Hegel

Question 0

What are Hegel’s three methods of studying history? Describe each

Answer 0

1. Original - Study events exactly as they occurred. Study the most objective accounts of history that you can find, as ORIGINAL TEXTS in the ORIGINAL LANGUAGES.
2. Reflective - 4 kinds: Universal history (taking original history and putting it together), Pragmatic history (study of original history with an emphasis on a particular problem), Critical History (critically examining events from every side), and Specialized history (writing about a particular characteristic of human communities)
3. Phliosophical history - Concerned with always and everywhere, with the intention of predicting future events

Question 1

What is the goal of Hegel’s “Introduction to the Philosophy of History”?

Answer 1

Hegel wants to determine what the substance of history is, and as well as that, he wants to know the end goal of all history

Question 2

What are Hegel’s three types of “spirits” or “souls” (in the Ancient Greek sense of the word)?

Answer 2

1. Subjective spirit - The factual things about any one individual. How we allocate time, or when we use our reason.
2. Objective spirit - Reason in relation to material objects. This includes other people, natural sciences, ethics, political sciences
3. Absolute Spirit - This is the combination of your reasoned understanding of yourself (subjective spirit) and that of objects and other people (objective spirit). Three disciplines use absolute spirit: Art, Theology, and Philosophy.

Question 3

How is Absolute Spirit related to equality?

Answer 3

Those with absolute spirit can deeply understand that there are fundamental things that all human beings have in common.
They then have the ability to understand and articulate the idea of equality

Question 4

Describe Hegel’s first part to his Philosophy of history: “The Orient”

Answer 4

The Orient is India, Persia, and china. Hegel argues that these people were the first to articulate an idea of freedom. They came up with the idea that the Emporer is the one person in the whole world who has freedom, who is not a tool of the gods. They knew there were limits on the Emporer’s freedom, such as customs, but they did not understand the nature of these limits. Emporers, then, have achieved subjective spirit but not yet objective spirit (no concept of other people sharing his attributes)

Question 5

Describe Hegel’s second part to his Philosophy of history: “Ancient Greece”

Answer 5

The Greeks expanded the idea of freedom to include nearly everyone. They thought almost all people (women included) could attain freedom. They even thought that slaves deserved freedom; but only one type of slave. The Greeks thought there were two types of slaves: accidental slaves and those who chose to be slaves. The Greeks thought that the ones who chose to be slaves could never attain freedom.
So, the Greeks represent subjective and PARTIAL objective spirit, because they still did not believe all were equal in their potential pursuit of freedom

Question 6

Describe Hegel’s third part to his Philosophy of history: “German Christian Philosophers”

Answer 6

Hegel argues this because the major monotheistic religions all teach that we are composed of matter and reason (which comes from god). We choose what the ratio will be between the material causes of our behaviour and the rational causes of it.
This is the closest Hegel thought we had been to absolute spirit