Hegel’s Philosophy of History

Although Hegel’s “Philosophy of History” contains a good deal of historical information, he did
not think of it as an informative outline of events. Hegel takes history as the raw material for his
philosophy, and attempts to go beyond the facts. In his own introduction to the philosophy of
history, Hegel clearly states his view of the direction and destination of all human history: “ the
history of the world is none but the development of the consciousness of freedom”. This sentence
sets the theme of the entire work. For Hegel, historical events do not happen accidentally or
haphazardly, but they have some meaning and significance. The process of history has a purpose
and the foundations of human nature could change from one historical era to another.
He begins his account with what he called the “Oriental World”, the cradle of the early
civilizations of India, China, and Persia. According to Hegel, China and India do not take part in
the overall process of development. He states that in these societies, the ruler alone is a free
individual, while all others subordinate their will to the emperor, pharaoh, or whatever the despot
is called.
People not only obeyed out of fear of punishment, but because they do not have a will of their
own. Their morality is regulated by the despot and they do not form their own “rights and
wrongs” and do not question anything except what they see. Hence, Hegel saw that development
was impossible in these societies and considered them “outside history”.
For Hegel, history starts in Persia, which he perceived differently from the two other Oriental
civilizations. As a theocratic monarchy, Persia was based on a general concept which is the
religion of Zoroaster, involving the worship of light. So both, the people and the emperor were
under the regulation of Zoroastrianism. In this case, both the people and the emperor followed a
set of ideas and not a human despot; ideas are prone to develop eternally unlike a mortal human.
Sure, Hegel acknowledges that the Persian emperor was still a despot and the only free man, but
the fact that his rule is based on an intellectual or spiritual principle that was not seen as a
general fact made development possible. That is why Hegel saw in Persia the beginning of
history. Yet, despite the potential growth in the consciousness of freedom in Persia, it was
militarily defeated by the Greek city-states and passed away. Hence, world history passed from
the despotic oriental world to the Greek world, a world of ideas and philosophy.
The Greek World
In the Greek world, some and not all were free due to the existence of slavery. So instead of only
one free individual like in the Oriental world (the despot ruler), in the Greek city-states all adult
male citizens were free. They had formed the earlier models of democracy were citizens express
their ideas freely and discuss their views (dialect) in an assembly, and had the choice to vote over
laws and rules. This presents a great leap when compared to the Oriental world where the despot
alone decided on all the laws and imposed all the moral principles.
Yet, Hegel saw some gaps in these societies, as he stated that the ancient Greek citizens’ practice
of freedom (through forming a government and making collective decisions) stems out of a
natural habit of serving their state and community. Thus, since this “freedom” is not the result of
a general principle stating that “everyone should act for the sake of his country” but from a
“natural habit” that did not distinguish between the individual and the communal interests, Hegel
considered such development as limited. The fact that “natural habit” or “duty” and not
REASON was the drive behind their freedom, Hegel thought that the Greeks were not conscious
of their individual existence as living apart from their state and their community; doing
something out of habit is not considered as a deliberate choice.
The only advantage Hegel saw in the Ancient Greek societies is that their will or readiness to do
what is best for their community as a whole comes from within and not from an outside power.
This suggests, according to him, that the Greeks were free in a way in which the Orientals were
not since they did as they themselves wanted to do and not as some external power required them
to do.
For Hegel, reason lifts people above the chance events of the natural world and enables them to
reflect critically upon their situation and the forces that influence them. Therefore, freedom
cannot be fully achieved without critical though and reflection which he considered as key
features to further progress in the development of freedom. The command attributed to the Greek
god Apollo urged the Greeks along this path: “Man, know thyself”. Greek philosophers,
especially Socrates, took this up. He typically expressed his views in a form of dialogue with
some worthy Athenian who thinks he knows well what is good and just. He proved that such
“knowledge” was no more than the echo of some common sayings. For example, Socrates
challenged a common idea about justice that consists in giving to each what is owed to him.
Socrates poses the case of a friend who has lent you a weapon. You may owe him this weapon,
but is it really just to return it? Socrates hence, leads his audience to critical reflection upon the
customary morality they have always accepted. This critical reflection makes reason, not social
custom, the final judge of right and wrong.

The Roman World

In contrast with the unreflective customary unity, which formed the basis of the Greek city-
states, Hegel pictures the Roman Empire as built up from a collection of diverse peoples, lacking
all patriarchal or other customary bonds, and hence requiring the most severe discipline, backed
by force, to hold it together.

NB: Until 476 AD, Rome was a mixture of diverse peoples due to its wide expansion. When
Rome fell in 476 AD, North European tribes (whom they called Barbarians) had attacked it and
this led to societies that are more diverse.

This makes the dominance of Rome in the next stage of world history appear as a reversion to
the despotic Oriental model. However, Hegel considers that the course of world history, though
not in a smooth and steady progress, does not go backwards. The gains made in a previous epoch
are never lost entirely. The idea of individuality and of the private capacity of judgment that was
born in the Greek era has not disappeared. Though the Roman world, as Hegel paints it, is not a
happy place due to the despotism of the state, freedom was found among individuals who
retrieved into themselves by taking refuge in a philosophy such as Stoicism, Epicureanism, or
Skepticism. The spread of such philosophical schools was, according to Hegel, a result of the
helplessness that the individual, who sees himself as a free being, must feel in the face of a
domineering power he is unable to influence.
Yet, these philosophies were passive and unable to incite any practical progress or positive
solution. However, Christianity provided this solution. It was special because Jesus Christ was
both a human being and the son of God. This teaches humans that, though limited in some
respects, they are at the same time made in the image of God and have within themselves an
infinite value and an eternal destiny. The result is the development of what Hegel calls “religious
self-consciousness”: a recognition that it is in the spiritual world, not the natural world, that is
our true home. To achieve this awareness, humans have to break the hold that natural desires
have over themselves, which by itself represents a developed form of freedom and the
consciousness of it.
It is the role of the Christian religion to achieve this awareness that the spiritual nature of human
beings is what is essential to them. This does not, however, happen all at once. Christianity
helped in eradicating the limitations on freedom that existed during the Greek era. By opposing
slavery, abolishing the dependence on oracles, and replacing the Greek customary morality by a
morality based on the spiritual idea of love, Christianity becomes the official religion of the
empire under the rule of Constantine. Yet, this is in Hegel’s view, a stagnant, decadent
Christianity, for it was an attempt to put a Christian veneer over structures that were already
rotten to the core.

The Middle Ages

(Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire in 476 AD until around 1500 AD)

Hegel, like most scholars and historians do, paints a gloomy picture of Europe during the
thousand years that passed after the fall of Rome, which is known as the Middle or the Dark
Ages. During that period, in Hegel’s view, the Catholic Church became a perversion of the true
religious spirit, inserting itself between man and the spiritual world.
The Middle Ages, the medieval period of European history between the fall of the
Roman Empire and the beginning of the Renaissance, are sometimes referred to as the
"Dark Ages."
After the fall of Rome, no single state or government united the people who lived on
the European continent. Instead, the Catholic Church became the most powerful
institution of the medieval period. Kings, queens and other leaders derived much of
their power from their alliances with and protection of the Church.
In 800 CE, for example, Pope Leo III named the Frankish king Charlemagne the
“Emperor of the Romans”–the first since that empire’s fall more than 300 years
before. Over time, Charlemagne’s realm became the Holy Roman Empire, one of
several political entities in Europe whose interests tended to align with those of the
Church.
Ordinary people across Europe had to “tithe” 10 percent of their earnings each year to
the Church; at the same time, the Church was mostly exempt from taxation. These
policies helped it to amass a great deal of money and power.
The Church together with the ruling Kings and the Nobles (families that claimed blood
superiority over the rest of the population) controlled the lives of the people at all
levels.

The medieval Church regulated and defined an individual's life, literally, from birth to death and
was thought to continue its hold over the person's soul in the afterlife. The Church was the
manifestation of God's will and presence on earth, and its dictates were not to be questioned,
even when it was apparent that many of the clergy were working far more steadily toward their
own interests than those of their god.

A dramatic blow to the power of the Church came in the form of the Black Death pandemic of
1347-1352 CE during which people began to doubt the power of the clergy who could do
nothing to stop people from dying or the plague from spreading. Even so, the Church repeatedly
crushed dissent, silenced reformers, and massacred heretical sects until the Protestant
Reformation (1517-1648 CE) which broke the Church's power and allowed for greater freedom
of thought and religious expression.

The Reformation

The rampant corruption of the medieval Church, however, gave rise to reformers such as John
Wycliffe (l. 1330-1384 CE) and Jan Hus (l. c. 1369-1415 CE) and religious sects, condemned as
heresies by the Church, such as the Bogomils and Cathars, among many others. Even so, the
Church maintained its power and exercised enormous influence over people's daily lives from
the king on his throne to the peasant in the field.
In the Middle Ages, it was inconceivable that there could be any valid belief system other than
the Church. Heaven, hell, and purgatory were all very real places to the people of the Middle
Ages, and one could not risk offending God by criticizing his Church and damning one's self to
an eternity of torment in a lake of fire surrounded by demons. The wonder is not so much why
more people did not call for reform as that anyone was brave enough to try.
The Protestant Reformation did not arise as an attempt to overthrow the power of the Church but
began simply as yet another effort at reforming ecclesiastical abuse and corruption. Martin
Luther (l. 1483-1546 CE) was a highly-educated German priest and monk who moved from
concern to outrage over the abuses of the Church. He criticized the sale of indulgences as a
money-making scheme having no biblical authority and no spiritual worth in his famous Ninety-
Five Theses (1517 CE) and opposed the Church's teachings on a number of other matters.
According to Luther, salvation was granted by the grace of God, not by the good deeds of human
beings, and so all of the works the Church required of people were of no eternal use and only
served to fill the Church's treasury and build their grand cathedrals.
The monopoly the Church held on religious belief and practice was broken, and a new era of
greater spiritual freedom was begun.

The Reformation resulted from the corruption of the church, a corruption that was in Hegel’s
view not an accidental development but a necessary consequence of the fact that the church did
not treat the Deity as a purely spiritual thing, but instead embodies it in the material world
through ceremonial observances, rituals, and other outward forms. Thus the spiritual element in
human beings is fettered to the mere material objects such as relics, statues, holy water, icons
etc...
Hegel sees the Reformation as arising from “the honest truth and simplicity of its heart”. It
resulted in the idea that each individual human being has, in his own heart, a direct spiritual
relationship to Christ.
The Reformation proclaims that every human being can recognize the truth of his or her own
spiritual nature. No outside authority is needed (priest of=r church) to interpret the Bible or to
perform rituals. The individual conscience is the ultimate judge of truth and goodness.
In asserting this, the Reformation unfurl “the banner of Free Spirit” and proclaims as its essential
principle: “Man is in his very nature destined to be free”.
Since the Reformation, the role of history has been nothing but the transforming of the world in
accordance with its essential principle. When every human being is freely able to use his powers
of reasoning to judge truth and goodness, the world can receive universal assent with rational
standards. Therefore, all institutions – including law, property, social morality, government and
so on- must be made to conform to general principles of reason. Only then will individuals freely
choose to accept and support these institutions. Only then will human beings be free yet fully
reconciled with the world in which they live.