Hegel places significant emphasis on the concept of spirit, which he sees as a driving force in world history. According to him, spirit manifests itself through historical events by alienating itself and ultimately overcoming its own hindrances, thereby achieving self-actualization. This process is likened to the development of an oak tree from a seed, revealing that just as the seed has the potential to become a tree, spirit Actualizes its potential through human history.

Hegel employs a Dialectical method to explain the progression of history. He argues that historical progress is driven by Dialectical oppositions, like thesis and antithesis, which give rise to a synthesis that preserves elements of the opposites while simultaneously transcending them. An example is the transition from despotic monarchy to constitutional monarchy, seen as an ideal form of government in Hegel's philosophy. This synthesis is comparable to a Sublation, where both the preservation and negation of past stages occur.

Key takeaways from Hegel's philosophy include:

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. Estrangement [ɪˈstreɪnʤmənt] - (n.) - The state of being alienated or separated from something.

... spirit does this. It serves as the engine of world history through self Estrangement, basically, by alienating itself.

2. Imminent [ˈɪmɪnənt] - (adj.) - About to happen; lying within or inherent.

... yet the development of spirit is imminent within world history itself.

3. Dialectic [ˌdaɪəˈlɛktɪk] - (n.) - A method of argument or reasoning involving contradiction and its reconciliation.

This is what's known as dialectic. Hegel is known for a Dialectical method of philosophy.

4. Heuristic [hjʊˈrɪstɪk] - (n.) - Enabling a person to discover or learn something for themselves.

So let me give you a useful Heuristic that a lot of people use while teaching Hegel...

5. Antithesis [ænˈtɪθəsɪs] - (n.) - A contrast or opposition between two things.

You have a thesis a, an antithesis b, and those things are mutually incompatible.

6. Sublation [sʌbˈleɪʃən] - (n.) - The process of absorbing or placing in a higher context.

This word Sublation basically implies that something is superseded. It's moved beyond, but it's preserved at the same time.

7. Volksgeist [voʊks.gaɪst] - (n.) - A German term referring to the spirit or cultural ethos of a people.

Hegel talks about the Volksgeist. Remember, that's one of the principles that I mentioned...

8. Teleological [ˌtiːliəˈlɒʤɪkəl] - (adj.) - Relating to the explanation of phenomena by their purposes rather than by their causes.

...and what, in general, of the progressivist or Teleological notion of history...

9. Progressivist [prəʊˈɡresɪvɪst] - (adj.) - Relating to a belief in progress and the improvement of society or mankind.

...this progressivist view of history that Hegel offers...

10. Caprice [kəˈpriːs] - (n.) - A sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior.

...by letting people rule themselves, passion and Caprice run free.

Unraveling Hegel's Dialectical Method In World History

Recall that for Hegel, spirit is the engine of world history. Spirit Actualizes itself throughout the course of historical events. In the reading for today, we get a really interesting articulation of this, which is the idea that spirit does this. It serves as the engine of world history through self Estrangement, basically, by alienating itself. Hegel says that spirit stands in opposition to itself, presenting its own hindrance to itself, and it must overcome itself throughout the course of world history.

This is weirdly Paradoxical, right? Hegel talks about this on the bottom of 59 and on page 60, he says that spirit only makes itself into what it is implicitly. And yet the development of spirit is imminent within world history itself. So it's not as if spirit is sort of standing apart like an all knowing God who has the course of history charted out in advance. It's not like that. It's actually this weird motion, this principle of creating something, like the way that an oak tree starts off as a seed, and it has everything that it needs in order to develop right under the right conditions. But we can't say that the seed itself is already the oak tree, right? It is the oak tree. Implicitly, spirit self actualization is Implicit within itself, but needs the course of human history through human activity and subjective will or passion, to realize itself.

The highest achievement of spirit is ultimately to know itself. Hegel says on page 75, spirit wants to be self conscious of itself by taking itself as its own object, and it can only do so through thinking itself. So spirit's movement is this process of externalizing itself in different formations, reflecting on itself, and then sort of overcoming that formation, that relationship, and creating a new reflection. This is what's known as dialectic. Hegel is known for a Dialectical method of philosophy. And so what I've been saying so far is sort of challenging to grasp, understandable. Hegel is famously difficult to grasp.

So let me give you a useful Heuristic that a lot of people use while teaching Hegel, but with the caveat that this particular schema is somewhat oversimplified. And you're not going to find it that often in Hegel himself. This is the schema of dialectics known as the thesis, antithesis and synthesis. According to Hegel, history is driven by opposites. You have a thesis a, an antithesis b, and those things are mutually incompatible. What happens is that because of that incompatibility, attention arises that ultimately leads to the collapse of that opposition. But when that opposition collapses, it's not as if the thesis and antithesis just fall away. Rather, their moment of collapse is sort of preserved at a higher level, which is the synthesis, the auf Hebbung in German, or the Sublation. This word Sublation basically implies that something is superseded. It's moved beyond, but it's preserved at the same time.

So, for Hegel, all of the past moments and oppositions of world history are, in a sense of present in the present moment, but they are present as having been superseded. So an example that Hegel gives is in terms of structures of government. He talks about despotic monarchy, where one person is ruling as being a kind of thesis. That's a first moment of state formation. And then that despotic monarchy gets opposed by a different kind of government, which is democracy, where the people are ruling rather than one person ruling. So we have this opposition between monarchy and democracy.

But monarchy and democracy not only are in tension with each other, but they're also internally in tension. According to Hegel, monarchy is intention with itself because it relies on the obedience of the people, but it doesn't give the people a voice. And he says that democracy is intention with itself because by letting people rule themselves, passion and Caprice run free. They're not appropriately guided by reason. So we have a thesis of despotic monarchy and an antithesis of democracy. And Hegel says that these collapse because they're both in tension with themselves and in tension with each other, and lead to constitutional monarchy, which is basically Hegel's ideal of government. Here he thinks we have the rule of the people through a constitution, but then we also have a single person ruling, who is, paradoxically, by virtue of being an individual representing everybody, and that's the monarch.

This is far from the only example of a thesis, antithesis, synthesis, structure. But it is one that comes up in the reading for today. We'll talk a little bit more about this when we get to Marx as well. Hegel summarizes his Dialectical view on page 60. Here he says, about three quarters of the way down the page, that the process of history appears to be an advance from the imperfect to the more perfect. There we have the developmental, progressive view of history we've been talking about. But in this transition from the imperfect to the more perfect, Hegel says that the imperfect stage is to be grasped as having the perfect within itself.

The imperfect stages of history are internally driven by having a perfect stage of history Implicit within them, in the same way that the seed of the oak tree has the oak tree Implicit within it. And the Sublation or synthesis is kind of a funny concept, because it can mean both preservation and negation. So the tension between opposites is negated. Right. It collapses, as we said, but it also is preserved. It had a partial truth to it that persists into the present.

On page 60, Hegel talks about stages in the development of spirit. And he says that we first go from the immersion of spirit in natural life. Right. So spirit is just completely Implicit within nature to a second stage where spirit emerges into consciousness and freedom. But even that second stage of emerging into consciousness and freedom, gaining a certain reflective dimension. Right. Spirit is able to reflect on itself, is not the end goal. Ultimately, these two moments, which we can even think about as the thesis and antithesis, get sublated into a third stage, which is spirit in its universality and self consciousness. Here, spirit unifies the subjective with the objective and becomes fully free.

Now, here's where it gets pretty colonialist. Hegel talks about the Volksgeist. Remember, that's one of the principles that I mentioned in my video for last week. The Volksgeist is the spirit of a people. Hegel says that spirit works through individual peoples at individual moments of time, such that certain civilizations have a world historical role to play before then passing away. Since the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire had a historical role to play on the slaughter bench of history and its increasing self actualization of spirit into the idea. But then eventually its time was UP, it decayed, and then was gone.

The Volksgeist, or national spirit, spirit of a people, is only a particular phase of world spirit. Hegel says on page 82. Individual civilizations culminate in a particular thought or notion, right? A particular civilization has a kind of lifespan, according to Hegel, it's born, it reaches maturity, and then it dies. And whatever essential thought or contribution the civilization had to make becomes the kernel of rebirth for the next civilization. Hegel likens this to the image of the phoenix, and he says that the image of the phoenix comes from Asia. But because Hegel is extremely Eurocentric, he thinks that, like, literally the culmination of world history is in Prussia in his time of living. He says a western version of the phoenix is better because it's not just that the phoenix is reborn, but the phoenix is reborn as a purer and more spiritual being.

Page 76. For Hegel, what brings about the decline or death of a people is habit. Habit or activity without opposition. Just kind of going through the motions are the first sign, according to him, that a people is in decline. And I'll just say that this progressivist view of history that Hegel offers, including its notion that history is forwarded by individual peoples, has a long and quite fraught legacy in subsequent philosophy. So, for instance, you can hear resonances here of what will later become national socialist rhetoric in Germany, right? The idea that the german people have a world historical mission to play.

And then on the other side of things, there's somebody like W. E. B. Du Bois, who in the early 20th century in America says that black people in the US are now the world historical people that Hegel envisioned. What do you think about this hegelian legacy and his focus on the way that world spirit gets actualized through individual peoples? And what, in general, of the progressivist or Teleological notion of history that things are always getting better due to an imminent intrinsic law within material conditions of the world.

Philosophy, Education, Hegel, Dialectics, World History, Eurocentrism