Hegel On History

One of the great classics of Western thought develops concept that history is not chance but a rational process, operating according to the laws of evolution, and embodying the spirit of freedom.

This book offers an alternative analysis of Hegel's famous 'end of history', detailing an alternative reading of Hegel on history.

Hegel’s philosophy of history—which most critics view as a theory of inevitable progress toward modern European civilization—is widely regarded as a failure today. Terry Pinkard’s spirited defense of the Hegelian view, based on a subtle understanding of human subjectivity, will play a central role in contemporary reevaluations of Hegel’s work.

Hegel, History, and Interpretation is a collection of essays that extend critical discussions of Hegel into contemporary debates about the nature of interpretation and theories of philosophical hermeneutics. Essays by Susan Armstrong, John D. Caputo, William Desmond, Robert J. Dostal, Shaun Gallagher, Philip T. Grier, H. S. Harris, Walter Lammi, George R. Lucas Jr., Michael Prosch, Tom Rockmore, and P. Christopher Smith explore difficult issues concerning historical interpretation, the nature of hermeneutics at the end of metaphysics, the social and critical function of reason, and the inadequacy of Hegel's interpretation of the experience of otherness. In the course of these essays Hegel is made to converse with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger as well as with contemporary theorists such as Gadamer, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida. Thus the contributors explore both the themes that form the common ground between Hegelian philosophy and contemporary interpretation theory and the mixed reception of Hegel's philosophy into contemporary discussions about history, deconstruction, critical theory, and alterity.

A new 2023 Translation with Afterword of Hegel's Monumental work Lectures on the Philosophy of world-history (1770–1831) Hegel's "Lectures on the Philosophy of World History" span his teaching career and provide a sweeping overview of world history from a philosophical perspective. Hegel posits that history is a rational process where the World Spirit actualizes itself through the actions of nations and individuals. He emphasizes the importance of freedom as the driving force behind historical development, asserting that each epoch brings humanity closer to realizing universal freedom.

In this path-breaking work, Susan Buck-Morss draws new connections between history, inequality, social conflict, and human emancipation. Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History offers a fundamental reinterpretation of Hegel's master-slave dialectic and points to a way forward to free critical theoretical practice from the prison-house of its own debates. Historicizing the thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the actions taken in the Haitian Revolution, Buck-Morss examines the startling connections between the two and challenges us to widen the boundaries of our historical imagination. She finds that it is in the discontinuities of historical flow, the edges of human experience, and the unexpected linkages between cultures that the possibility to transcend limits is discovered. It is these flashes of clarity that open the potential for understanding in spite of cultural differences. What Buck-Morss proposes amounts to a “new humanism,” one that goes beyond the usual ideological implications of such a phrase to embrace a radical neutrality that insists on the permeability of the space between opposing sides and as it reaches for a common humanity.

In this wide-ranging and thoughtful study, Michael Allen Gillespie explores the philosophical foundation, or ground, of the concept of history. Analyzing the historical conflict between human nature and freedom, he centers his discussion on Hegel and Heidegger but also draws on the pertinent thought of other philosophers whose contributions to the debate is crucial—particularly Rousseau, Kant, and Nietzsche.