Intro to Philosophy of History
Written by HegelHegel
Hegel
Wrote: [[Hegel, Intro to Philosophy of History|Intro to Philosophy of History]]
Notes
absolute idealist
key member of [[German Idealism]]
student of Fichte & relied on him in his work
the great intellect is not personal & is accessible to man b/c man's intellect is an extension of its intellect
view of history
teleological development - development in a direction ([[Darwin]] takes this and runs w/ it)
history recognizes internal contradictions and s...
Themes
- Spirit:
- consciousness
- self-consciousness
- freedom
- progress of history
Class Notes
!Hegel, Intro to Philosophy of History.pdf
Summary
Hegel wrote about Spirit, and how it is realized. He explained that the essence of Spirit is Freedom, so then he had to talk about Freedom; and that led to a discussion of consciousness (specifically self-consciousness) and existence. You see, Spirit exists in itself, meaning that it is conscious of itself. And Freedom is the goal of the progress of History. So the goal of History is for the Spirit (possibly the World-Spirit?) to be conscious of its internal Freedom. To gain this consciousness, History has gone through a push and pull of private passions and interests, each pushing History a bit forward. Even though humans do not intend great world-change, their actions have those unintended consequences. The driving force behind this is Reason. In the end, the goal of man is to have knowledge of and ability to choose the good or the evil