или, под влиянием отчаяния, вызванного мыслью, она, совершенно чуждая мысли, становится суеверием."
"..Тацит называет германцев: Securi adversus Deos."
(будем знать-с)
"Французы называют немцев entiers.."
(а кто называл немцев "бошами"?)
"..это лишь нам представляется дисциплиной, а для подвергаемых ей она является слепой судьбой, которой они с тупым страданием покоряются.."
(относительно римлян)
"..они не чтили sacra других народов (так же, как плебеи не чтили sacra патпициев).."
(любопытная открывается связь в характере римлян)
"Цари были изгнаны не плебеями, а патрициями.."
(для идеализирующих социализм)
"..этрусском искусстве, которое, отличаясь совершенной техникой и верным природе исполнением, лишено греческой идеальности и красоты.."
(вернее будет акцент сделать на "греческой", так как этрусская культура не имела целью подражания либо достижения чужеродного идеала)
"Государство, которое только что образовалось и основано на насилии, должно быть поддерживаемо насилием."
(прослеживается на примерах националистических переворотов)
"Рем погребён на Аветинской горе: она посвящена злым гениям, и туда удалялись плебеи."
(любопытно)
"Ливий говорит в предисловии к своему труду: 'В наше время мы не можем выносить ни наших недостатков, ни средств против них."
"В восточных государствах, в которых нет противоположностей, невозможна моральная свобода, так как высшим принципом является абстракция."
(моральная свобода, таким образом, не абстрактна, но конкретна, программна?)
"..после того, как один из этих великих людей совершал то, что было нужно, обнаруживалась зависимость, т.е. чувство равенства, проявляющегося по отношению к особому таланту, и его сажали в тюрьму, или подвергали высылке."
(как и появление сикофантов - не во многом отлично от текущего положения дел, хотя прямых параллелей проводить не стоит)
"Аристотель говорит, что исходным пунктом для философии является удивление, и для греческого воззрения на природу исходным пунктом также является это удивление...греческий дух изумляется естественности природы.."
(До вопрошания)
"Крестовые походы являются Троянской войной только что пробуждавшегося христианского мира против простой, самой себе равной ясности магометанства."
"Один египетский жрец сказал, что греки всегда остаются только детьми.."
(Христос, подслушав египетского жреца, сделал заметку на манжетах)
"..всё оказывается значением, всякий символ превращается в значение, и это значение является символом символа, который становится значением."
(о египетской мифологии, но - соотносимо ли с рассуждением Бодрийяра о действительном ему или нам?)
"Если вор сам сознавался, то его не наказывали, но оставляли ему четвёртую часть украденного.."
(правительственные должности и сотрудничающие с таковыми ныне лишаются этой четверти, и только)
"Моисей говорит, что если бы евреи потребовали себе царя, то он не должен был бы иметь слишком много жён и не должен был бы выписывать лошадей из Египта."
(сообщение в твиттере Трампа)
"Дочери, достигшие совершеннолетия, продавались с аукциона, и высокая плата, которая предлагалась за красавиц, шла на приданое для некрасивых девушек."
(привлекательность при наличии приданого, таким образом, вызывала подозрения)
"Геродот повествует о Кире, что когда он выступил в поход против Вавилона, и река Гинд поглотила одного из коней, запряжённых в солнечную колесницу, он в продолжение целого рода наказывал эту реку, отводя её в небольшие каналы, чтобы обессилить её."
(сегодня же всего-навсего "летят головы")
"..идеализм существует в Индии, но лишь так как не выраженный в понятиях идеализм воображения, которое, беря начало и материал из наличного бытия, превращает всё в нечто лишь воображаемое.."
"..обязанность замечать, кто не выметает снега на улицах."
(введена была в Китае круглогодично)
"Во многих городах пришлось сузить отверстия колодцев, чтобы люди перестали топиться в них."
"Сам император лишил себя жизни, чтобы не попасть в руки врагов, и он написал своей кровью на обшивке платья своей дочери несколько слов, жалуясь на несправедливость своих подданных."
(необыкновенное сочетание с точки зрения литературного хода)
"..все высшие чиновники были обязаны доставлять в годовой праздник все стихотворения, сочинённые ими в провинции в течение года."
(крайне полезная практика, должно признать)
"..постепенная отмена рабства целесообразнее и правильнее, чем его внезапное уничтожение."
(разумно, но - смотреть вышеозначенное "обоюдоострое утверждение")
"В Дагомее существует обычай, согласно которому, когда негры недовольны, они посылают своему королю яйца попугая, что является знаком того, что его правление надоело им."
(..и скоро вылупится престолонаследник)
"..настоящее носударство и настоящее правительство возникают лишь тогда, когда уже существует различие сословий, когда богатство и бедность становятся очень велики и когда возникают такие отношения, при которых огромная масса уже не может удовлетворять свои потребности так, как она привыкла."
"..негры гораздо более восприимчивы к европейской культуре, чем индейцы."
(а европейцы имитируют и тех и других равно посредственно)
"..один климат не может порождать Гомеров, да и не всегда порождает их.."
"..бессилие жизни состоит в том, что начало и результат не совпадают.."
(это прелесть жизни, если прелесть - бессильна)
"..привычка (часы заведены и сами собой продолжают идти) вызывает естественную смерть."
(пример часов не слишком удачен, так часы должен быть именно заведены - внешней силой)
"..язык сам по себе достигает высокого рассудочного развития ещё по ту сторону цивилизации."
"Дух хочет понять самого себя, но сам он скрывает от себя своё понятие, кичится и находит удовлетворение в этом отчуждении от самого себя."
(прошу прощения, рукоблудие)
"Ничто не может втиснуться между понятием и его реализацией."
(а как же толкование? Ценность? Понимание? Предмет и тот, кто разумеет, воспринимает его?)
"Искусство и наука являются лишь сторонами и формами того же самого содержания."
(и подвержены сходным заблуждениям)
"..вопросы, касающиеся государства, являются предметом культивированного познания (der gebildeten Erkenntniss), а не народа."
"Таким образом, государство есть разумная, объективно себя сознающая и для себя существующая свобода."
(культивируемая посредством чего свобода? Убеждения? В таком случае, смотреть выше. Познания? Но часть познания требует роли убеждения для тех, кто не имеет понятия о происходящем, так?)
"..так называемая невинность означает самое неведение зла."
(но освобождает ли невежество от ответственности, учитывая, что суд происходит в среде осведомлённых?)
"..такой пустоте, как добро ради добра, вообще нет места в живой действительности...следует не только желать добра, но и знать, является ли то и иное добром."
(критерии добра, в таком случае, ограничивают добро и, следуя системе Гегеля, освобождают его от произвола, рождают добродетели)
"..подобно тому как зародыш содержит в себе всю природу дерева, вкус, форму плодов, так и первые проявления духа виртуально содержат в себе всю историю."
(обращаю внимание на "виртуальность")
"..в новейшее время дело зашло так далеко, что философия должна защищать религиозное содержание от некоторых видов теологии."
(соотносимо с защитой науки от некоторых видов учёности)
"..то, что нам может казаться тривиальным, не всегда, как свидетельствует история, существовало в мире.."
(возможен ли умозрительный эксперимент или связанный с генетикой даже по возвращению к периода до распространения вещей, кажущихся нам тривиальными? Напоминает об "Этосе и истории" Анчел)
"..вместо того, чтобы писать историю, мы всегда стараемся определить, как следовало бы писать историю."
...
С тем, категорически не рекомендовал бы тратить время на ознакомление с данным трудом ни историкам, ни литераторам, ни даже биографам, а разве что социологам и психоаналитикам, нуждающимся в лишнем примере установочного, пусть общепризнанного и сыгравшего недостижимую и непостижимую роль в формировании современного цивилизованного общества в том числе, отношения к явлениям чрезмерно и категорически различающихся как исторически, так и идеологически, культурно, народов с целью обоснования правомерности собственной теории.

[Czarny Pies · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his introduction which occupies about 20% of his “Lectures on the Philosophy of History” Hegel presents the very bold idea that man when he chooses to be free becomes part of the divine spirt and then participates actively in God’s plan of salvation for the world. The proposition is both exciting and credible. Unfortunately things fall apart badly in the remaining 80% of the text where Hegel endeavours to show how the process is working by retelling the history of the world in four sections: (1) the Oriental World; (2) the Greek World; (3) the Roman World; and finally, (4) the German World which began with creation of the Holy Roman Empire and which was on-going in the period from 182 to 1830 when Hegel delivered his lectures in Berlin. The details do not support the main thesis very well and Hegel constantly expresses opinions that now seem laughable in the 21st century.
First let us consider the strong points. Hegel insists that God’s creation is essentially reasonable:
“Reason governs the world,” (p. 21)
“Reason in general is the Positive Existence (Wesen) of Spirit, divine as well as human.” (p. 6929)
“Universal history is the exhibition of the Spirit in the process of working out the knowledge of what it is potentially. … The nature of God’s will – that is, his nature itself – is what we call here the Idea of Freedom.” (p. 33)
Man who shares in god’s divinity must assert his intellectual freedom in order to further the progress being effected in human history by the Holy Spirit.
“Universal history belongs to the realm of the Spirit.” (p. 30)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of consciousness of Freedom, a progress whose development it is our business to collaborate with.’ (p. 35)
The problem for the contemporary reader is that much of Hegel asserts contradicts what we know believe in. The art of the Renaissance by its sensuality held mankind back: “The completion of this Church of St. Peter and Michelangelo’s “Last Judgement” in the Sistine Chapel were the Doomsday and ruin of this proud spiritual edifice.” (p 7084). Africa has failed to participate in the march of history because it had no religion only sorcery.
Asia had the virtue of instituting the study of history, which by chronicling past events demonstrated that man lives in a world of history. Unfortunately, Asian religions pushed man to let himself be absorbed into nature when man’s true duty was to assert his individual freedom. Fortunately, Persian Zoroastrianism introduced the idea that man should live as an individual in relation to God. “China and India remain stationary and perpetuate a natural vegetative existence. But here in Persia first arises the light which shines itself and illuminates what is around; for Zoroaster’s “Light” belongs to the world of Consciousness – to Spirt.” (p. 6616)
The Jews then integrated the Consciousness of the Spirit into their religion which Christianity subsequently adopted. The Greeks introduced the concept of a prime mover which supported the monotheism of Christianity. The Romans gave us the universal Catholic Church. The Catholic Church then became idolatrous, corrupt, and sensual. Finally, the German World gave us Protestant Christianity which is purely spiritual and free of externalities such as idols or artistic images.
At their worst Hegel’s lectures read like a paean mindlessly lauding Lutheranism: “The time-honoured and cherished sincerity of the German people is destined to effect this revolution (of the spirit) out of the honest truth and simplicity of its heart. While the rest of the world are urging their way to India, to America – straining every nerve to gain wealth and to acquire a secular dominion which shall encompass the globe and on which the sun will never set – we find Luther a simple monk looking for that specific embodiment of Deity which Christendom had formerly sought in an earthly sepulchre of stone, rather in the deeper abyss of the Absolute Ideality of all that is sensuous and external – in the Spirit of the Heart.” (p. 7084)
Hegel in his “Lectures on the Philosophy of History” presents us with a powerful idea. Unfortunately, in so doing he contrives to offend Africans, Asians, Muslims and Catholics. His mindless praise of the German people is at odds with what most people have believed since the Nazi era. Nonetheless in the 70 years that followed the delivering of these lectures, the Protestant world had an incredible run of economic progress and colonial expansion. At the beginning of the 20th Century, they must have seemed prophetic.

[Ned · Rating 5 out of 5]

Subject matter here is that the History of Culture is a rational but divinely impelled process.
Whether you like his definitions, the process, the dialectic he lays out here is difficult to argue with, though many have decisively. They are indemonstrable biases one way or the other.
On the one hand, Hegel's gloss of Asian and Ancient Near-Eastern culture's own self-understanding is horribly misshapen and includes so much 19th century anti-Eastern biases, not merely including the bourgeoning Romantic mid-european nationalism and xenophobia prevalent in his time. The short and misunderstood gloss of Buddhism or Chinese history, fail to show the breadth of these people's myriad of culture's or their understanding of them, as mere example. Hegel's woefully underdocumented historical bases (still the norm for his time), for much of his hubristic take on cultural characteristics of the non Judeo-Christian 'other' civilizations, and thereby 'inferior' Eastern or Arab, Moslem or Egyptian culture, in the end only damage the credibility of his overall thesis -- the 'evolution' of divinely impelled process of human or universal culture at large over eons of time.
If one were to take Hegel's argument at face value, these premises that he builds upon later are thereby faulty. So the whole machinery is flawed.
However, there are very singular characterizations that he gives to Jewish historical culture, to the Greeks, to the Romans, medieval euro-culture ,and as he calls it the 'German Spirit' that have much to say about the growth and advent and decline of the different periods in European culture and their self-understanding and self-expression. Hegel reveals the more he knows of a topic, the better his analyses.

Indeed, this was what the reputation of this book is based on as outlined in the famous introduction and which went on to be seen as a clear fork in diverging opinions about what is going on in the world at large and what we should be doing about it. You either agreed with Hegel or didn't and it always mattered HOW one agreed or didn't with him.
Is the human race propelled by the Sacred Need of the Holy Spirit of God to reveal itself?
Or are we just dumb animals flailing and floundering with the only advances of any kind being born purely from luck and random mutation (as many existentialists would have you BELIEVE) ? It's not a pretty way to look at it, unless you can see it from Hegel's POV and then you have to be a believer in the way that he believes for it all to be believable . . .

It might seem like I'm trashing Hegel here, I'm really not. He made his argument. There have been a couple tangents in thought from his time, but none of them and none of us have come up with a better way to explain the advance and purposes of culture over eons (maybe Spengler? or maybe in fiction?) like he does here, despite so many wrong examples and misunderstandings and florid expanses of turgid vapidity that maybe he did for his students. Yes! Still five stars because of the vision and the multi-faceted ideas that grow out of this system, even today and it's consequent tremendous influence.

[Leonardo]

En su imparable progreso el fantasmagórico y criminal Geist hegeliano no sólo mató a millones de personas, sino que también fue dejando a su vera a todas las culturas que sometió o subestimó: por supuesto, nuestra América no tiene historia, es inferior en todo –incluso geográfica y zoológicamente, hasta la carne vacuna aquí es despreciable, nuestras montañas corren equivocadas, nuestros animales son débiles, nuestros leones son calvos, etc.- y nuestros indios son estúpidos, fallecen al ponerse en contacto con el conquistador y los que sobreviven deben ser tratados como niños; los africanos están en estado de naturaleza, no tienen moral y practican los peores crímenes; los árabes, mestizos o aculturados musulmanes son fanáticos, decadentes y sensuales sin límites; los judíos tienen una religión que les impide alcanzar la auténtica libertad, pues están sumergidos en el servicio riguroso; los asiáticos apenas están un poco más avanzados que los negros y los latinos nunca alcanzaron el período del mundo germánico, que es ese estadio que se sabe libre queriendo lo verdadero, eterno y universal en sí y por sí.

La Pachamana y el humano Pág.49



Hegel era plenamente consciente de cómo el peso añadido a un acontecimiento por su inscripción simbólica «asume» su realidad inmediata; en la Filosofía de la Historia proporcionaba una maravillosa caracterización de la historia de Tucídides de la Guerra del Peloponeso: «En la Guerra del Peloponeso, la lucha era esencialmente entre Atenas y Esparta. Tucídides nos ha dejado la historia de la mayor parte de ella, y su inmortal obra es la ganancia absoluta que la humanidad ha obtenido de esa contienda». Habría que interpretar este juicio en toda su ingenuidad: en cierto modo, desde el punto de vista de la historia del mundo, la Guerra del Peloponeso se produjo para que Tucídides pudiera escribir un libro sobre ella. Al término «absoluto» también hay que darle todo su valor: desde la relativa perspectiva de nuestros finitos intereses humanos, las numerosas tragedias de la Guerra del Peloponeso (el sufrimiento y la devastación que causó) son, desde luego, infinitamente más importantes que un simple libro; sin embargo, desde el punto de vista del Absoluto, lo que importa es el libro.

Viviendo en el Final de los Tiempos Pág.325

[Ed · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an ambitious work. There's 100 dense pages of introduction just so the reader can learn what the book is about, and then another 350 pages that describes all the important developments in the history of civilization up until that time. This is not a book for light reading. I'm don't even think that this book is worth reading for it's intrinsic value at all. It may be worthwhile because of it's historical importance. Hegel was an influential man and this book provides a good look, unsurprisingly, of his philosophy of history.

Basically, the Spirit, or God or Reason, or some sort of nebulous, capitalized force guides history towards freedom. The book gives a detailed guide of examples of how the Spirit guided history throughout history. Although I doubt so much of the historical information that Hegel gives, the book really showcases what a staggering amount of knowledge that Hegel had. Hegel seemed to know a fair bit about every civilization in the world. Well, every important civilization that is. This was a man who was happy to dismiss small continents such as Africa as being irrelevant to history's development. There were several examples of the requisite racism that comes with the works of 19th century, european authors. Hegel thought that Napoleon was a higher thinking individual so it's obvious that Hegel didn't care so much for the less visible people of History.

I confess that I did skim some of the historical section. It's not a book for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of effort to get going and then some stamina to finish. Apparently this is his most accessible book but that shouldn't be taken to mean that it's an easy read. I'm glad that I read it, but I don't anticipate reading it again.

[J]

As with a lot of 18/19th century German philosophy (Herder, Kant, etc), you find yourself plopped down into a view of the world animated by such unfathomably large abstract concepts (Spirit, Thought, Will) that you have to wonder why the author even bothers. Every concept is contingent upon and reduces into every other concept, or evolves into it, or whatever. This is not an attempt at an original inquiry as much as it is Hegel attempting to put together a historical justification for his broader philosophical system by attempting to anatomize the pyschological 'states' of various periods of history, a dubious project, at best. An aweful lot of it boils down to this kind of sinister justification for a brand of uber-nationalism which seems eerily reminiscent of what made the first half of the twentieth century such an unbelievable shit storm. Though maybe some of my issues with the text have to do with the Sibree translation, which is piss-poor at best. After reading this, I kind of suspect that Hegel's prominence in Western philsophy has more to do with his creation of a system so byzantine that its nearly impossible to coherently refute (Which means it must be right. Right?) rather than from any profound insight it offers.

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I think a fair majority of the content in this book is detestable, Hegel is a very formidable opponent. The historical importance of this work cannot be discounted, and even though he proclaimed 19th century Germany to be the pinnacle and end of history, his ideas have so heavily influence the idea of progress that we struggle with today.

I spent a good amount of time reading the introduction in a study group setting, but had it not been for that I would have been pretty lost reading this. I feel that Hegel gives a novel tracing of history, but I almost knew exactly where he was heading when discussing each region. There are interesting tid-bits here and there, but I'm generally unmoved by history.

Everyone else sucks, Germany is the best, The Spirit travels West to Germany, the end of the journey is German philosophy, and Hegel sits atop his throne as the one to know the Totality.