Lectures on the Philosophy of History

Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which we are now examining, have a great advantage over those that came before them, quite apart from the quality of their content. First and foremost, they are connected to a system of thought that is logically developed down to its smallest details. These lectures claim to reveal the Logos original: "Logos"; a Greek term meaning the underlying reason or logic of History, just as there is a logic of Nature, of the Soul, of Law, of Art, and so on.

Here, then, mere flashes of inspiration, simple "reasoning" original: "raisonnement"; a French term for a type of logical argument that can sometimes be superficial or circular, or clever or unclever intuitions are out of the question. Instead, we have an investigation conducted by logical philosophy into the realm of those human achievements that make up history. The categories have already been demonstrated in other branches of Hegel's System, and the only point left to be determined is whether they will also be able to prove themselves in the seemingly unpredictable realm of human whim original: "caprice".

But for this process to carry a guarantee of its correctness—and, I might also say, of its honesty—the events themselves are not transformed by thought. They are not shown as anything other than what they really are, nor are they altered in any way. The facts remain as they were—as they appear in the historical traditions of many centuries. The Idea The "Idea" is a central concept in Hegel's philosophy, referring to absolute truth or universal reason is their interpreter, not their perverter.

The Philosophy of History involves nothing more than understanding the hidden meaning of outward events. Therefore, the "philosophical art" consists of perceiving where a cluster original: "ganglion"; literally a nerve center or knot, used here to mean a concentrated point of significant meaning of Ideas lies within those events, which must then be announced and demonstrated as such. In Nature, we cannot deduce the origin of every piece of straw, every animal, or every stone from general principles. Similarly, the philosophical art will know when it should rise to the full height of deep theory original: "speculation", and when it should be content to let itself be lost in surface-level details. It will know what can be proven logically and what is simply attached to that proof as descriptive detail or characterization. Conscious of its own dignity and power, it will not be content to waste its labor on unimportant circumstances.

This is, in fact, one of the chief merits of the current lectures: that with all the theoretical vigor they display, they nevertheless give proper credit to empirical facts and visible events original: "Empirical and Phenomenal". They equally reject a subjective reasoning original: "raisonnement"—a discussion that merely follows the random play of ideas—