September 3, 2025 • 14 mins
Dive into Hegels enlightening lectures on the philosophy of world history, crafted to ease students into his complex ideas. Hegels engaging discourse sheds light on accessible themes like world events while he intricately defines and explores the concept of Geist, or spirit. This notion reflects the evolving culture of humanity, continuously adapting to societal changes while simultaneously driving those transformations through what Hegel termed the cunning of reason. A significant focus of the text is on world history rather than confined regional narratives. Influenced by the enigmatic writings of Jakob Bhme and captivated by the thoughts of Spinoza, Kant, Rousseau, and Goethe, Hegel examined the contradictions of modern philosophy and society. He sought to interpret these tensions‚like those between knowledge and faith, freedom and authority‚as part of a comprehensive, evolving rational unity he called the absolute idea or absolute knowledge. This unity emerges through contradiction and negation, leading to an uplifting resolution that preserves these conflicts as integral phases of development. Ultimately, Hegel posits that this rational, self-conscious whole is realized through individual minds, culminating in a collective understanding of this intricate developmental process. (summary by Wikipedia and D.E. Wittkower)
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Reflective history. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Introduction two The Philosophy of
(00:21):
History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel two. Reflective history. The
second kind of history we may call the reflective. It
is history whose mode of representation is not really confined
(00:43):
by the limits of the time to which it relates,
but whose spirit transcends the present. In this second order,
strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished. First, it
is the aim of the investigator to gain a view
of the entire history of a people, or of a country,
(01:06):
or of the world, in short, what we call universal history.
In this case, the working up of the historical material
is the main point. The workman approaches his task with
his own spirit, a spirit distinct from that of the
element he is to manipulate. Here, a very important consideration
(01:29):
will be the principles to which the author refers, the
bearing and motives of the actions and events which he describes,
and those which determine the form of his narrative. Among
Us Germans, this reflective treatment and the display of ingenuity,
which it occasions assume a manifold variety of phases. Every
(01:51):
writer of history proposes to himself an original method. The
English and French can fest to general principles of historical composition.
Their standpoint is more that of cosmopolitan or of national culture.
Among us, each labors to invent a purely individual point
(02:14):
of view. Instead of writing history, we are always beating
our brains to discover how history ought to be written.
This first kind of reflective history is most nearly akin
to the preceding, when it has no farther aim than
to present the annals of a country. Complete. Such compilations,
(02:36):
among which may be reckoned. The works of Livy Deodorous,
seculous Johannes von Muller's History of Switzerland are, if well performed,
highly meritorious. Among the best of the kind, may be
reckoned such analysts as approach those of the first class,
(02:56):
who give so vivid a transcript of events that the
reader may well fancy himself listening to contemporaries and eyewitnesses.
But it often happens that the individuality of tone, which
must characterize a writer belonging to a different culture, is
not modified in accordance with the period such a record
(03:17):
must traverse. The spirit of the writer is quite other
than that of the times of which he treats. Thus,
Livy puts into the mouths of the old Roman kings, consuls,
and generals such orations as would be delivered by an
accomplished advocate of the Libyan era, and which strikingly contrast
(03:39):
with the genuine traditions of Roman antiquity, for example, the
fable of Menenius Agrippa. In the same way, he gives
us descriptions of battles as if he had been an
actual spectator, but whose features would serve well enough for
battles in any period, and whose distinctness contrasts, on the
(04:02):
other hand, with the want of connection and the inconsistency
that prevail elsewhere, even in his treatment of chief points
of interest. The difference between such a compiler and an
original historian may be best seen by comparing Polybius himself
with the style in which Livy uses, expands, and abridges
(04:25):
his annals. In those period of which Polybius's account has
been preserved, Johann von Mila has given a stiff, formal,
pedantic aspect of history in the endeavor to remain faithful
in his portraiture to the times he describes, we much
(04:45):
prefer the narratives we find an old Trudi all is
more naive and natural than it appears in the garb
of a fictitious and affected archaism. A history which aspires
to traverse long periods of time, or to be universal,
must indeed forego the attempt to give individual representations of
(05:10):
the past as it actually existed. It must foreshorten its
pictures by abstractions. And this includes not merely the omission
of events and deeds, but whatever is involved in the
fact that thought is after all the most trenchant epitomist.
(05:31):
A battle, a great victory, a siege no longer maintains
its original proportions, but is put off with a bare mention.
When Livy, for example, tells us of the wars with
the Volsky, we sometimes have the brief announcement, this year
war was carried on with the Volski. Second, a second
(06:00):
species of reflective history is what we might call the pragmatical.
When we have to deal with the past and occupy
ourselves with a remote world, a present rises into being
for the mind produced by its own activity as the
reward of its labor. The occurrences are indeed various, but
(06:23):
the idea which pervades them their deeper import and connection
is one this takes the occurrence out of the category
of the past and makes it virtually present. Pragmatical or
didactic reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly
and indefeasibly of the present, and quicken the annals of
(06:47):
the dead past with the life of to day. Whether
indeed such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening depends on
the writer's own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially
noted the moral teaching expected from history, which latter has
(07:08):
not infrequently been treated with a direct view to the former.
It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul,
and are applicable in the moral instructions of children for
impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples
and states, their interests, relations, and the complicated issue of
(07:30):
their affairs present quite another field. Rulers, statesmen, nations are
wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience
offers in history. But what experience in history teach is
this that peoples and governments never have learned anything from
(07:51):
history or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period
is involved in such peculiar circircumstances, exhibits a condition of
things so strictly idiosyncratic that its conduct must be regulated
by considerations connected with itself and itself alone, amid the
(08:13):
pressure of great events. A general principle gives no help.
It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the past.
The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the
life and freedom of the present. Looked at in this light,
nothing can be shallower than the oft repeated appeal to
(08:35):
Greek and Roman examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is
more diverse than the genius of those nations and that
of our times. Johannes von Muller, in his Universal History,
as also in his History of Switzerland, had such moral
aims in view. He designed to prepare a body of
(08:57):
political doctrines for the instruction of princes, governed and peoples.
He formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, frequently
giving us in his correspondence the exact number of apathems
which he had compiled in a week. But he cannot
reckon this part of his labor as among the best
that he accomplished. It is only a thorough liberal, comprehensive
(09:22):
view of historical relations, such for example, as we find
in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, that can give truth
and interest to reflections of this order. One reflective history
therefore supersedes another. The materials are patent to every writer.
(09:43):
Each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging
and manipulating them, and we may expect that each will
insist upon his own spirit as that of the age
in question. Disgusted by such reflective histories, readers of often
returned with pleasure to a narrative adopting no particular point
(10:04):
of view. These certainly have their value, but for the
most part they offer only material for history. We Germans
are content with such. The French, on the other hand,
display great genius in reanimating bygone times and in bringing
the past to bear upon the present conditions of things. Third,
(10:33):
the third form of reflective history is the critical. This
deserves mention as pre eminently the mode of treating history
now current in Germany. It is not history itself that
is here presented. We might more properly designate it as
a history of history, a criticism of historical narratives and
(10:56):
an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity and
point of fact and of intention consists in the acuteness
with which the writer exhorts something from the records which
was not in the matters recorded. The French have given
as much that is profound and judicious in this class
(11:19):
of composition, but they have not endeavored to pass a
merely critical procedure for substantial history. They have duly presented
their judgments in the form of critical treatises. Among us,
the so called higher criticism, which reigns supreme in the
domain of philology, has also taken possession of our historical literature.
(11:44):
This higher criticism has been the pretext for introducing all
the anti historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest.
Here we have the other method of making the past
a living reality, putting subjects to fancies in the place
of historical data, fancies whose merit is measured by their boldness,
(12:06):
that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they
are based, and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the
best established facts of history. Fourth, the last species of
reflective history announces its fragmentary character. On the very face
(12:30):
of it. It adopts an abstract position. Yet since it
takes general points of view, for example, as the history
of art, of law, of religion, it forms a transition
to the philosophical history of the world. In our time,
(12:50):
this form of the history of ideas has been more
developed and brought into notice. Such branches of national life
stand in close relation to the entire complex of a
people's annals, And the question of chief importance in relation
to our subject is whether the connection of the whole
(13:10):
is exhibited in its truth and reality, or referred to
merely external relations. In the latter case, these important phenomena art, law, religion,
et cetera, appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must
(13:31):
be remarked that when reflective history has advanced to the
adoption of general points of view, if the position taken
is a true one, these are found to constitute not
merely external thread a superficial series, but are the inward
guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a
(13:51):
nation's annals. For like the sole conductor Mercury, the idea is,
in truth the leader of peoples and of the world,
and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that conductor
is and has been, the director of the events of
the world's history. To become acquainted with Spirit in this
(14:17):
its office of guidance, is the object of our present undertaking.
This brings us to three the third kind of history,
the philosophical and reflective history. This recording is in the
(14:41):
public domain.
Reflective history. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Introduction two The Philosophy of
(00:21):
History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel two. Reflective history. The
second kind of history we may call the reflective. It
is history whose mode of representation is not really confined
(00:43):
by the limits of the time to which it relates,
but whose spirit transcends the present. In this second order,
strongly marked variety of species may be distinguished. First, it
is the aim of the investigator to gain a view
of the entire history of a people, or of a country,
(01:06):
or of the world, in short, what we call universal history.
In this case, the working up of the historical material
is the main point. The workman approaches his task with
his own spirit, a spirit distinct from that of the
element he is to manipulate. Here, a very important consideration
(01:29):
will be the principles to which the author refers, the
bearing and motives of the actions and events which he describes,
and those which determine the form of his narrative. Among
Us Germans, this reflective treatment and the display of ingenuity,
which it occasions assume a manifold variety of phases. Every
(01:51):
writer of history proposes to himself an original method. The
English and French can fest to general principles of historical composition.
Their standpoint is more that of cosmopolitan or of national culture.
Among us, each labors to invent a purely individual point
(02:14):
of view. Instead of writing history, we are always beating
our brains to discover how history ought to be written.
This first kind of reflective history is most nearly akin
to the preceding, when it has no farther aim than
to present the annals of a country. Complete. Such compilations,
(02:36):
among which may be reckoned. The works of Livy Deodorous,
seculous Johannes von Muller's History of Switzerland are, if well performed,
highly meritorious. Among the best of the kind, may be
reckoned such analysts as approach those of the first class,
(02:56):
who give so vivid a transcript of events that the
reader may well fancy himself listening to contemporaries and eyewitnesses.
But it often happens that the individuality of tone, which
must characterize a writer belonging to a different culture, is
not modified in accordance with the period such a record
(03:17):
must traverse. The spirit of the writer is quite other
than that of the times of which he treats. Thus,
Livy puts into the mouths of the old Roman kings, consuls,
and generals such orations as would be delivered by an
accomplished advocate of the Libyan era, and which strikingly contrast
(03:39):
with the genuine traditions of Roman antiquity, for example, the
fable of Menenius Agrippa. In the same way, he gives
us descriptions of battles as if he had been an
actual spectator, but whose features would serve well enough for
battles in any period, and whose distinctness contrasts, on the
(04:02):
other hand, with the want of connection and the inconsistency
that prevail elsewhere, even in his treatment of chief points
of interest. The difference between such a compiler and an
original historian may be best seen by comparing Polybius himself
with the style in which Livy uses, expands, and abridges
(04:25):
his annals. In those period of which Polybius's account has
been preserved, Johann von Mila has given a stiff, formal,
pedantic aspect of history in the endeavor to remain faithful
in his portraiture to the times he describes, we much
(04:45):
prefer the narratives we find an old Trudi all is
more naive and natural than it appears in the garb
of a fictitious and affected archaism. A history which aspires
to traverse long periods of time, or to be universal,
must indeed forego the attempt to give individual representations of
(05:10):
the past as it actually existed. It must foreshorten its
pictures by abstractions. And this includes not merely the omission
of events and deeds, but whatever is involved in the
fact that thought is after all the most trenchant epitomist.
(05:31):
A battle, a great victory, a siege no longer maintains
its original proportions, but is put off with a bare mention.
When Livy, for example, tells us of the wars with
the Volsky, we sometimes have the brief announcement, this year
war was carried on with the Volski. Second, a second
(06:00):
species of reflective history is what we might call the pragmatical.
When we have to deal with the past and occupy
ourselves with a remote world, a present rises into being
for the mind produced by its own activity as the
reward of its labor. The occurrences are indeed various, but
(06:23):
the idea which pervades them their deeper import and connection
is one this takes the occurrence out of the category
of the past and makes it virtually present. Pragmatical or
didactic reflections, though in their nature decidedly abstract, are truly
and indefeasibly of the present, and quicken the annals of
(06:47):
the dead past with the life of to day. Whether
indeed such reflections are truly interesting and enlivening depends on
the writer's own spirit. Moral reflections must here be specially
noted the moral teaching expected from history, which latter has
(07:08):
not infrequently been treated with a direct view to the former.
It may be allowed that examples of virtue elevate the soul,
and are applicable in the moral instructions of children for
impressing excellence upon their minds. But the destinies of peoples
and states, their interests, relations, and the complicated issue of
(07:30):
their affairs present quite another field. Rulers, statesmen, nations are
wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience
offers in history. But what experience in history teach is
this that peoples and governments never have learned anything from
(07:51):
history or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period
is involved in such peculiar circircumstances, exhibits a condition of
things so strictly idiosyncratic that its conduct must be regulated
by considerations connected with itself and itself alone, amid the
(08:13):
pressure of great events. A general principle gives no help.
It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the past.
The pallid shades of memory struggle in vain with the
life and freedom of the present. Looked at in this light,
nothing can be shallower than the oft repeated appeal to
(08:35):
Greek and Roman examples during the French Revolution. Nothing is
more diverse than the genius of those nations and that
of our times. Johannes von Muller, in his Universal History,
as also in his History of Switzerland, had such moral
aims in view. He designed to prepare a body of
(08:57):
political doctrines for the instruction of princes, governed and peoples.
He formed a special collection of doctrines and reflections, frequently
giving us in his correspondence the exact number of apathems
which he had compiled in a week. But he cannot
reckon this part of his labor as among the best
that he accomplished. It is only a thorough liberal, comprehensive
(09:22):
view of historical relations, such for example, as we find
in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, that can give truth
and interest to reflections of this order. One reflective history
therefore supersedes another. The materials are patent to every writer.
(09:43):
Each is likely enough to believe himself capable of arranging
and manipulating them, and we may expect that each will
insist upon his own spirit as that of the age
in question. Disgusted by such reflective histories, readers of often
returned with pleasure to a narrative adopting no particular point
(10:04):
of view. These certainly have their value, but for the
most part they offer only material for history. We Germans
are content with such. The French, on the other hand,
display great genius in reanimating bygone times and in bringing
the past to bear upon the present conditions of things. Third,
(10:33):
the third form of reflective history is the critical. This
deserves mention as pre eminently the mode of treating history
now current in Germany. It is not history itself that
is here presented. We might more properly designate it as
a history of history, a criticism of historical narratives and
(10:56):
an investigation of their truth and credibility. Its peculiarity and
point of fact and of intention consists in the acuteness
with which the writer exhorts something from the records which
was not in the matters recorded. The French have given
as much that is profound and judicious in this class
(11:19):
of composition, but they have not endeavored to pass a
merely critical procedure for substantial history. They have duly presented
their judgments in the form of critical treatises. Among us,
the so called higher criticism, which reigns supreme in the
domain of philology, has also taken possession of our historical literature.
(11:44):
This higher criticism has been the pretext for introducing all
the anti historical monstrosities that a vain imagination could suggest.
Here we have the other method of making the past
a living reality, putting subjects to fancies in the place
of historical data, fancies whose merit is measured by their boldness,
(12:06):
that is, the scantiness of the particulars on which they
are based, and the peremptoriness with which they contravene the
best established facts of history. Fourth, the last species of
reflective history announces its fragmentary character. On the very face
(12:30):
of it. It adopts an abstract position. Yet since it
takes general points of view, for example, as the history
of art, of law, of religion, it forms a transition
to the philosophical history of the world. In our time,
(12:50):
this form of the history of ideas has been more
developed and brought into notice. Such branches of national life
stand in close relation to the entire complex of a
people's annals, And the question of chief importance in relation
to our subject is whether the connection of the whole
(13:10):
is exhibited in its truth and reality, or referred to
merely external relations. In the latter case, these important phenomena art, law, religion,
et cetera, appear as purely accidental national peculiarities. It must
(13:31):
be remarked that when reflective history has advanced to the
adoption of general points of view, if the position taken
is a true one, these are found to constitute not
merely external thread a superficial series, but are the inward
guiding soul of the occurrences and actions that occupy a
(13:51):
nation's annals. For like the sole conductor Mercury, the idea is,
in truth the leader of peoples and of the world,
and Spirit, the rational and necessitated will of that conductor
is and has been, the director of the events of
the world's history. To become acquainted with Spirit in this
(14:17):
its office of guidance, is the object of our present undertaking.
This brings us to three the third kind of history,
the philosophical and reflective history. This recording is in the
(14:41):
public domain.
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