September 3, 2025 • 16 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):
Reason governs the world. 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 to
the Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Section
(00:28):
three Philosophical History, Part one, Reason governs the World. I
will only mention two phases and points of view that
concern the generally diffused conviction that reason has ruled and
is still ruling in the world and consequently in the
(00:52):
world's history, because they give us, at the same time
an opportunity for more closely investigating the question that presents
the greatest difficulty, and for indicating a branch of the
subject which will have to be enlarged on in the sequel.
(01:13):
One of these points is that passage in history which
informs us that the Greek in Axagoras, was the first
to enunciate the doctrine that nus understanding generally or reason
governs the world. It is not intelligence as self conscious
reason not a spirit as such, that is meant, and
(01:38):
we must clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement
of the solar system takes place according to unchangeable laws.
These laws are reason implicit in the phenomena in question,
but neither the sun nor the planets which revolve around
it according to these laws, can be said to have
any consciousness of them. A thought of this kind, that
(02:05):
nature is an embodiment of reason, that it is unchangeably
subordinate to universal laws, appears no wise striking or strange
to us. We are accustomed to such conceptions and find
nothing extraordinary in them. And I have mentioned this extraordinary
(02:28):
occurrence partly to show how history teaches that ideas of
this kind, which may seem trivial to us, have not
always been in the world. That, on the contrary, such
a thought makes an epoch in the Annals of human intelligence.
Aristotle says of an Oxigoras as the originator of the
(02:49):
thought in question, that he appeared as a sober man
among the drunken. Socrates adopted the doctrine from an Oxagoras,
and it forthwith became the ruling idea in philosophy, except
in the school of Epicurus, who ascribed all events to chance.
(03:09):
I was delighted with the sentiment Plato makes Socrates say,
and hoped I had found a teacher who would show
me nature in harmony with reason, who would demonstrate in
each particular phenomenon its specific aim, and in the whole
the grand object of the universe. I would not have
(03:31):
surrendered this hope for a great deal. But how very
much was I disappointed, when, having zealously applied myself to
the writings of an Axagoras, I found that he adduces
only external causes, such as atmosphere, ether, water, and the like.
(03:52):
It is evident that the defect which Socrates complains of
respecting an Axegoras's doctrine does not concern the principle itself,
but the shortcoming of the propounder in applying it to nature.
In the concrete nature is not deduced from that principle.
The latter remains, in fact a mere abstraction, inasmuch as
the former is not comprehended and exhibited as a development
(04:16):
of it, an organization produced by and from reason. I wish,
at the very outset to call your attention to the
important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited
to an abstract form, and its determinate application and concrete development.
(04:44):
This distinction affects the whole fabric of philosophy, and among
other bearings of it, there is one to which we
shall have to revert at the close of our view
of universal history. In investigating the aspect of political affairs
in the most recent period, we have next to notice
(05:05):
the rise of this idea that reason directs the world,
in connection with a further application of it well known
to us, in the form, namely of the religious truth
that the world is not abandoned to chance and external
contingent causes, but that a providence controls it. I stated
(05:28):
above that I would not make a demand on your
faith in regard to the principle announced. Yet I might
appeal to your belief in it in this religious aspect, if,
as a general rule, the nature of philosophical science allowed
it to attach authority to presuppositions. To put it in
another shape, this appeal is forbidden because the science of
(05:52):
which we have to treat proposes itself to furnish the
proof not indeed of the abstract truth of the doctrine,
but of its correctness as compared with facts. The truth, then,
that a providence that of God presides over the events
of the world, consorts with the proposition in question. For
(06:16):
divine providence is wisdom endowed with an infinite power which
realizes its aim, namely the absolute rational design of the world.
Reason is thought conditioning itself with perfect freedom. But a difference,
rather a contradiction, will manifest itself between this belief and
(06:40):
our principle, just as was the case in reference to
the demand made by Socrates in the case of an
Axagorus's dictum, for that belief is similarly indefinite. It is
what is called a belief in a general providence, and
is not followed out into definite application or displayed in
(07:01):
its bearing on the grand total the entire course of
human history. But to explain history is to depict the
passions of mankind, the genius, the active powers that play
their part on the grand stage, and the providentially determined
process which these exhibit constitutes what is generally called the
(07:23):
plan of providence. Yet it is this very plan which
is supposed to be concealed from our view, which it
is deemed presumption. Even to wish to recognize the ignorance
of an Oxegoras as to how intelligence reveals itself in
actual existence, was ingenuous, neither in his consciousness nor in
(07:50):
that of Greece at large. Had that thought been further expanded,
he had not attained the power to apply his general
principle to the concrete, so as to deduce the latter
from the former. It was Socrates who took the first
step in comprehending the union of the concrete with the universal.
(08:13):
An Axagoras then did not take up a hostile position
towards such an application. The common belief in providence does.
At least, it opposes the use of the principle on
the large scale, and denies the possibility of discerning the
plan of Providence in isolated cases. This plan is supposed
(08:33):
to be manifest. Pious persons are encouraged to recognize in
particular circumstances something more than mere chance to acknowledge the
guiding hand of God. For example, when help has unexpectedly
come to an individual in great perplexity and need. But
(08:57):
these instances of providential disease are of a limited kind
and concern the accomplishment of nothing more than the desires
of the individual in question. But in the history of
the world, the individuals we have to do with are peoples, totalities,
that are states. We cannot therefore be satisfied with what
(09:22):
we may call this peddling view of providence to which
the belief alluded to limits itself. Equally unsatisfactory is the
merely abstract, undefined belief in a providence when that belief
is not brought to bear upon the details of the
process which it conducts. On the contrary, our earnest endeavor
(09:48):
must be directed to the recognition of the ways of Providence,
the means it uses, and the historical phenomena in which
it manifests itself, and we must show oh their connection
with the general principle above mentioned. But in noticing the
recognition of the plan of divine providence generally, I have
(10:10):
implicitly touched upon a prominent question of the day, namely
that of the possibility of knowing God, or, rather, since
public opinion has ceased to allow it to be a
matter of question, the doctrine that it is impossible to
know God in direct contravention of what is commanded in
(10:32):
Holy Scripture as the highest duty, that we should not
merely love but know God. The prevalent dogma involves the
denial of what is there said, namely that it is
the spirit that leads into truth knows all things, penetrates
even into the deep things of the Godhead. While the
(10:56):
divine being is thus placed beyond our knowledge and outside
the limit of all human things, we have the convenient
license of wandering as far as we list in the
direction of our own fancies. We are freed from the
obligation to refer our knowledge to the divine and true.
(11:19):
On the other hand, the vanity and egotism which characterize
it find in this false position ample justification and the
pious modesty which puts far from it. The knowledge of
God can well estimate how much furtherance thereby a cruise
to its own wayward and vain strivings. I have been
(11:42):
unwilling to leave out of sight the connection between our
thesis that reason governs and has governed the world, and
the question of the possibility of a knowledge of God,
chiefly that I might not lose the opportunity of mentioning
the imputation against philosophy of being shy of noticing religious truths,
(12:04):
or of having occasion to be so, in which is
insinuated the suspicion that it has anything but a clear
conscience in the presence of these truths, so far from
this being the case, the fact is that in recent
times philosophy has been obliged to defend the domain of
(12:24):
religion against the attacks of several theological systems. In the
Christian religion, God has revealed himself, that is, he has
given us to understand what he is, so that He
is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this
possibility of knowing Him thus afforded us renders such knowledge
(12:48):
a duty. God wishes no narrow hearted souls or empty
heads for his children, but those whose spirit is of
itself indeed poor, but rich in them knowledge of Him,
and to regard this knowledge of God as the only
valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has
(13:11):
resulted from the revelation of the divine Being as its
original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of
what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination.
The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product
of active reason which the history of the world offers
(13:34):
to us. It was for a while the fashion to
profess admiration for the wisdom of God as displayed in animals, plants,
and isolated occurrences, but if it be allowed that Providence
manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why
not also in universal history this is deemed too great
(13:59):
a matter to be thus regarded. But divine wisdom, that is, reason,
is one and the same in the great as in
the little, and we must not imagine God to be
too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale.
Our intellectual striving aims at realizing the conviction that what
(14:22):
was intended by eternal wisdom is actually accomplished in the
domain of existent, active spirit, as well as in that
of mere nature. Our mode of treating the subject is
in this aspect a theodicy, a justification of the ways
of God, which Leibniz attempted metaphysically in his method, that is,
(14:48):
in indefinite abstract categories, so that the ill that is
found in the world may be comprehended and the thinking
spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed,
nowhere is such a harmonizing view more pressingly demanded than
(15:08):
in universal history, and it can be attained only by
recognizing the positive existence, in which that negative element is
a subordinate and vanquished nullity. On the one hand, the
ultimate design of the world must be perceived, and on
(15:29):
the other hand, the fact that this design has been
actually realized in it and that evil has not been
able permanently to assert a competing position. But this conviction
involves much more than the mere belief in a superintending
noose or in providence. Reason, whose sovereignty over the world
(15:53):
has been maintained, is as indefinite a term as providence.
Supposing the term to be used by those who are
are unable to characterize it distinctly to show wherein it
consists so as to enable us to decide whether a
thing is rational or irrational. An adequate definition of reason
(16:14):
is the first desideratum, and whatever boast may be made
of strict adherence to it in explaining phenomena. Without such
a definition, we can get no farther than mere words.
With these observations, we may proceed to the second point
of view that has to be considered in this introduction,
(16:40):
end reason governs the world. This recording is in the
public domain.
Reason governs the world. 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 to
the Philosophy of History by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Section
(00:28):
three Philosophical History, Part one, Reason governs the World. I
will only mention two phases and points of view that
concern the generally diffused conviction that reason has ruled and
is still ruling in the world and consequently in the
(00:52):
world's history, because they give us, at the same time
an opportunity for more closely investigating the question that presents
the greatest difficulty, and for indicating a branch of the
subject which will have to be enlarged on in the sequel.
(01:13):
One of these points is that passage in history which
informs us that the Greek in Axagoras, was the first
to enunciate the doctrine that nus understanding generally or reason
governs the world. It is not intelligence as self conscious
reason not a spirit as such, that is meant, and
(01:38):
we must clearly distinguish these from each other. The movement
of the solar system takes place according to unchangeable laws.
These laws are reason implicit in the phenomena in question,
but neither the sun nor the planets which revolve around
it according to these laws, can be said to have
any consciousness of them. A thought of this kind, that
(02:05):
nature is an embodiment of reason, that it is unchangeably
subordinate to universal laws, appears no wise striking or strange
to us. We are accustomed to such conceptions and find
nothing extraordinary in them. And I have mentioned this extraordinary
(02:28):
occurrence partly to show how history teaches that ideas of
this kind, which may seem trivial to us, have not
always been in the world. That, on the contrary, such
a thought makes an epoch in the Annals of human intelligence.
Aristotle says of an Oxigoras as the originator of the
(02:49):
thought in question, that he appeared as a sober man
among the drunken. Socrates adopted the doctrine from an Oxagoras,
and it forthwith became the ruling idea in philosophy, except
in the school of Epicurus, who ascribed all events to chance.
(03:09):
I was delighted with the sentiment Plato makes Socrates say,
and hoped I had found a teacher who would show
me nature in harmony with reason, who would demonstrate in
each particular phenomenon its specific aim, and in the whole
the grand object of the universe. I would not have
(03:31):
surrendered this hope for a great deal. But how very
much was I disappointed, when, having zealously applied myself to
the writings of an Axagoras, I found that he adduces
only external causes, such as atmosphere, ether, water, and the like.
(03:52):
It is evident that the defect which Socrates complains of
respecting an Axegoras's doctrine does not concern the principle itself,
but the shortcoming of the propounder in applying it to nature.
In the concrete nature is not deduced from that principle.
The latter remains, in fact a mere abstraction, inasmuch as
the former is not comprehended and exhibited as a development
(04:16):
of it, an organization produced by and from reason. I wish,
at the very outset to call your attention to the
important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited
to an abstract form, and its determinate application and concrete development.
(04:44):
This distinction affects the whole fabric of philosophy, and among
other bearings of it, there is one to which we
shall have to revert at the close of our view
of universal history. In investigating the aspect of political affairs
in the most recent period, we have next to notice
(05:05):
the rise of this idea that reason directs the world,
in connection with a further application of it well known
to us, in the form, namely of the religious truth
that the world is not abandoned to chance and external
contingent causes, but that a providence controls it. I stated
(05:28):
above that I would not make a demand on your
faith in regard to the principle announced. Yet I might
appeal to your belief in it in this religious aspect, if,
as a general rule, the nature of philosophical science allowed
it to attach authority to presuppositions. To put it in
another shape, this appeal is forbidden because the science of
(05:52):
which we have to treat proposes itself to furnish the
proof not indeed of the abstract truth of the doctrine,
but of its correctness as compared with facts. The truth, then,
that a providence that of God presides over the events
of the world, consorts with the proposition in question. For
(06:16):
divine providence is wisdom endowed with an infinite power which
realizes its aim, namely the absolute rational design of the world.
Reason is thought conditioning itself with perfect freedom. But a difference,
rather a contradiction, will manifest itself between this belief and
(06:40):
our principle, just as was the case in reference to
the demand made by Socrates in the case of an
Axagorus's dictum, for that belief is similarly indefinite. It is
what is called a belief in a general providence, and
is not followed out into definite application or displayed in
(07:01):
its bearing on the grand total the entire course of
human history. But to explain history is to depict the
passions of mankind, the genius, the active powers that play
their part on the grand stage, and the providentially determined
process which these exhibit constitutes what is generally called the
(07:23):
plan of providence. Yet it is this very plan which
is supposed to be concealed from our view, which it
is deemed presumption. Even to wish to recognize the ignorance
of an Oxegoras as to how intelligence reveals itself in
actual existence, was ingenuous, neither in his consciousness nor in
(07:50):
that of Greece at large. Had that thought been further expanded,
he had not attained the power to apply his general
principle to the concrete, so as to deduce the latter
from the former. It was Socrates who took the first
step in comprehending the union of the concrete with the universal.
(08:13):
An Axagoras then did not take up a hostile position
towards such an application. The common belief in providence does.
At least, it opposes the use of the principle on
the large scale, and denies the possibility of discerning the
plan of Providence in isolated cases. This plan is supposed
(08:33):
to be manifest. Pious persons are encouraged to recognize in
particular circumstances something more than mere chance to acknowledge the
guiding hand of God. For example, when help has unexpectedly
come to an individual in great perplexity and need. But
(08:57):
these instances of providential disease are of a limited kind
and concern the accomplishment of nothing more than the desires
of the individual in question. But in the history of
the world, the individuals we have to do with are peoples, totalities,
that are states. We cannot therefore be satisfied with what
(09:22):
we may call this peddling view of providence to which
the belief alluded to limits itself. Equally unsatisfactory is the
merely abstract, undefined belief in a providence when that belief
is not brought to bear upon the details of the
process which it conducts. On the contrary, our earnest endeavor
(09:48):
must be directed to the recognition of the ways of Providence,
the means it uses, and the historical phenomena in which
it manifests itself, and we must show oh their connection
with the general principle above mentioned. But in noticing the
recognition of the plan of divine providence generally, I have
(10:10):
implicitly touched upon a prominent question of the day, namely
that of the possibility of knowing God, or, rather, since
public opinion has ceased to allow it to be a
matter of question, the doctrine that it is impossible to
know God in direct contravention of what is commanded in
(10:32):
Holy Scripture as the highest duty, that we should not
merely love but know God. The prevalent dogma involves the
denial of what is there said, namely that it is
the spirit that leads into truth knows all things, penetrates
even into the deep things of the Godhead. While the
(10:56):
divine being is thus placed beyond our knowledge and outside
the limit of all human things, we have the convenient
license of wandering as far as we list in the
direction of our own fancies. We are freed from the
obligation to refer our knowledge to the divine and true.
(11:19):
On the other hand, the vanity and egotism which characterize
it find in this false position ample justification and the
pious modesty which puts far from it. The knowledge of
God can well estimate how much furtherance thereby a cruise
to its own wayward and vain strivings. I have been
(11:42):
unwilling to leave out of sight the connection between our
thesis that reason governs and has governed the world, and
the question of the possibility of a knowledge of God,
chiefly that I might not lose the opportunity of mentioning
the imputation against philosophy of being shy of noticing religious truths,
(12:04):
or of having occasion to be so, in which is
insinuated the suspicion that it has anything but a clear
conscience in the presence of these truths, so far from
this being the case, the fact is that in recent
times philosophy has been obliged to defend the domain of
(12:24):
religion against the attacks of several theological systems. In the
Christian religion, God has revealed himself, that is, he has
given us to understand what he is, so that He
is no longer a concealed or secret existence. And this
possibility of knowing Him thus afforded us renders such knowledge
(12:48):
a duty. God wishes no narrow hearted souls or empty
heads for his children, but those whose spirit is of
itself indeed poor, but rich in them knowledge of Him,
and to regard this knowledge of God as the only
valuable possession. That development of the thinking spirit, which has
(13:11):
resulted from the revelation of the divine Being as its
original basis, must ultimately advance to the intellectual comprehension of
what was presented in the first instance, to feeling and imagination.
The time must eventually come for understanding that rich product
of active reason which the history of the world offers
(13:34):
to us. It was for a while the fashion to
profess admiration for the wisdom of God as displayed in animals, plants,
and isolated occurrences, but if it be allowed that Providence
manifests itself in such objects and forms of existence, why
not also in universal history this is deemed too great
(13:59):
a matter to be thus regarded. But divine wisdom, that is, reason,
is one and the same in the great as in
the little, and we must not imagine God to be
too weak to exercise his wisdom on the grand scale.
Our intellectual striving aims at realizing the conviction that what
(14:22):
was intended by eternal wisdom is actually accomplished in the
domain of existent, active spirit, as well as in that
of mere nature. Our mode of treating the subject is
in this aspect a theodicy, a justification of the ways
of God, which Leibniz attempted metaphysically in his method, that is,
(14:48):
in indefinite abstract categories, so that the ill that is
found in the world may be comprehended and the thinking
spirit reconciled with the fact of the existence of evil. Indeed,
nowhere is such a harmonizing view more pressingly demanded than
(15:08):
in universal history, and it can be attained only by
recognizing the positive existence, in which that negative element is
a subordinate and vanquished nullity. On the one hand, the
ultimate design of the world must be perceived, and on
(15:29):
the other hand, the fact that this design has been
actually realized in it and that evil has not been
able permanently to assert a competing position. But this conviction
involves much more than the mere belief in a superintending
noose or in providence. Reason, whose sovereignty over the world
(15:53):
has been maintained, is as indefinite a term as providence.
Supposing the term to be used by those who are
are unable to characterize it distinctly to show wherein it
consists so as to enable us to decide whether a
thing is rational or irrational. An adequate definition of reason
(16:14):
is the first desideratum, and whatever boast may be made
of strict adherence to it in explaining phenomena. Without such
a definition, we can get no farther than mere words.
With these observations, we may proceed to the second point
of view that has to be considered in this introduction,
(16:40):
end reason governs the world. This recording is in the
public domain.
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