Hegel, History as Intelligible and Freedom

Resumo

The most important thinkers are sometimes those who are the most difficult to understand. In writing about Hegel, it is essential to clear away tenacious misrepresentations of his position, which continue to obstruct our access to the texts. This paper considers Hegel not as a religious but rather as a secular thinker, who advances a secular view of history in applying a version of the German idealist approach to knowledge to historical phenomena. I will be arguing that Hegel’s conception of history as intelligible is rooted in his idealist conception of history as constructed and hence cognizable by human beings. If, as Hegel thinks, history is the progress of freedom, then we ought to recognize ourselves in the institutions of the modern state. Yet it is not necessary that this will occur. I will be claiming that history can be intelligible but fail to realize human freedom since, though it is possible, it is not necessary that we in fact ever recognize ourselves in the institutions of the modern state.