Abstract
My aim in this chapter will be threefold: (a) to give a more elaborate synopsis of Hegel’s claims on the nature of history and a similar more elaborate analysis of the Kierkegaardian concept of history drawing on my conclusions from the previous three chapters (b) to argue in favour of a synthesis of their points of view rather than view them only as direct philosophical opponents or treating their philosophies on history as totally and utterly incompatible, and (c) to explain and analyse the reasons that make me believe that all the past positions regarding their relations are either partly or totally flawed.
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Notes
Hegel’s ‘Reason’ is not a static logical activity. As Arthur Berndtson argues: ‘reason for Hegel is not fixed and detached; it is an immanent process, which creates the logic, nature and mind.’ Arthur Berndtson, ‘Hegel, Reason and Reality’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 20, No. 1 (September 1959), p. 44.
Reason then must fulfil this historical task: to direct human communi ties into a specific political state that will provide the necessary conditions for the members of these communities to become free. Hegel’s PR shows emphatically Hegel’s view on how people can be ‘free’ and what the exact meaning of their ‘freedom’ is. As J. A. Leighton states: ‘Freedom is the Idea of Spirit... All the struggles of nations and individuals are stepping-stones by which men rise to freedom. J. A. Leighton, ‘Hegel’s Conception of God’, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 5, No. 6 (November 1896), p. 611.
Hegel believes that, if we try to view history purely as an activity of single human beings, we will eventually end in a totally chaotic and meaningless historical universe. Social and ethical institutions and mainly organised states can guarantee us (in Hegel’s view) the necessary ‘objectivity’. S. W. Dyde in ‘Hegel’s Conception of Freedom’, The Philosophical Review, Vol. 3, No. 6, (November 1894), p. 664
Donald J. Maletz in ‘History in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, The Review of Politics, Vol. 45, No. 2 (April 1983), p. 222
Hegel, Philosophy of Right, translated by T. M. Knox, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 13.
As Richard Kroner states it in his introduction to Hegel’s Early Theological Writings: ‘It is true that Hegel believed in the historical process as divinely ordained... History is shaped by Providence, and Providence is Reason and can therefore be understood by the speculative dialectic of the philosopher. From this conviction a certain quietism resulted, satisfaction with actual conditions, and submissiveness to the universal will — not of the state but of the world... Not party politics nor class prejudice, but metaphysical fervor determines his views.’ Kroner, ‘Introduction’ in G. W. F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, translated by T. M. Knox, with an Introduction, and Fragments translated by Richard Kroner, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 65.
As Stephen Crites points out: ‘The “existing individual”, an irreducibly temporal being, confronts an open future which he must determine by his own decision about himself.’ Stephen Crites, In the Twilight of Christendom: Hegel vs Kierkegaard on Faith and History, (Pennsylvania: American Academy of Religion, 1972), p. 24.
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802–1872) was a critic of Hegelianism. He was mainly interested in Aristotle’s work in Logic (De Aristotelis categoriis). See Dario Gonzalez’s analysis in: ‘Trendelenburg: An Ally against Speculation’, from Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries, Tome I: Philosophy, edited by Jon Stewart, (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 309–334.
Mark C. Taylor says something similar when he argues that: ‘it can be said that for Kierkegaard temporality is the form of human existence.’ Mark C. Taylor, ‘Time’s Struggle with Space: Kierkegaard’s Understanding of Temporality’, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 66, No. 3 (July 1973), p. 329.
Niels Thulstrup, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel, translated by George L. Stengren, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 355.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism, translated by John Mathews, (New York: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1979)
Mark C. Taylor, Journeys to Selfhood, Hegel & Kierkegaard, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), p. ix.
James Bogen, ‘Remarks on the Kierkegaardian-Hegel Controversy’, Synthese, (Vol. 13, No 4, December 1961), pp. 372–389.
Peter J. Mehl, Thinking through Kierkegaard, Existential Identity in a Pluralistic World, (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005).
Merold Westphal, Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society, (Pennsylvania: he Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991)
P. Christopher Smith, ‘Hegel, Kierkegaard, and the Problem of Finitude’, in Hegel, History, and Interpretation, edited by Shaun Gallagher, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997), p. 226.
Hegel, Early Theological Writings, translated by T. M. Knox; with an introduction, and fragments translated by Richard Kroner, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), p. 175.
Soren Kierkegaard, Prefaces, Writing Sampler, edited and translated by Todd W. Nichol, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 58
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© 2014 Georgios Patios
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Patios, G. (2014). Hegel’s Philosophy of History and Kierkegaard’s Concept of History: A Synthesis Instead of a Confrontation. In: Kierkegaard on the Philosophy of History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137383280_5
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