19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

2. From the Introduction: An object in consciousness has two aspects, being-in-itself and being=for-consciousness. Consciousness itself compares these two aspects to check whether or not they correspond to each other or not-thereby becoming a self-certifying agent.

3. The General Movement of the Phenomenology: The general movement of the Phenomenology goes from Consciousness of Objects, that is, the phenomenon of objects for consciousness to Self Consciousness to Reason which in turn leads from Observational Reason to Rational Self-Consciousness to Spirit to Religion to Absolute knowledge.

Consider Consciousness and Self-Consciousness. What Hegel terms as Simple Self-Consciousness exists just as Desire with the external world simply being the other. Self-Consciousness is conceived through the relation of Master and Bondsman or Slave and is based upon Work, or Labor.

In the Initial stage The Master is everything and the slave is nothing. Simple Self-Consciousness is everything; and Self-Consciousness based upon the recognition of an other external object is nothing.

In the Traditional Stage a struggle ensues where the Master puts the Slave to work to satisfy the Master’s wishes. A struggle ensues where Simple Self-Consciousness treats Other-based Self Consciousness as subservient.

In the Completion Stage there is Interdependence in that the Master becomes dependent on the Salve through the Salves labor and the Slave gains a sense of self-identity through the labor, while still being in some way dependent on the Master. The two Self-consciousnesses become dependent on one another.

Hegel points out that with regard to Stoicism, Self-Consciousness seeks freedom by withdrawing within itself. It negates the Master-Slave relationship and it only occurs at a time of fear and bondage and of some mental cultivation or sophistication. The freedom of Self-Consciousness is indifferent toward natural existence. Stoic Self-Consciousness negates any determinate content to the external world. It is real freedom of though rather than just the notion of it and it develops a contradiction within itself.

With regard to skepticism, Hegel contends that Self-Consciousness negates any determinate content to the external world. It is a real freedom of thought rather than just the notion of it and it develops a contradiction within itself. Skepticism gives rise to a conflicting duality where Self-Consciousness recognizes, on the one hand, total freedom, but, on the other hand, finds itself immersed in chaos, change, aimlessness, fickleness, instability, and indeterminateness. The outcome of it all is an Alienated Soul and the Unhappy Consciousness.

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

V. Phenomenology of Mind (or Spirit) – German Word = Geist

1. From the Preface: The work is a scientific account of knowing that moves progressively form the most primitive moments or stages of consciousness or mind to Mind or the Absolute that is conscious of being as itself. Negation, for Hegel, is the process that leads from one moment to another in the progression. Negation is related to falsity, but not in the traditional sense. Traditionally, truth and falsity are mutually exclusive, fixed properties of propositions. Falsity, however, should be seen as the process of revealing an inadequacy in what was previously claimed to be true. It is a process of negating a truth-claim as a transitional passage to a new truth-claim that will, in turn, be negated. Negation reveals “otherness” or difference in opposition to the accepted claim and thereby shows the need to reject and modify it. Negation is a desirable necessity in the profession of consciousness. Hegel argues, “Truth is the whole.” We only grasp The Truth through an entire system. Truth is reached only when we complete the process of development in consciousness. For instance, Mathematics has little standing because it is static, fixed and lacks negation in the process of its development. Regarding the Absolute as Spirit it should be noted that Spirit is the only Reality. Hegel’s identification of Being and Consciousness establishes him as an Idealist. Spirit is also the inner being of the world, for example what is and is per se. Spirit is both object for itself and one with itself-self contained and self-complete. Spirit is also a spiritual substance and both knows itself and is itself simultaneously through its own activity.

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

IV. From the Philosophy of History

Oriental World Greek World Roman World German Word

Childhood Adolescence Manhood Old Age

Despotism Democracy Aristocracy Monarchy

One is free Some are free All are free

(Weakness as Nature; Strength as Spirit)

1. Oriental World: Unreflected consciousness, substantial objective, and spiritual existence; no realization of subjectivity; stress on morality although externally directed.

2. Greek World: Spirit emerges more clearly because of the development of the individual, possessing subjective freedom

3. Roman World: characterized by subjective inwardness, along with universalizing law.

4. German World: characterized from earliest times by the sense of Heart, “that undeveloped, indeterminate totality of Spirit in reference to the Will, in which satisfaction of soul is attained in a correspondingly general and indeterminate way”; Heart as the key to overcoming the meaningless universal abstractions and superficial appearances of Church through the Reformation.

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

III. The Course of the World’s History

1. Nature vs. Spirit: Whereas Nature or the natural world exhibits perpetually self-repeating cycles, Spirit is the realm where Perfectibility, Development, and the attainment of Completeness occur. Whereas growth in Nature is peaceful, Spirit exhibits a “severe, a mighty conflict with itself.” (p. 55) Nature suggests an initial complete knowledge in the sense of Divine Truth, which is really a distortion of the Truth revealed in history. As Nature is the development of the Idea in Space, History is the development of Spirit in Time. (p. 72)

2. Requirements for World History: Includes a narration of the gestation, or development, of things rather than an account of things. Includes also a State to record events. Nomadic wanderings, and the growth of families and clans, have no objective history because they have no recorded annals. It is a mistake to think that moral virtues present in all nations as in the examples of courage, self-denial, and magnanimity, mean the same thing so there is no moral progress.

3. More about spirit:

“Spirit-consuming the envelop of its existence—does not merely pass into another envelop, nor rise rejuvenescent from the ashes of its previous form; it comes forth exalted, glorified, a purer spirit. T certainly makes war upon itself-consumes its own existence; but in this very destruction it works up that existence into a new form, and each successive phase becomes in its turn a material, working on which it exalts itself to a new grade.” (p. 73) In the Spirit of a nation, the individual takes on a place in the world, is something, when one appropriates to oneself or exhibits in one’s character and capability of the Spirit of the nation.

4. Geographical Basis of History: “In the Frigid and Torrid zone the locality of World-Historical peoples cannot be found.” (p. 80) This is due to the power of climatic extremes preventing a higher level of consciousness where Spirit is considered for itself. The true theater of history is the North Temperate Zone. The South Temperate Zone is too diverse with to many broken up landmasses. As regards Native Americans, “a mild passionless disposition, want of spirit, and a crouching submissiveness toward a Creole, and still more towards a European, are the chief characteristics of the native Americans; and it will be long before the Europeans succeed in producing any independence of feeling in them. The inferiority of these individuals in all respects, even in regard to size is manifest . . . . “ (p. 81)

As regards Topography, the Uplands provide the context for patriarchical life, the Valley Plains a context for well-organized, large kingdoms based upon agriculture. Coast Land a context for daring and a sense of the infinite and Europe a context for a mixture of these elements. As regards Africa, Hegel writes, “The Negroes indulge, therefore, hat perfect contempt for humanity, which in its bearing on Justice and Morality is the fundamental characteristic of the race. The have moreover no knowledge of the immortality of the soul, although specters are supposed to appear. The undervaluing of humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of intensity. Tyranny is regarded as no wrong, and cannibalism is looked upon as quire customary and proper.” (p. 95) Hegel adds, “To this want of regard for life must be ascribed the great courage, supported by enormous bodily strength, exhibited by the Negroes, who allows themselves to be show down by thousands in war with Europeans.” (p. 96) Further, “political constitution, we shall see that the entire nature of this race is such as to preclude the existence of any such arrangement. The standpoint of humanity at this grade is mere sensuous volition with energy of will; since universal spiritual laws . . . cannot be recognized here.” (96) Hegel concludes, “AT this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit. (99)

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

II. The Nature of Spirit: the essential destiny of Reason, the ultimate deign of the world.

“In considering world history we must consider its ultimate purpose. The ultimate purpose is what is willed in the world itself. We know of God that He is the most perfect; He can will only Himself and what is like Him. God and the nature of His will are one and the same; these we call philosophically, the Idea. Hence it is the Idea in general, in its manifestation as human spirit, which we have to contemplate. More precisely it is the idea of human freedom. The purest form in which the Idea manifests itself is Thought itself.”

1. It Abstract Characteristics: In comparing Spirit with Manner a number of contrasts emerge. First, as Gravity is the essence of Matter, Freedom is the Essence of Spirit. Matter as gravity seeks a self-annihilating Idea of Unit, something outside itself. Spirit is self-contained existence, existing in and with itself. Spirit is self-consciousness knowing Itself so that what I knows and that It Knows are one = Freedom. The final cause of the World at large is the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit and, ipso facto, the reality of that freedom (19). The Orientals only knew that one (the Despot) is free; the Greeks and Romans knows that some (citizens, but not slaves are free; The German nations under the influence of Christianity knows that human beings as human beings are free. The sacrifices in the long course of the world’s history serve the Idea of Freedom Translating Thought into religious terms, the Idea of Freedom = God = God’s Will.

2. The Means by which Spirit is Realized: This is an empirical question or matter. The actions of human beings proceed from their needs passions, characters, and talents. Although the Idea of Spirit is abstract and general in Its essence, It attains realization through Will, in particular, the passionate activity of human beings. Nothing great in the World has been accomplished without passion. There must be a union of Idea and human passions. Passion means here human activity as resulting from private interests with the qualification that whole energy of will and character are devoted to their attainment and other interest are sacrificed to them. (p. 23) The development of Nature and human activities implicitly exemplify the realization of the Idea of Spirit. There is a union of objective (the Idea) and subjective (human will) and also a union of Freedom (human will) and Necessity (the Idea). Unhappiness exemplifies concern with particular purposes and while human beings act in terms of their private interests they are unknowingly serving the interests of Spirit. In addition World-Historical Individuals are agents of the World-Spirit. Examples of this are to be found in such as Alexander the Great, Caesar and Napoleon. They unconsciously serve the World-Spirit through some special insight into the needs of the time and act to bring about creative change. They are creative, determined, unorthodox and willing to sacrifice everything and others to accomplish their goals. From a purely personal perspective, they usually come to an unhappy end. Lesser persons may criticize with a sense of superiority, but only because they are lesser persons. “No man is a hero to his valet de chamber, but not because the former is no hero, but because the latter is a valet.” The Cunning of Reason sets the passions of human beings to work for the ends of the World-Spirit and lets the individual pay the penalty in the process. There is no separation of the ideal and the real, because Reason actualizes itself. Fault finding with the process shows an inability to concentrate on the World-Spirit and a focus on particular events or sacrifices. “For the fancies which the individual in his isolation indulges, cannot be the model for universal reality.” (p. 35)

“The religion, the morality of a limited life, e.g. that of a shepherd or a peasant, in its intensive concentration and limitation to a few perfectly relations of life, has infinite worth; but is quite shut out from the noisy din of the World’s History.” (p. 37)

3. The State as the Perfect Embodiment of Spirit: Although human desires or subjectivity generally might be thought to express the Idea of Reason, subjective will must unite with rational Will, a union which is the moral Whole, The State (p. 38). The State is the form of reality in which the individual has and enjoys freedom, on the condition that the individual wills what is common to the Whole. Freedom is not to be understood in terms of achieving gratification and enjoyment in a small space of liberty for the individual. Law, Morality, and Government and they alone are the positive reality and completion of Freedom. Subjective volition, passion is the practical spring of action: The Idea is the inner sprint of action; the State is the actually realized moral life, for Morality is the Unity of the essential Will with that of the individual will. Al the worth that human beings possess, all their spiritual reality, is possessed through the State, for only then is one fully conscious and a partaker of morality. Truth is the unity of the universal and subjective Will, and the Universal is only found in the laws, the universal and rational arrangements of the State. Law is the objectivity of Spirit, volition in its true form; so there can be no freedom without obedience to law in the sense of obeying oneself.
“When the State or out country constitutes a community of experience, when the subjective will of man submits to laws, the contradiction between Liberty and necessity vanishes. The State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth. Common errors that have become fixed prejudices consist of the following. First, those human beings posses a freedom by Nature that is fettered by the State. So freedom becomes merely fulfillment of subjective desire, mere caprice. The State of Nature is a state of violence and injustice rather than true freedom, which must be acquired and won through an infinite process of knowledge and will power. Second, that the patriarchical condition is the primary conscious morality. This condition is based on feeling and the merely natural rather than on Reason. This condition is based on blood relations, which is not present for the state. This condition, the family, is valuable to the State however in its proper place. Third, that the People alone have reason and insight so that the generic existence of the State resides in its citizens. If individual will and consent are the basis for constitutional freedom, then there is no constitution. Commanding and obeying seem necessary to the functioning of a State. Hegel contends that Monarchy and not despotism is the highest expression of the State. (p. 44-46) As regards Religion and the State, Hegel argues that God constitutes the Unity of the Universal and Individual.


4. Spirit is “one Individuality, which, presented in its essence as God, is honored and enjoyed in Religion; which is exhibited as an object of sensuous contemplation in Art and is apprehended as an intellectual conception in Philosophy.” (p. 53)

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

An Outline of the “Introduction” in Hegel’s
Philosophy of History

I. Methods of History

1. Original History: Examples of original history are found in Herodotus and Thucydides. This history is usually limited to deeds, events, and states of society witnessed by the historian who shares in the same spirit described. In this approach, an external phenomenon is translated into an internal conception in the realm of representative intellect. Legends, ballad stories, and traditions are too dim and hazy even to be part of history at this stage of intellect. The influences that formed the writer are the same as those that formed the events.

2. Reflective History: The spirit of the historian transcends the time described. There is universal History, which is reflective rather than philosophical history. This approach presents a view of the entire history of a people or country with the historian bringing one’s own spirit to bear in determining the context and motives that give form to the narrative. Individual entails are often sacrificed in favor of more general abstractions. Second, there is Pragmatical History, which uses the study of the past as a guide to the present, especially with respect to moral guidance. Because of the peculiar circumstances of each period, straightforward analogies do not work well, hence Hegel’s interpretation of history in terms of dialectical progress. Third, there is Critical History. Critical History is an investigation of the truth and credibility of historical narratives. Fourth, there is Specialized History. Specialized History consists of the study of art, law, religion, etc. either as purely accidental national peculiarities which are bad, or revelations of the working of Spirit, which are good as a way of leading to philosophical history.

3. Philosophical History: Philosophical History is the thoughtful consideration of history. Thought, as essential to our humanity, brings to history the simple conception of Reason (the Idea) as the Sovereign of the World. The history of the world is a rational process. Reason is the substance of the Universe, that is, that by which all reality has its being and subsistence. Reason is the infinite power, the infinite material, the infinite form, and the infinite energy of the Universe. Reason is the infinite complex of things, their entire Essence and Truth. Reason is the True, the Eternal, and the absolutely powerful essence. Reason is what is revealed in the world, a thesis that has been proved in philosophy in the Phemenology of the mind and the Logic and is merely assumed here. Hegel states, “To him who looks at the world rationally, the world looks rationally back.” (p. 11) History presents the course of the World-Spirit, something known by Hegel because he has traversed “the entire field”. Reason = the Idea = Spirit = World Spirit = Absolute Spirit = The absolute = God = Providence. Since science seeks rational insight rather than a heap of data an investigator must bring an active, rational perspective to one’s study. Points of view producing a diffused conviction that Reason rules the World. The “Spirit” = intelligence as self-conscious Reason. Nature is the embodiment of Reason, as being unchangeable subordinate to universal laws. There is also the religious truth of Divine Providence. This is based on an indefinite faith rather than on reason. We must go beyond faith though to know God rationally. Feeling is the lowest form of mental content, whereas God must be known through thought. “Our intellectual striving aims at realizing the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom, is actually accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as that of mere Nature.” (p. 15)

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

2. Influence

Hegel developed a massive and comprehensive system of philosophy. Absolute Philosophy as influential among German people but it was also taken up with changes. Marx incorporated a number of Hegelian concepts into his own position, although Marx himself was a materialist as opposed to an idealist. The Hegelian dialectic has been extremely influential. The Phenomenology of Spirit is a seminal work in Phenomenology as a philosophical movement. He contributed significantly to the development of speculative philosophy of history. By relying upon culture and history as a necessary context for grasping knowledge in consciousness, Hegel helped lay a foundation for development of the social sciences. Absolute Philosophy was obscure enough to evoke a reaction that encouraged development of positivism and ordinary language in the 20th century.


3. Reading Hegel

The Phenomenology of Mind and The Science of Logic are especially difficult reading. This makes Hegel one of the great challenges to anyone trying to read western philosophy. Many philosophers deal with the challenge by ignoring him and this is something that we are said to do at our own peril according to Jacob Loewenberg, editor of Hegel’s writings. There are three approaches to Hegel:

1. Look for individual passages that reveal Hegel’s great insights such as the master-servant relationship, stoicism, skepticism, the unhappy consciousness, natural religion, and revealed religion.

2. Grasp Hegel’s work as a system so that you do not miss the forest for the trees. Do not however, focus upon every detail of the system since Hegel himself was never precise enough or clear enough or cogent enough to render the system intelligible in every detail.

3. Grasp Hegel’s work as a system and master all of the details.

It seems that the preferable approach to understanding Hegel is found in 2. If you do not grasp Hegel’s philosophy as a system, you are missing too much of what is essential to Hegel’s though. Ruth lies in the whole that is, the system for Hegel. On the other hand, the connections and transitions that he makes within his system are often questionable and the obscurity of many passages defies clear interpretation and thus may not always be worth the effort or examining every detail in Hegel’s system.

19th Century Philosophers: Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

1. Life

In 1788 Hegel enrolled at the University of Tubingen to study philosophy, theology, and philology. He became a friend of Schelling. Hegel was not an outstanding student but became a tutor after graduation. In 1801, Hegel took a position at the University of Jena, which he held until the University was closed after the Battle of Jena (1807). From 1808-16, he was director of a gymnasium or High School at Nuremburg. From 1812-1816 he published the Science of Logic. 1816 he became professor at the University of Heidelberg and in 1818 he became a professor at the University of Berlin where he became famous and regarded as the “official philosopher” of the German people. In 1820 he published the Philosophy of Right and in 1931 he died from cholera. A number of works based upon his lectures were published after his death.

19th Century Philosophers: Background

2. Kant

Kant is known as the advocate of the Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Just as Copernicus moved the center of the heavens from the earth to the sun, so Kant moved the focus of reality and knowledge from the world out there to the structure of the human subject’s mind. Kant focused upon the thing-in-itself or the Ding an Sich. Beyond the experience and knowledge based upon the structure of the human subject’s mind lies the thing-in-itself, which one can never experience or know as it is in itself, because we only experience or know through the medium of the mind’s own structure. Although all that is experienced or known occurs through the structure of the subject’s mind, objectivity and absolute truth still exist because there is a common structure, rationally discernible, consisting in intuitions in space and time and the categories of thought, that is, pure concepts of understanding. The structure of the mind is transcendental rather than transcendent. That is, it lies at the base of all experience and makes experience and knowledge possible. Absolute truth rests upon pure reason, theoretical or practical, and cannot be based upon sensory experience, which is always conditional or contingent. Kant presents an elaborate, intensely detailed analysis of consciousness that becomes, with the rejection of much of his fixed structure, the basis for continental phenomenology.

19th Century Philosophers: Background

1. Themes

A number of themes provide the context for 19th century philosophy. First, the search for a cleanly stated, straightforward objectivity by British philosophers vs. the search for or the rejection of, objectivity, within a profound subjectivity, by Continental philosophers. Among British philosophers John Stuart Mill represents the culmination of the British empiricism of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche introduce a profound subjectivity into philosophical thinking. However, Kant and Hegel retain objectivity, while Schopenhauer retains a partial objectivity. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are clearly subjectivitists. Auguste Comte, and Karl Marx do not fir the pattern very well.

Second, there are traces of the traditional conflict between British empiricism and Continental rationalism. The distinction however should be carefully acknowledged and may represent an oversimplification of the two approaches. Comte and Mach on the Continent do not fit the distinction well, although Kant and Hegel do. Bradley in England does not fit the distinction well. One of the more interesting examples of the conflict arises with respect to science, specifically, the sense impression science of British empiricism vs. the dialectical science of Hegel and Marx.

Third, we see during this time the rise of social, as opposed to natural, sciences through the thought of Hegel, Comte, Marx, and Mill. Fourth, the concept of historical progress arises in the thought of Hegel, Comte, and Marx. Fifth, compared with earlier periods of philosophy in western civilization, the 19th century does not lend itself to confinement of interest to metaphysics and epistemology. This is true because Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche are so concerned with the human condition. The rise of the social sciences since they are so concerned with human behavior also makes it more difficult to confine interests to metaphysics and epistemology.

Sixth, another important development during his time centers upon Hegel vs. Marx with respect to Dialectic. Hegel’s dialectic consists of the pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis within the realm of ideas. Aufheben, meaning to negate, preserve, or transform constitutes the dynamic of dialectic. Marx’ dialectic turned Hegel on his head. He places the thesis, antithesis, synthesis pattern within the realm of material existence. He emphasizes the material modes of production as the dynamic of dialectic.