Why for Hegel does history matter to philosophy?

Greg Detre

Monday, February 12, 2001

post-Kantian V - Dr Rosen, Lincoln

Understanding the relationship between the Spirit, the State and the Dialect may be necessary in making sense of history and philosophy. This is because Hegel�s system is so bound up with itself. At the top, metaphysical level, his idea of Spirit as a �vitalistic materialism� of which the entire universe consists, feeds into everything else. We have access to this idea of Spirit through the logic of the Dialectic, conceiving synthesis, denying it with its antithesis, and then denying them both with their synthesis. This conclusion is the apotheosis of the philosophical enterprise, and it informs his view of history.

It is easy to become confused about which discipline is supporting or even subsuming the other. In fact, the question of why history matters to philosophy would seem ill-posed to a Hegelian, for philosophy can be seen as a sub-discipline of history. Or, put in different terms, philosophy and the history of philosophy are one and the same thing.

The views and conclusions of a philosopher should be viewed in the context of preceding views and arguments. One should not be deceived by Descartes� professed attempt at a purely rational enterprise, for he can only be understood and could only have written what he did, as a Frenchman living in the seventeenth century. Hegel�s historicisation of philosophy should be viewed as an attempt to highlight and understand the limits of philosophy, but along very different lines to Kant. Philosophy unavoidably reflects more about the philosopher and his age than the a-historical verities he claims, and so we should see philosophy�s primary task as recognising and self-consciously representing its age.

As Beiser would have it, the business of philosophy is two-fold, and correspondingly, there are two standards of truth. One refers to the extent to which a philosopher�s philosophy represents his time, i.e. that his thought can be seen as a product of the era and environment he lives in and everything which has come before it, just like all the other facets of a society like culture, religion, art etc. In this way, philosophy is good to the extent that it tallies and embodies the corresponding Zeitgeist (in a non-technical sense). However, the history of philosophy can be seen in terms of a grander process, with each generation of through superseding the last. Ultimately then, we are heading towards the State in which we can be free as individuals, for this is the teleology that the Dialectic has shown the Spirit to be about. The Spirit consists in self-consciousness, the universal of which we are all particulars, and the ultimate progression is towards the State of which Prussia might be seen as an example.

Hegel had initially aspired to return to the unreflective harmony of the Greek polis, and had hoped that the French Revolution might signal this. His disappointment with Robespierre followed a realisation that history necessarily develops in one direction, and that a return to the Greek was impossible, since the presuppositions and conditions underlying modern Germany were so very different. Philosophy too, then, follows a path, in that it reflects the presuppositions and conditions of its era. By extension then, one could not write Platonic philosophy now because philosophy cannot be transplanted in alien soil.

Plant argues that one of Hegel�s early essays, �The Spirit of Christianity and its fate� provides vital clues about the development of Hegel�s thought. He attempts to demonstrate that Jesus� message to the Jews fell on deaf ears because the God of Abraham was a terrible, remote God, while the God of Jesus was a loving, fatherly God. Jesus reconciles the two as the Son of God and the Son of Man. Apparently though, the Christians did not fully understand this message, and this has resulted in the divide between Church and State, spiritual and worldly ever since (quote on pg 63).

Plant focuses on philosophy as the bridge between the finite life and the infinite life. Philosophy offers the transfiguration of man and his society, by understanding it.