Few people managed to change history. GWF Hegel was one of them.
Directly through influencing the German national ideas,
and indirectly by creating a new social order by his well-known student, Karl Marx.
The way we live today, be it good or bad, are merely the reflection of Hegel’s ideas.
Where his insight and his unconventional methods of studying history,
have changed the purpose of history itself.
And later his methods became tools for others to forge their own philosophies
He is the philosopher of the philosophers so to speak.
Because all he wrote was abstract that paved the way for his successors.
Maybe in this video, we’ll be able to shed some light on Hegel. And change your perspective forever.
Hegel's Theory of History
Hegel agreed with the romantic age idea, that one cannot escape the bounds of his time.
Everything you think of, everything that has a toll you, are only the results of influences of time and culture on you.
For you can’t think the way someone 100 yrs. before you can think,
nor you’ll share the same ideas of someone who’ll come 100 yrs. After you.
But Hegel added that time has an effect on philosophy and science also
That’s why, this is a serious claim, you cannot come up with an idea or a legislation that’s eternal.
We must focus our thought to deal only with the problems of our time.
And with time, any ideology or school of thought, no matter how good they are,
can’t be fit for the next generations. Unless they get modified or replaced.
Thus, Hegel concludes that there’s no such thing as a “Universal Truth”.
But rather, ideas that pair with their corresponding time.
Philosophy is time, written as thoughts
Study of History
Since we are confined to our time, and in order to understand ourselves we need to study history
Hegel asks a question: “are historical events random? Or is there a pattern?”
For if they are random, there’s no need to study history
. But he thinks that there’s a pattern that repeats itself.
With careful study we can find the (Law of Historical Development).
Hegel dedicated his life to find this law to answer the question: “what causes the change in history?”
keep in mind his POV toward history that every historical stage is the logical conclusion to the previous stage.
But, unlike we’re used to hear, history does not repeat itself according to Hegel.
. Even if it did, he didn’t give much care about it. He thought that every stage is unique.
Hegel claims that change comes from the fundamental concepts of societies.
I know it’s a difficult phrase to understand just like me when read for the 1st time.
To make easy let me give you an example of history, this is what Hegel studied:
Politics and their effects on society formation.
In the beginning, there was lawlessness, anyone can do whatever he wants. What does this stage need?
It needs you be strong or have some strong allies to protect you.
The next stage is where there are strict laws in a hierarchical way.
Head of a village, head of a city, head of a district, and so on.
The 3rd stage is where what Hegel called: “the sovereignty of law” flexible laws that shape the society.
Hegel says that these stages are not arbitrary, but they are the fundamental concepts of Freedom.
And this is the explanation of our previous phrase, “CHANGE COMES FROM THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF SOCIETIES”.
Still not clear yet? Ok, here’s the idea of freedom
The idea of freedom:
What’s freedom? Simply it is to do whatever you want
And this is what Hegel sees in the 1st stage of lawlessness.
. If there’s no government, everybody is free. But this kind of freedom is flawed.
Let me give you an example, suppose I’m a farmer and I need to farm for 3 seasons
seasons in order to stock some food for me and my family for winter.
But in winter, a gang of strong men come and threaten to kill me or give them what I worked for.
What’s the outcome of this act?
Naturally I’m not going to work next season. Why’d I work so that someone else will take it from me?
This is not the freedom, Hegel says.
. As long as there’s violation of the rights of others, this is an individual freedom at the expense of others.
Hegel even says, this is unfreedom. Or it is, in a superficial sense.
"Contradiction is the driving force for history and what causes the change...
A society built on contradictions lacks stability" Hegel
That’s why we need a new, counter stage. To stop the contradictions.
Instead of lawlessness as previous, there’s total forceful law. Because it’s a freedom of another kind.
I can now farm my land; I can buy a house and no one can take it from me.
Provided that the laws have institutions that work on it like police force and judicature not just a theory.
But then comes a time of no freedom also, the pyramidal hierarchy means I have many governors.
If they want to take a portion of what I earn, I cannot say no.
They give me protection but exploit me in other ways
this commitment could be so unbearable that goes beyond my abilities.
So, this counter stage also becomes a contradiction in itself. History will have its word
word in pushing forward the change. To counteract contradictions.
We reach the 3rd stage, where there’s a reconciliation between the 1st and 2nd.
By the way, the 1st stage is called Thesis,
the 2nd stage is called Antithesis, the 3rd is Synthesis.
the purpose of synthesis, is to remove the negative features of both thesis and antithesis
and to have the positives of both
The positive side of stage 1 was total freedom. The positive side of 2nd stage is the law.
The 3rd stage will have the positive sides of both the 1 and the 2, individual freedom under certain type of rule.
what Hegel says: What forces change through the eons, was the desire for freedom.
definition of freedom and the way to be applied, is what influenced history and change through generations.
The later thinkers claim that this is finalized in democracy, but I doubt that this what Hegel wanted.
I’ll explain it later in the video
"we learn from history that people don't learn" Hegel
Geist
But the pursuit of freedom needs what Hegel calls (Geist),
which is a German word and it’s difficult to translate.
But it implies both the soul and mind. I can imagine it as “the spirit of the nation”.
The collective thinking of a society that share the same desires.
Then each nation has a guiding spirit that it gets desires and ambitions from.
If the nation aspires freedom, then this what drives the conduct of the nation.
I believe that Geist is the metaphysical way of thinking for Hegel.
But all of this may not be understood by the people of the time,
it is us who conclude from what we study of history.
In other words, what struggles we go through today, we won’t understand them
. It’s for the next generations that will get a better grasp of our time.
"the goodwill alone is not enough against the power of nature" Hegel
Some of Hegel’s beliefs:
After all of this, we need to understand the main ideas that Hegel believed in.
History is a process of the rational, from ignorance to knowledge. From logical thinking to more logical.
Hegel didn’t believe in human perfection, whatever advancement we make, we’ll never have the Utopia
He noticed in the French revolution the excessive rationalization of everything was an impossible task,
he saw it madness. this what led for its failure in many aspects
Whatever the synthesis is, it’ll be the thesis of the next stage. History will never stop.
He thought that no matter how knowledgeable we can be,
we’ll never be able to predict the future accurately.
We may have some vision here and there, but never a true foretelling.
"a learner tries to find flaws, the scholar tries to find positive things in every stage of time" Hegel
misconceptions about Hegel
What is attributed to Hegel the thesis, the anthesis, and the synthesis, is called Hegelian dialectic.
But what’s strange that he never named his methods, the later thinkers called it the Dialectic.
This raises doubts about what Hegel and others wanted. Because there’s a split in his followers.
There’s a right Hegelian and a left Hegelian.
They remind me of the dichotomy of faith after the death of prophets
For those who study Hegel alone, they tend to recognize that he tends to attribute
the concept of freedom to the Lutheran Kingdom of Prussia
. So he’s a fascist in a sense.
But the contemporary claim that the dialectic was the natural cause for the eventuality democracy.
Karl Marx thinks that the dialectic is the natural way of class struggle.
There’re some examples that we can use the dialectic in.
Tsarist Russia there was religion, communist Russia there was the rejection of religion.
Modern Russia there’s some balance between religion and civil liberties.
In France, 1st a religious kingdom, then there’s the revolution and the rise of 1st republic
Now it’s the 5th republic which is moderate.
China is the same, imperial China, then the communist party.
Now modern China is more moderate.
These examples are mostly guessing work, they may be correct or not.
But at least this is the way we see history now.
I tend to see the Dialectic method as a wrench, which you can use it to open and close whatever you want.
for this, I ask you, my dear viewer, to use the Dialectic to describe common things in your life.
To see how much diversity we can get from the same concept.
What to memorize from this video?
It’s ok if you can’t understand everything, because Hegel’s way of writing was terrible.
And this subject is dry and boring.
I tried my best to simplify Hegel the best way possible.
But all I’m asking you, is to memorize these main facts about Hegel’s methods.
Hegelian Dialectic mean Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis.
Synthesis becomes the Thesis in the next stage.
Dialectic is so simplified. It was not the way he intended. But these are the claims of others.
Man moves forward to be more rational generation after generation.
Hegel wanted to credit the Prussian Kingdom. The latter thinkers use his methods for their own agendas
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