Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Encyclopedia
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte), is the title of a major work by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
(1770–1831), originally given as lectures at the University of Berlin in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. It presents world history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
in terms of the Hegelian philosophy in order to show that history follows the dictates of reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
and that the natural progress of history is due to the outworking of absolute spirit
Absolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
.
The text was originally published in 1837 by the editor Eduard Gans, six years after Hegel's death, utilizing Hegel's own lecture notes as well as those found that were written by his students. A second German edition was compiled by Hegel's son, Karl, in 1840. A third German edition, edited by Georg Lasson, was published in 1917.
Spirit
Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of world history are often used to introduce students to Hegel's philosophy, in part because Hegel's sometimes difficult style is muted in the lectures, and he discourses on accessible themes such as world events in order to explain his philosophy. Much of the work is spent defining and characterizing GeistGeist
Geist is a German word. Depending on context it can be translated as the English words mind, spirit, or ghost, covering the semantic field of these three English nouns...
or spirit. The Geist is similar to the culture of people, and is constantly reworking itself to keep up with the changes of society, while at the same time working to produce those changes through what Hegel called the "cunning of reason". Another important theme of the text is the focus on world history, rather than regional or state history. Thinkers such as Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried Herder
Johann Gottfried von Herder was a German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic. He is associated with the periods of Enlightenment, Sturm und Drang, and Weimar Classicism.-Biography:...
(1744-1803) and Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant...
(1762-1814) had written on the concept and importance of world history and nationalism, and Hegel's philosophy continues this trend, while breaking away from an emphasis on nationalism and striving rather to grasp the full sweep of human cultural and intellectual history as a manifestation of spirit.
Theodicy
Hegel explicitly presents his lectures on the philosophy of history as a theodicyTheodicy
Theodicy is a theological and philosophical study which attempts to prove God's intrinsic or foundational nature of omnibenevolence , omniscience , and omnipotence . Theodicy is usually concerned with the God of the Abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, due to the relevant...
, or a reconciliation of divine providence
Divine providence
In Christian theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's activity in the world. " Providence" is also used as a title of God exercising His providence, and then the word are usually capitalized...
with the evils of history. This leads Hegel to consider the events of history in terms of universal reason: "That world history is governed by an ultimate design, that it is a rational process... this is a proposition whose truth we must assume; its proof lies in the study of world history itself, which is the image and enactment of reason." The ultimate design of the world is such that absolute spirit, here understood as God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, comes to know itself and fully become itself in and through the triumphs and tragedies of history. Hegel is clear that history does not produce happiness - "history is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in it are the blank pages of history" - and yet the aims of reason are accomplished. Hegel writes, "we must first of all know what the ultimate design of the world really is, and secondly, we must see that this design has been realized and that evil has not been able to maintain a position of equality beside it.". To see the reason in history is to be able to account for the evil within it. He argued against the 'professional historians' of the day such as Von Ranke. Hegel points out that the understanding and consequently writing of history always relies on a framework, be it religious, secular, 'postmodern' - that word is the very definition of ambiguity. Hegel chose to openly admit and explain his framework rather than hide it as many historians choose to do.
History
According to Hegel, "World history... represents the development of the spirit's consciousness of its own freedom and of the consequent realization of that freedom.". This realization is seen by studying the various cultures that have developed over the millennia, and trying to understand the way that freedom has worked itself out through them. Hegel's account of history begins with ancient cultures as he understood them. His account of the civilizations relied upon nineteenth century European scholarship, and contains an unavoidable EurocentricEurocentrism
Eurocentrism is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective and with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of European culture...
bias. At the same time, the developmental nature of Hegel's philosophy meant that rather than simply deprecating ancient civilizations and non-European cultures, he saw them as necessary (if incomplete or underdeveloped) steps in the outworking of absolute spirit. Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history contain one of his most well-known and controversial claims about the notion of freedom:
World history is the record of the spirit's efforts to attain knowledge of what it is in itself. The Orientals do not know that the spirit or man as such are free in themselves. And because they do not know that, they are not themselves free. They only know that One is free.... The consciousness of freedom first awoke among the GreeksAncient GreeceAncient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, and they were accordingly free; but, like the Romans, they only knew that Some, and not all men as such, are free.... The Germanic nations, with the rise of ChristianityChristianityChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, were the first to realize that All men are by nature free, and that freedom of spirit is his very essence.
In other words, Hegel maintains that the consciousness of freedom in history moves from despotism
Despotism
Despotism is a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. That entity may be an individual, as in an autocracy, or it may be a group, as in an oligarchy...
, to a sense that freedom is a privilege of a few, to a robust notion that humanity is free in and of itself. Hegel believes that the spirit of human freedom is best nurtured within a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
in which the monarch embodies the spirit and desires of the governed, and his reading of history locates the rise of such forms of government in the Germanic nations
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
of, for example, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
after the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
. Hegel's "one, some, and all" proposition follows the basic geographical metaphor Hegel takes throughout his philosophy of history, namely, "World history travels from east
Eastern world
__FORCETOC__The term Eastern world refers very broadly to the various cultures or social structures and philosophical systems of Eastern Asia or geographically the Eastern Culture...
to west
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
; for Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
is the absolute end of history, just as Asia
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
is its beginning." When referring to the east, Hegel generally has in mind the historical cultures of Persia, though at times he does reference China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and spends a great deal of space discussing India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Indian religions.
However he also said that the view of history (including his own) should be open to change based on the 'empirical facts' available. Hegel's views about Asia and Africa may well have changed if he were still alive. There is a tangible difference between his first and last lectures, therefore one can only assume this adaptation would have continued if Hegel had lived longer.
German Editions
Because of the nature of the text (collections of edited lecture notes), critical editions were slow in forthcoming. The standard German edition for many years was the manuscript of Hegel's son Karl Hegel, published in 1840. The German edition produced by Eva Moldenhauer and Karl Michel (1986) essentially follows Karl Hegel's edition. The only critical edition in German of the text of the lectures is Georg Lasson's 4 vol. edition (1917–1920). This edition was published repeatedly (last in two volumes in 1980) by Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg. The long introduction was re-edited on the basis of Lasson's publication in 1955, by Johannes Hoffmeister.English Editions
No full English translation of the complete lectures has ever been produced. The first English translation was made from Karl Hegel's edition, which lacked much material discovered later. This translation, made by John Sibree (1857), is still the only English version which contains not only the Introduction, but the shorter body of the lectures according to Karl Hegel's 1840 manuscript. Though it is incomplete, this translation is often used by English speaking scholars and is prevalent in university classrooms in the English-speaking world.An English translation of the Introduction to the lectures was produced by Robert S. Hartman
Robert S. Hartman
Robert Schirokauer Hartman was a logician and philosopher. His primary field of study was scientific axiology and he is known as its original theorist...
(1953) which included an introduction and additional editorial footnotes. Hartman produced this translation before Hoffmeister's critical edition was published, and it is quite short, only 95 pages.
An English translation of Hoffmeister's critical edition of the Introduction was produced in 1974 by H. B. Nisbet. This edition presents the full text of the Introduction to Karl Hegel manuscript, as well as all later additions included in the Hoffmeister edition of the Introduction. As such, it is the only critical edition of any portion of the lectures available in English. No translation of the full edition of the lectures following Lasson has yet been produced.
A new translation with Cambridge University Press is, however, to be published in 2011.