Discussion Group: The Philosophy of History
Post any thoughts you have regarding Hegel as "comments" to this post. (The blog is configured to allow anonymous users).
posted by J.S. at 5:41 PM
"To understand where we are in today's world -- in our intellectual ideas and in our cultural and political lives -- we must trace three lines in history, namely, the philosophic, the scientific, and the religious." Francis Schaeffer
posted by J.S. at 5:41 PM
6 Comments:
We began our discussion of Hegel by asking: Does history have a purpose, order, goal, and meaning? If so, can we know it? If so, what is it? Hegel would say that history is governed by rationality; it seems that history is the actualization of God. We decided that Hegel’s God is similar in some ways to the decrees of God in Calvinism, but without the personal God who issues those decrees. This led us to discuss the complexity of God from a Christian point of view—the God who is personal and good (the very basis and standard for goodness), and yet whose decrees cover even the sin-filled events of history. We talked about the apparent relationship between Hegel and the destructive isms of the 20th century—especially facism and communism. Hegel’s view that history moves rationally toward certain ends, apparently in a very bloody, amoral way that destroys countless human beings, seems to have been used to justify utopian/totalitarian visions which bathed much of the twentieth century in horrific crimes against humanity. Hegel’s embrace of the role of the world-historical figure (such as Caesar) can be seen as contributing to the embrace of “world-historical” figures like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Christianity, by contrast, while it acknowledges a God who decrees all that comes to pass, sees the true end of history as outside of history and retains a personal and ethical criterion against which all human actions will be judged.
Hegel thought we were obligated to discern in specific ways the path and end of history. Christianity seems to tell us that the ultimate meaning of history is beyond history (being found in God and the consummation of the kingdom in the 2nd coming of Christ). These differences can seem simple abstractions, but seeing how Hegel’s views and those of the isms of the 20th century were so destructive suggests that ideas may matter. This brings us back to the mystery of Western civilization, which was Christianized to a large degree but then developed various philosophers which simultaneously borrow from Christianity and reject it.
We also raised the status of our current embrace of democracy, capitalism, free trade (the “Washington consensus). Can we truly discern whether history is going in this direction? Is the purpose of history to lead to this kind of set of political and economic arrangements? What is the relationship between these arrangements and Christianity?
This is not everything we talked about, but perhaps can get things started.
Thanks very much for the summary... There's definitely a lot there.
I also agree that Hegel is opposed to the Christianity at some very fundamental level (despite the fact, as we discussed, that his philosophy also seems to "shadow" Christianity). The difference is that Hegel essentially eliminates orthodox religious faith by attacking what he sees to be a misplaced trust in theological abstractions. Hegel seems to hate everything that is abstracted, everything that is seperated or set apart (as the Christian God is, in some ways) from the world. Thus he believes very strongly that "history is the actualization of God," but the emphasis is on the "actualization." The divine sphere is only meaningful when it interacts with the world. God takes on reality only when he takes on flesh. This reverses the Christian emphasis on the fact that it is the world that is dependent on God for its existence, even from moment to moment. For Hegel, this difference in emphasis might appear slight: probably he would be just as comfortable stating the latter as he would the former. For him, the point is doubtless the close link (and our religious duty to trace it out in history). However, the gap widens as Hegel pursues his theory. Christianity is always careful to avoid pantheism, to see itself as worshipping a God greater than and outside the world. Although Hegel uses monotheistic terminology, his emphasises (and lack of appreciation for the "static" nature of doctrine) soon carry him far from orthodoxy. Words like "God" cannot therefore have a "static" meaning (for Hegel). A motionless God does not seem sufficient for Hegel's emphasis on "actualization" and the God-filled motion of history.
There are obvious reasons why this sort of philosophy would carry enourmous risks. If all of history is seen in some kind of divine light, and if historical process matters so much (so much that God's will cannot be seperated fully from the means he uses to accomplish his ends).... presumably, then, the ends certainly do justify the means, or, at least, the ends require the means. Who are we to question God, after all? (even a God so closely identified with the process itself).
What we did not discuss is the fact that Hegel seems to at least partially have seem this accusation coming. He writes (in the third chapter, Freedom, Individual & State):
"Some might find it acceptable to see individuals sacrificed, along with their aims and fulfillments, consigning their happiness to the realm of chance (to which it belongs), and even to regard individuals altogether under the category of means to an end. Yet there is that aspect of theirs which we must refuse to see in this light, even for the sake of the highest goal, simply because there is that in individuals which is not to be made subordinate, but is something intrisically eternal and divine. This is (italicized in the text) morality, ethics, religious commitment." Hegel has grasped what many would pinpoint to be the problem with his theory: it takes away all individual importance from the individual, and, with it, nearly all morality. the Caesars of the world are glorified, but not as individuals, because as Hegel sees it, they too are only more important means to an end (even with a much worse individual end than the ordinary person!). the difficulty is that for most people, after all, morality *is* something fixed and static.
Hegel's answer seems to approximate the Christian one (in the predestination versus individual responsibility argument): his theory does not change the fact that the individual is responsible for his own actions. there can be both a divine plan *and* some kind of individual responsibility. he writes:
"But it must be said here that individuals... are responsible for any ethical or religious deterioration, and for the weakening of ethics and religion. This is the seal of the absolutely high vocation of Man, that he or she knows what is good or what is evil, and that it is for him or her to will either the good or the evil. It is the mark of the human, in other words, to be capable of bearing such responsibility... only animals are innocent."
...so, Hegel, in the short term, at least recognizes the problem. (Although, oddly enough, mabye his answer goes too far the opposite direction in a glorification of individual free will... he still does not want responsibility *to* something fixed, he emphasizes the "freedom" of the will and its ability to decide for itself. he answers the charge of de-humanizing the masses by becoming a humanist, not really by affirming moral responsibilty).
and in fact, further down, the emphasis on "responsibility" is abandoned. "Freedom" (of an open-ended sort) is for Hegel too closely identified with God for him to hold onto anything fixed for too long. (Hegel sneers at some of the other "dogmatic opinions asserted" on the subject, declaring that "at no time so much as in our own have general principles and ideas been raised up with greater pretentiousness.") In the end, much of the whole mess about morality seems to him to have been a misguided fuss about "Ideals." "In the pure light of this divine Idea [the divine plan] (which is no mere ideal) the illusion that the world is a mad or foolish happening disappears." Ideals, of course, pale before the concrete reality of God in history. Hegel condemns those who would "stand above the thing," that is, who would assert morality as something which (in some sense) exists apart from the world historical process. Again, his argument seems to me to very reminscent of certain Christian ones, although obviously with a different tilt and intent.
...
"as for the deterioration, the damage, and decline of religious, ethical, and moral aims and conditions in general, we must say this: although these values are infinite and eternal in their inner essence, their external expressions can take on limited forms... That is why they are transitory, and subject to deterioration and damage."
Cassidy,
first off: where do I get the stuff about God taking reality from the world in Hegel? well, to a certain extent, I'm relying on something I read about Hegel a long time ago, and which colors my perception of him now... : that his philosophy can ultimately be understood as a radical reinterpretation of the Incarnation, in which God (who by Himself has reality, perhaps, but only abstracted, formless reality) merges with the world and both move together toward a final goal. Now, this could be wrong: I am certainly no Hegel scholar, and so I can't really judge. But let me see if I can find some evidence for at least some of it in the text.
the case for this theory begins with the point that Hegel sees fixed doctrine as being limited: he disaproves of it in some sense. Exactly in what sense seems complicated, especially since in some passages he seems to appeal to the religious sentiment in his readers... and in others, he sets an important place for formal religion as the foundation of the State and the basis of a nation's identity.
But all the same, Hegel clearly views religious doctrine as something of a stumbling block on the way to the truth about history. As he puts it, "in modern times we have come to the point where philosophy has to take up the defense of religious truths against many types of theological doctrine." As he explains through the example of the story of Socrates and the principle of Anaxagoras, it is not enough to know certain things as intellectual truths: to see history merely as the product of "external causes" is insufficient. For Hegel, every abstraction, in order to be meaningful, must have a concrete application. As he puts it:
"We can see what Socrates found so unsatisfying in the principle of Anaxagoras was not the principle itself, but rather Anaxagoras' failure to apply it to concrete nature: that this nature was not understood or conceived on the basis of that principle, but that that principle was held to as something abstract." (15)
Christian theology disapoints Hegel in the same way: it holds to certain things as eternal truths without knowing really how to apply them in a "rational," systematic sense to the world around them. for Hegel, this is as bad as grasping the scientific principle that nature is governed by rationality, only to explain rationality's rule by way of "eternal causes" without a clear basis in rationality. The "principle" is useless without its application. Moreover, "the ignorance of Anaxagoras... was genuine"; that is, Anaxagoras was not willfully impending the progress of truth, because he was not "explicity opposed to... an application of the universal to the concrete": he just hadn't come to it himself yet. Christianity, however, is more dangerous because, knowing certain truths (such as the truth of providence), it " *is* opposed at least to the large-scale application of the principle, and to our comprehending the plan of providence."
Now, of course, Christianity believes that it is able to understand and apply eternal truths about God. But it does not do so in a way that Hegel approves of. He writes that "here and there, in particular cases, the application is allowed..." But the application is useless because it is only used to explain isolated events in the life of the individual pious believer. the purposes of God therefore are restricted to "the purposes of the individual." World history, on the other hand, concerns "individuals that are nations, wholes that are states..": the orthodox application of Christian doctrine cannot be of any use in understanding history, because it is static and cannot be transformed into any kind of larger system.
So you can see, at least, where the rhetorical impetus toward making God and His will more concrete comes from for Hegel. He does not like to contemplate a God transcendent from the world or seperate from it. As a philosopher or a theorist of history he is generally trying to move from the abstract principle to its application or actualization. Its not so suprising, then, that his idea of God would make a similar transformation, from an (apparently fixed or abstract) "God" to a World Spirit merging with the world. Now, mabye my original statement was a little unfair in that it made it sound like Hegel had some kind of bizzare, fixed theological principle of his own that he started with... rather than viewing it as a transformation that takes place naturally according to a certain pattern.
I could go on and try to flesh out his idea of Spirit or World Spirit and the way in which this Spirit (which he describes as the "antithesis" of matter) merges with the world through history and thus becomes "self-aware", ( ?? it would probably be helpful to me, since I really don't understand all that stuff very much :) ), but that's probably enough for now. I might go back to it later, or mabye somebody else could explain it to me if they're interested.
Yes, I agree that Hegel was conflicted, or at least he noted a potential problem and was trying to show that he understood it and accounted for it within his theory. my only point was that his correction also moved away from an orthodox christian understanding of the matter.
--jns
But away from "textuality" to a more general question: what do ya'll think about Hegel's criticism of the way in which Christians try to apply their ideas of "providence"? I think, in some sense, it rings true... sometimes our applications of providence are ridiculously individualistic (almost as if God's direct involvement in history was limited to running errands for us)... and I think the frustration he is expressing is a real one. I just don't know if its possible to preserve what we know of truth *and* turn it into a completely "concrete" general system. It goes back to the whole question of how much we can really know God (a question Hegel himself notes) and then mabye Ratzinger's theme about how we don't raise ourself up to heaven, God works through certain individuals he chooses. God reaches down and touches us, (as AK said) we don't bring heaven into our heads.
Hegel seems to discard the kind of understanding that many people have, namely that there is someone bigger than Hegel at work, that is, one who is the master of all things. For example, if one were to state to a Hegelian that faith undergirds the conscience, and is not a function of the conscience; it would be met with disbelief, insofar as the Hegelian mindset is concerned.
On the other hand, the Christian mindset at this point in time cannot comprehend the trinity, but that same mindset can apprehend the trinity.
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