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Introduction 1 Hegel's Philosophy of History

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Introduction 1 Hegel's Philosophy of History Notes Introduction 1 . See for example Michael Allen Gillespie, Hegel , Heidegger and the Ground of History , (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), p. xii and Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History? , (London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd, 1961), p. 3. 2 . For a general introduction to the different philosophies of history we have, see: Philosophies of History From Enlightenment to Postmodernity , introduced and edited by Robert M. Burns and Hugh Rayment-Pichard, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000), The Philosophy of History in Our Time , introduced and edited by Hans Meyerhoff, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc, 1959), Mark Day, The Philosophy of History: An Introduction , (New York: Continuum, 2008), and Philosophical Analysis and History , edited by William H. Dray, (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). 3 . See: Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics & the Human Sciences , translated by John B. Thompson, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), and Paul Ricoeur, History and Truth , (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1965). 4 . See: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics , translated and edited by David E. Linge, (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, Ltd, 1976). 5 . See: Hayden White, Tropics of History , (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978). 6 . See: Roland Barthes, ‘Historical Discourse’, in Introduction to Structuralism , edited by M. Lane, (New York: Basic Books, 1970). 7 . Historical reasoning then, for Hegel, becomes the effort to know the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of the past history. Mark Day directly connects historical reasoning with knowledge and past: ‘Historical reasoning is the way it is because of material relations between the past and present. Those relations underpin the point of historical reasoning: to arrive at truths about the past.’ Mark Day, The Philosophy of History: An Introduction , (London, New York: Continuum, 2008), p. 25. 1 Hegel’s Philosophy of History 1 . The Hegelian Spirit can be understood either as an absolute metaphysical entity that grounds and creates our reality or as something that arises from the collective activity of human beings but at the same time surpasses them. The Hegelian Spirit however, as the main historical agent is always something that both grounds and surpasses individual historical activity. In this context, I interpret the Hegelian Spirit as the ‘ultimate historical subject’. That is, I inter- pret it as an actual historical force which always is (ontologically) primary to human historical activity. 151 152 Notes 2 . Geist is the original Hegelian term. I will continue using the word ‘Spirit’ as the English translation of that term, but I have to acknowledge here the possible problems regarding this translation, because Geist means also ‘mind’. 3 . G. W. F. Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Introduction: Reason in History , translated from the German edition of Johannes Hoffmeister by H.B. Nisbet, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). 4 . Hegel, The Philosophy of History , translated by J. Sibree, (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), hereafter PH . 5 . Hegel, Philosophy of Right , translated by Malcolm Knox, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952), hereafter PR . 6 . Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit , translated by A. V. Miller, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), hereafter PS . 7 . John Watson refers to Hegel’s ‘impenetrability’ and he tries to give us a general guide through Hegel’s overall philosophy. He concludes that, for Hegel, we can grasp the real nature of the things through a systematic categorisation of man’s intellectual actions because ‘all is rational’. John Watson, ‘The Problem of Hegel’, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 3, No. 5 (Sept. 1894), pp. 546–567. Watson, however, fails to recognise that in the very heart of Hegel’s ‘impen- etrability’ lies Hegel’s ambiguity and thus every effort to understand Hegel must acknowledge the fact that Hegel cannot be univocally defined without the risk of been misunderstood. 8 . For an excellent analysis of Hegelian dialectical logic in point of its relation with common (Aristotelian) logic see: The International Library of Critical Essays in the History of Philosophy, Hegel , Vol. II, edited by David Lamb, Robert Hanna, ‘From an Ontological Point of View: Hegel’s Critique of the Common Logic’, pp. 137–170; and Katalin G. Havas, ‘Dialectical Logics and their Relation to Philosophical Logics’, pp. 185–196 (London: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1998). 9 . The most characteristic term which can clearly depict this Hegelian atti- tude is ‘mediation’. Hegel understands mediation as an active process rather than viewing it as a special kind of relation. To give an example, to say that England’s population is larger than Scotland’s population is to depict a certain relation between England and Scotland. To argue, however, that a state as a whole consists at the same time of the total sum of its citizens and of every individual person that is a citizen of this state is to point out state as the mediation of individuality and totality. In other words, Hegel argues that mediation can preserve within it the antitheses which ‘mediate’. This is, for Hegel, why we cannot argue that mediation is a synthesis. Synthesis, Hegel argues, depicts a certain relation between two or more things while mediation is an active process which while bringing together different things is able nevertheless to provide us with a further development. To remain at the same example, a state is a mediation and not a synthesis of totality and individuality because both totality and individuality can really exist only within the state that ‘mediates’ them. 10 . Later, I will attempt to spell out the significance of the Incarnation for Hegel’s philosophy of history. At this stage, however, what is crucial is to underline the ambiguity of the Hegelian use of certain concepts, including the concept of God. See: J. A. Leighton, ‘Hegel’s Conception of God’, The Philosophical Review , Vol. 5, No. 6 (Nov. 1896), pp. 601–618. Notes 153 11 . I will refer to the specific secondary bibliography when I will examine each particular view of Hegel. 12 . In order to give a specific example of the above mentioned difficulty I will point to William Desmond’s essay ‘Thinking on the Double: The Equivocities of Dialectic’, in The International Library of Critical Essays in the History of Philosophy , Hegel , Vol. II, edited by David Lamb, pp. 225–226, (London: Dartmouth Publishing Company Limited, Ashgate Publishing Limited, 1998). 13 . Hegel himself gives this kind of explanation in the sixth paragraph of the Introduction of his Logic , in the Being , part one of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), translated by William Wallace. The main problem with this Hegelian declaration is that it is so general and abstract that it becomes vague. The historical fact of the existence of two opposite to each other interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy exactly after his death (with the so-called right- and left-wing Hegelians) is enough to point out the problem. Hegel’s rationalism, and the way we will choose to interpret it, grounds every possible effort to analyse and understand Hegel’s philosophy in general and his philosophy of history in particular. My point is that it is enough for us to understand Hegel’s ‘rationalism’ as an epistemological belief regarding our ability to know the world. It goes without saying that the Hegelian rationalism can be a lot more than this, but it is my aim to point out that Hegel in his philosophy of history believes that we can know our history without having any kind of problems regarding the nature of our knowledge. Morris R. Cohen offers us a general summary of the problems regarding Hegel’s rationalism. He concludes by stating that: ‘It must admit [rationalism] that rational order is only one phase of a world which always contains more than we can possibly explain.’ Morris R. Cohen, ‘Hegel’s Rationalism’, The Philosophical Review , Vol. 41, No. 3 (May 1932), p. 301. I argue that Hegel’s basic flaw in his approach to the nature of history is exactly his belief that we can fully know history. And this flaw comes from Hegel’s fundamental belief that our reality is (mainly and crucially) rational. 14 . The importance of these preliminary clarifications regarding some of the most basic Hegelian terms lies not only in their elementary nature but also in their central position in the Hegelian philosophy of history. What Hegel means by writing ‘reason’, or ‘understanding’, or ‘God’, or ‘spirit’ in his philosophy of history is the necessary key for us to wholly understand his philosophy of history. For a general discussion on the possible reasons that drove Hegel to have his particular philosophy of history, see Steven B. Smith, ‘Hegel’s Discovery of History’, The Review of Politics , Vol. 45, No. 2 (Apr. 1983), pp. 163–187. Smith, however, views Hegel’s philosophy of history only from the point of view of politics and thus narrows his approach. 15 . One can argue that this knowledge of the past is actually about the present or at least it is about the present age. Hegel’s approach however, still is purely orientated towards the knowledge of the past. We, as people who are living today and yet who search to know our past history, cannot but view history as an epistemological research of past events. 16 . George Dennis O’Brien makes an interesting point regarding Hegel’s anal- ysis of the varieties of historical writing: ‘Hegel is universally regarded as a speculative philosopher of history, but it would seem that from the stand- point of his own system no such philosophical enterprise can be derived.’ 154 Notes George Dennis O’Brien, ‘Does Hegel have a Philosophy of History?’, History and Theory , Vol. 10, No. 3 (1971), p.
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