The Philosophy of History

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, J. Sibree (Introduction), C. J. Friedrich (Introduction), Charles Hegel (Preface by)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486437552
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	09/10/2004
Series:	Dover Philosophical Classics
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	480
Sales rank:	260,411
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL was born in Stuttgart on August 27, 1770, and during his early life the world witnessed revolutions in America and France as well as the following of Germany's Romantic movement. Born in the same year as Hegel were Friedrich Hölderlin, Germany's greatest lyric poet, and the composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

After graduating from Stuttgart's Latin School, Hegel entered the University of Tübingen to study the Greek classics and theology. Hegel's theological studies decisively shaped the development of his philosophical outlook. One of his earliest works, The Life of Jesus (1795), stressed the ethics of Christ's teaching while rejecting divine miracles. Later, in The Spirit of Christianity (1799), Hegel spoke as a mystic expressing his vision in philosophical rather than theo­logical terms.
Central to Hegel's philosophy was the concept of the Geist, or spirit—a term inspired by Hegel's theological training. This spirit is a real, concrete, objective force that remains one, yet is par­ticularized as spirits of specific nations and impersonated in particular individuals as the Weltgeist, or World Spirit.

In the Hegelian philosophy of the world, history occupies a special place, for it is in history that the World Spirit progresses toward self-consciousness. This is seen by Hegel as the gradual realization of freedom, from that of a single leader in the autocratic governments of antiquity to the liberty enjoyed by all in modern constitutional systems. Hegel asserted that this process of the development and realization of the spirit was the justification of God in history. Hegel's Philosophy of History, based on a series of lectures delivered in 1822 and later, was compiled and published posthu­mously by his son. It confers upon leaders of nations a position of absolute freedom: whatever they consider necessary to realize their nation's world-historical mission is justified. Hegel's ideas had a profound influence, for better or worse, on later philosophers, notably Karl Marx who, in the preface to the second edition of Das Kapital, called himself "a pupil of that mighty thinker," although Marx's materialism contrasted dramatically with Hegel's idealism. The Hegelian concept of the dialectic was, however, to be a funda­mental component of Marxism.

Georg Friedrich Hegel's other works include The Phenome­nology of the Spirit (1807), The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817), and Philosophy of Right and Law (1820). He died in Berlin on November 14, 1831.

Table of Contents

	Introduction
I	Original History	1
II	Reflective History	4
III	Philosophical History	8
	Geographical Basis of History	79
	Classification of Historic Data	103
Part I	The Oriental World
	Principle of the Oriental World	111
Section I	China	116
Section II	India	139
Section II	Continued. India-Buddhism	167
Section III	Persia	173
Chapter I	The Zend People	176
Chapter II	The Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians	182
Chapter III	The Persian Empire and its Constituent Parts	187
	Persia	188
	Syria and Semitic Western Asia	191
	Judaea	195
	Egypt	198
	Transition to the Greek World	219
Part II	The Greek World
	The Region of Spirit	223
Section I	The Elements of the Greek Spirit	225
Section II	Phases of Individuality AEsthetically Conditioned	241
Chapter I	The Subjective Work of Art	241
Chapter II	The Objective Work of Art	244
Chapter III	The Political Work of Art	250
	The War with the Persians	256
	Athens	258
	Sparta	262
	The Peloponnesian War	265
	The Macedonian Empire	271
Section III	Fall of the Greek Spirit	275
Part III	The Roman World
	Distinction between the Roman, Persian, and Greek Principle	278
Section I	Rome to the Time of the Second Punic War	283
Chapter I	The Elements of the Roman Spirit	283
Chapter II	History of Rome to the Second Punic War	296
Section II	Rome from the Second Punic War to the Emperors	306
Section III	Chapter I. Rome under the Emperors	314
Chapter II	Christianity	318
Chapter III	The Byzantine Empire	336
Part IV	The German World
	The Principle of Spiritual Freedom	341
Section I	The Elements of the Christian German World	347
Chapter I	The Barbarian Migrations	347
Chapter II	Mahometanism	355
Chapter III	The Empire of Charlemagne	360
Section II	The Middle Ages	366
Chapter I	The Feudality and the Hierarchy	366
Chapter II	The Crusade	389
Chapter III	The Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy	398
Section III	The Modern Time	412
Chapter I	The Reformation	412
Chapter II	Influence of the Reformation on Political Development	427
Chapter III	The Eclaircissement and Revolution	438