September 3, 2025 • 11 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 (00:04):
Philosophical 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
(00:24):
History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel three Philosophical History. No
explanation was needed of the two previous classes. Their nature
was self evident. It is otherwise with this last, which
(00:48):
certainly seems to require an exposition or a justification. The
most general definition that can be given is that the
philosophy of history means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it.
Thought is indeed essential to humanity. It is this that
(01:08):
distinguishes us from the brutes in sensations, cognition and intellection.
In our instincts and volitions, as far as they are
truly human, thought is an invariable element. To insist upon
thought in this connection with history, may, however, appear unsatisfactory.
(01:32):
In this science. It would seem as if thought must
be subordinate to what is given to the realities of fact,
that this is its basis and guide. While philosophy dwells
in the region of self produced ideas without reference to actuality,
approaching history thus prepossessed, speculation might be expected to treat
(01:56):
it as a mere passive material, and so far from
leaving it in its native truth, to force it into
conformity with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it as
the phrase is a priori But as it is the
business of history simply to adopt into its records what
(02:19):
is and has been actual occurrences and transactions. And since
it remains true to its character in proportion as it
strictly adheres to its data, we seem to have in
philosophy a process diametrically opposed to that of the historiographer.
(02:39):
This contradiction and the charge consequent brought against speculation, shall
be explained and confuted. We do not, however, propose to
correct the innumerable special misrepresentations, trite or novel, that are current.
Respecting the aims, the interests, and the modes of treating
(03:01):
history in its relation to philosophy, the only thought which
philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of history is
the simple conception of reason, that reason is the sovereign
of the world, that the history of the world therefore
presents us with a rational process. This conviction and intuition
(03:26):
is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such,
in that of philosophy, it is no hypothesis. It is
there proved by speculative cognition that reason and this term
may here suffice us without investigating the relations sustained by
the universe to the divine being. Is substance as well
(03:48):
as infinite power, its own infinite material underlying all the
natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also the
infinite form that which sets this material in motion. On
the one hand, reason is the substance of the universe,
namely that by which and in which all reality has
(04:13):
its being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is
the infinite energy of the universe. Since reason is not
so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but
a mere ideal, a mere intention, having its place outside reality,
nobody knows where something separate and abstract. In the heads
(04:36):
of certain human beings, it is the infinite complex of things,
their entire essence and truth. It is its own material,
which it commits to its own active energy to work up,
not needing, as finite action does. The conditions of an
(04:58):
external material of gins means from which it may obtain
its support and the objects of its activity. It supplies
its own nourishment and is the object of its own operations.
While it is exclusively its own basis of existence and
absolute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing
(05:22):
this aim, developing it not only in the phenomena of
the natural, but also of the spiritual universe, the history
of the world. That this idea or reason is the true,
the eternal, the absolutely powerful essence, that it reveals itself
(05:43):
in the world, and that in that world nothing else
is revealed but this and its honor and glory. Is the thesis, which,
as we have said, has been proved in philosophy, and
is here regarded as demonstrated. In those of my hearers
who are not acquainted with philosophy, I may fairly presume
(06:06):
at least the existence of a belief in reason, a desire,
a thirst for acquaintance with it, in entering upon this
course of lectures. It is, in fact the wish for
rational insight, not the ambition to a mass, a mere
heap of acquirements that should be presupposed in every case
(06:28):
as possessing the mind of the learner. In the study
of science, if the clear idea of reason is not
already developed in our minds, in beginning the study of
universal history, we should at least have the firm, unconquerable
faith that reason does exist there, and that the world
of intelligence and conscious volition is not abandoned to chance,
(06:53):
but must show itself in the light of the self
cognizant idea. Yet, I am not obliged to make any
such preliminary demand upon your faith. What I have said
thus provisionally, and what I shall have further to say,
is even in reference to our branch of science, not
(07:14):
to be regarded as hypothetical, but as a summary view
of the whole the result of the investigation we are
about to pursue, a result which happens to be known
to me because I have traversed the entire field. It
is only an inference from the history of the world
that its development has been a rational process. That the
(07:38):
history in question has constituted the rational necessary course of
the world spirit, that spirit whose nature is always one
and the same, but which unfolds this its one nature
in the phenomena of the world's existence. This must, as
before stated, present itself as the ultimate result of history,
(08:01):
but we have to take the latter as it is.
We must proceed historically empirically. Among other precautions, we must
take care not to be misled by professed historians, who,
especially among the Germans and enjoying a considerable authority, are
(08:22):
chargeable with the very procedure of which they accuse the
philosopher introducing a priori inventions of their own into the
records of the past. It is, for example, a widely
current fiction that there was an original primeval people taught
immediately by God, endowed with perfect insight and wisdom, possessing
(08:46):
a thorough knowledge of all natural laws and spiritual truth,
that there have been such or such sacredotal peoples, or
to mention a more specific averment that there was as
a Roman epos from which the Roman historians derived the
early annals of their city, et cetera. Authorities of this
(09:10):
kind we leave to those talented historians by profession, among
whom in Germany at least their use is not uncommon.
We might then announce it as the first condition to
be observed, that we should faithfully adopt all that is historical,
(09:33):
but in such general expressions themselves as faithfully and adopt
lies the ambiguity even the ordinary. The impartial historiographer, who
believes and professes that he maintains a simply receptive attitude,
surrounding himself only to the data supplied him, is by
(09:57):
no means passive as regards the exer size of his
thinking powers. He brings his categories with him and sees
the phenomena presented to his mental vision exclusively through these media,
and especially in all that pretends to the name of science.
(10:18):
It is indispensable that reason should not sleep, that reflection
should be in full play. To him who looks upon
the world rationally, the world, in its turn, presents a
rational aspect. The relation is mutual, but the various exercises
(10:40):
of reflection, the different points of view, the modes of
deciding the simple question of the relative importance of events,
the first category that occupies the attention of the historian,
do not belong to this place and philosophical history. This
(11:03):
recording is in the public domain.
Philosophical 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
(00:24):
History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel three Philosophical History. No
explanation was needed of the two previous classes. Their nature
was self evident. It is otherwise with this last, which
(00:48):
certainly seems to require an exposition or a justification. The
most general definition that can be given is that the
philosophy of history means nothing but the thoughtful consideration of it.
Thought is indeed essential to humanity. It is this that
(01:08):
distinguishes us from the brutes in sensations, cognition and intellection.
In our instincts and volitions, as far as they are
truly human, thought is an invariable element. To insist upon
thought in this connection with history, may, however, appear unsatisfactory.
(01:32):
In this science. It would seem as if thought must
be subordinate to what is given to the realities of fact,
that this is its basis and guide. While philosophy dwells
in the region of self produced ideas without reference to actuality,
approaching history thus prepossessed, speculation might be expected to treat
(01:56):
it as a mere passive material, and so far from
leaving it in its native truth, to force it into
conformity with a tyrannous idea, and to construe it as
the phrase is a priori But as it is the
business of history simply to adopt into its records what
(02:19):
is and has been actual occurrences and transactions. And since
it remains true to its character in proportion as it
strictly adheres to its data, we seem to have in
philosophy a process diametrically opposed to that of the historiographer.
(02:39):
This contradiction and the charge consequent brought against speculation, shall
be explained and confuted. We do not, however, propose to
correct the innumerable special misrepresentations, trite or novel, that are current.
Respecting the aims, the interests, and the modes of treating
(03:01):
history in its relation to philosophy, the only thought which
philosophy brings with it to the contemplation of history is
the simple conception of reason, that reason is the sovereign
of the world, that the history of the world therefore
presents us with a rational process. This conviction and intuition
(03:26):
is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such,
in that of philosophy, it is no hypothesis. It is
there proved by speculative cognition that reason and this term
may here suffice us without investigating the relations sustained by
the universe to the divine being. Is substance as well
(03:48):
as infinite power, its own infinite material underlying all the
natural and spiritual life which it originates, as also the
infinite form that which sets this material in motion. On
the one hand, reason is the substance of the universe,
namely that by which and in which all reality has
(04:13):
its being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is
the infinite energy of the universe. Since reason is not
so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but
a mere ideal, a mere intention, having its place outside reality,
nobody knows where something separate and abstract. In the heads
(04:36):
of certain human beings, it is the infinite complex of things,
their entire essence and truth. It is its own material,
which it commits to its own active energy to work up,
not needing, as finite action does. The conditions of an
(04:58):
external material of gins means from which it may obtain
its support and the objects of its activity. It supplies
its own nourishment and is the object of its own operations.
While it is exclusively its own basis of existence and
absolute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing
(05:22):
this aim, developing it not only in the phenomena of
the natural, but also of the spiritual universe, the history
of the world. That this idea or reason is the true,
the eternal, the absolutely powerful essence, that it reveals itself
(05:43):
in the world, and that in that world nothing else
is revealed but this and its honor and glory. Is the thesis, which,
as we have said, has been proved in philosophy, and
is here regarded as demonstrated. In those of my hearers
who are not acquainted with philosophy, I may fairly presume
(06:06):
at least the existence of a belief in reason, a desire,
a thirst for acquaintance with it, in entering upon this
course of lectures. It is, in fact the wish for
rational insight, not the ambition to a mass, a mere
heap of acquirements that should be presupposed in every case
(06:28):
as possessing the mind of the learner. In the study
of science, if the clear idea of reason is not
already developed in our minds, in beginning the study of
universal history, we should at least have the firm, unconquerable
faith that reason does exist there, and that the world
of intelligence and conscious volition is not abandoned to chance,
(06:53):
but must show itself in the light of the self
cognizant idea. Yet, I am not obliged to make any
such preliminary demand upon your faith. What I have said
thus provisionally, and what I shall have further to say,
is even in reference to our branch of science, not
(07:14):
to be regarded as hypothetical, but as a summary view
of the whole the result of the investigation we are
about to pursue, a result which happens to be known
to me because I have traversed the entire field. It
is only an inference from the history of the world
that its development has been a rational process. That the
(07:38):
history in question has constituted the rational necessary course of
the world spirit, that spirit whose nature is always one
and the same, but which unfolds this its one nature
in the phenomena of the world's existence. This must, as
before stated, present itself as the ultimate result of history,
(08:01):
but we have to take the latter as it is.
We must proceed historically empirically. Among other precautions, we must
take care not to be misled by professed historians, who,
especially among the Germans and enjoying a considerable authority, are
(08:22):
chargeable with the very procedure of which they accuse the
philosopher introducing a priori inventions of their own into the
records of the past. It is, for example, a widely
current fiction that there was an original primeval people taught
immediately by God, endowed with perfect insight and wisdom, possessing
(08:46):
a thorough knowledge of all natural laws and spiritual truth,
that there have been such or such sacredotal peoples, or
to mention a more specific averment that there was as
a Roman epos from which the Roman historians derived the
early annals of their city, et cetera. Authorities of this
(09:10):
kind we leave to those talented historians by profession, among
whom in Germany at least their use is not uncommon.
We might then announce it as the first condition to
be observed, that we should faithfully adopt all that is historical,
(09:33):
but in such general expressions themselves as faithfully and adopt
lies the ambiguity even the ordinary. The impartial historiographer, who
believes and professes that he maintains a simply receptive attitude,
surrounding himself only to the data supplied him, is by
(09:57):
no means passive as regards the exer size of his
thinking powers. He brings his categories with him and sees
the phenomena presented to his mental vision exclusively through these media,
and especially in all that pretends to the name of science.
(10:18):
It is indispensable that reason should not sleep, that reflection
should be in full play. To him who looks upon
the world rationally, the world, in its turn, presents a
rational aspect. The relation is mutual, but the various exercises
(10:40):
of reflection, the different points of view, the modes of
deciding the simple question of the relative importance of events,
the first category that occupies the attention of the historian,
do not belong to this place and philosophical history. This
(11:03):
recording is in the public domain.
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