Hegel: Reason in History

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. (1953). Reason in history, a general introduction to the philosophy of history. New York,: Liberal Arts Press.

Reason in History is a compilation of notes taken by some of Hegels students. It is an attempt to understand Hegel’s approach and method through his teaching, filtered by students, as opposed to through his other works, like Phenomenology of Spirit. That being said, it is occasionally a difficult read, as the notes from different students are roughly spliced together.

Firstly, the Robert Hartman introduction is very thorough, dense and may want to be approached after you read Hegel’s text. Hartman explains the dialectic process of Hegel, how the thesis leads to the antithesis, how that then leads to a synthesis, or something new, and then how that synthesis negates something in itself and thus becomes the new thesis.

The key for Hegel’s thought is that sense certainly leads to consciousness, and then that this consciousness leads to an acknowledgement of the other, and thus a negation of the self. This then leads to the interpretation and acknowledgement of the is and the ought, which causes the tension which eventually leads to a synthesis. This is all much more thoroughly fleshed out in Phenomenology of Spirit.

Hegel begins by identifying three types of writing history, and eventually makes a case for him using the Philosophical History as the method for his writings. The first two types of writing history are the Original History and the Reflective History.

Original History was practiced by historians who, “transferred what was externally present into the realm of mental representation and thus translated the external appearances into inner conception—much as does the poet, who transforms perceptual material into mental images” (3). These historians, “transform the events, actions and situations present to them into a work of representative thought” (4).

Reflective History is broken down into four parts: 1.) Universal History: present the totality of a country’s history; 2.) Pragmatic History: make this historic narrative practically important; 3.) Critical History: evaluation of historic narratives and examination of their trustworthiness; and 4.) Fragmentary History: refer to the whole of a people’s history.

This brings us to the Philosophical History method: the thoughtful contemplation of history (10).

He then moves on to describe the structure of the dialectical process of history and he sets history in motion. Firstly, the thesis is the Idea, the a priori estimations that are made sans empirical evidence. This is the thesis, the ought, the noumenal. The Idea, operating through Thought, produces Reason, or, in Hegel’s words, “Reason is Thought determining itself in absolute freedom” (15). Then there is the State, or Nature, resting squarely on an empirical foundation, on a posteriori adjudications. These two stand in contrast to one another, and they bring about the synthesis of Spirit, which is the, “substance of history” (20).

“World history in general is the development of Spirit in Time, just as nature is the development of the Idea in Space” (87). Understanding this is vital to understanding Hegel more generally. The Idea develops in Space, which is actually what we would think about as space/time. It is a specific development at a specific time and space. However, this gets translated and begins to move through history when the Spirit develops in Time. However, according to Hartman (xxii), this Time is Time of Consciousness, or a universal Time that operates above and beyond our specific Space/Time.

Thus the Spirit emerges from the synthesis of Idea interacting with Nature, what is interacting with what ought. Then Spirit, like the Phoenix, arises from its own ashes refreshed and renewed and becomes the Thesis. Spirit also contains within it all of its previous iterations, and thus learns from the past and progresses into the future towards greater absolute freedom.