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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: History
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Hegel opens his speculative philosophy of history by defining three categories of historical development. (1)Earlier recorded history (e.g. Herodotus); (2)the period in which history is recorded in a ‘reflective’ style taking account of the attitude of the historian to his material, and constituting pragmatic history; (3)philosophical history; this he conceives in terms of intellectual contemplation searching for a pattern of historical evolution, which should yield a priori concepts appropriate to logical thought as he understood it (‘Europa ist schlechthin das Ende der Weltgeschichte, Asien der Anfang’). Hegel sought to devise a concept of logic which is not based on empirical cause and effect, but on a dialectical process adapted from that which Fichte had already introduced. He sees historical evolution in terms of a triadic pattern for which he first establishes a ‘thesis’ which provokes an ‘antithesis’, out of which emerges a ‘synthesis’. This ‘synthesis’ again forms a new ‘thesis’, but on a higher level than the preceding ‘thesis’.
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The far reaching influence of Hegel is due in a measure to the undoubted vastness of the scheme of philosophical synthesis which he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy which undertook to organize under the single formula of triadic development every department of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the philosophy of history, has a great deal of attractiveness to those who are metaphysically inclined. But hegel's influence is due in a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances. His philosophy is the highest expression of that spirit of collectivism which characterized the ninetheenth century, and it is ... the most extended application of the principle of development which dominated nineteenth-century thought in literature, science, and even in theology. In theology especially Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry. The application of his notion of development to Biblical criticism and to historical investigation is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit and purpose of contemporary theology with the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century.
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Hegel lived in what is called the Romantic period in European history, his contemporaries included Goethe and Beethoven. In general terms, thinkers in this period preferred the creative, imaginative and intuitive as opposed to the strictly abstract, conventional and intellectual. They tended to look to past ages with nostalgia. Still influential were the Enlightenment ideals of autonomous reason and human freedom and Hegel endorsed them. His receptivity to both Romantic and Enlightenment ideas was a source of tension within his thought. Also, it was a period of revolutions, wars and other political upheavals and these impinged on Hegel’s life.
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Thanks to Hölderlin's initiative, in 1797 Hegel was rescued from his cheerless situation through an appointment as a private tutor in Frankfurt. His employer owned a fine library and allowed him time to be with friends, especially Hölderlin. Most importantly, he had time to write. Among his many concerns were the "conditions of profit and property" in England, the history of Christianity, love, the Prussian penal code, and theology. Some of his Frankfurt writings were published posthumously by Hermann Nohl (1907) and were translated by T. M. Knox and R. Kroner in Early Theological Writings (1948).
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Through the Christian religion Hegel expressed his theology by suggesting that what has been revealed in History (Jesus) now needs to be conceived in thought (Livingston, 150). This is the system being displayed in Christianity. The incarnation and death represents for Hegel the finitude and the resurrection of Christ represents the return of spirit to itself. In Hegel’s model estrangement and then reconciliation must occur therefore, Jesus crucifixion and death fulfill this. Christ’s death and resurrection represent the finitude and reconciliation Hegel describes, "But what God’s death on the cross symbolizes is that God’s finitude is only a transitional moment in the emergence of Absolute spirit" (Livingston 153-154) After the death and resurrection of Christ is the emergence of a spiritual community - the Holy Spirit or Universal Spirit (Livingston 154).
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Hegel's system has special implications for the progress of history, particularly the evolution of people and government. He believed that the ideal universal soul can be created through logic that is based on his dialectic. This, he argued, was the foundation of all development. Using his three-part dialectic, he laid out the development of society. Hegel's thesis was that the primary goal of persons is to acquire property, and the pursuit of property by all persons necessitates the antithesis of this goal, laws. The association of persons and laws produces a synthesis, called ethos, that combines the freedom and interdependence of the people and creates a state.
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