Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The Dialectic Process and World Spirit

Born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany

Study of philosophy and theology

Developed in the age of German Romanticism

Biographical Information

All thought was based upon pieces of a previous thought

The Dialectic

The Dialectic Debate Thales Problem

ParmanidesThere is a

constant stuff Change was impossible

senses could not be trusted

HeraclitusNature flows

Senses reliable

Empedoclesnothing changes

ANDSenses are

reliable Late 1700s, early 1800s

Thales:Its all water

We cut and paste impressions and ideas constantly.

“I am nothing but a bundle of perceptions”

What are ideas? Ideas are “faint images”

= Arise from our memory of impressions

Memories are associated in man’s imagination via:

◦ Resemblance◦ Contiguity in time/place◦ Cause and effect through principle of repetition

All these associative “principles” are learned, not innate!

Let’s compare Hume with Descartes

What is the self? Descartes: an unalterable I, “Cogito ergo

sum” Hume

◦ The ego is a series of sense perceptions “The mind is a kind of theater where several

perceptions successively make their appearance: pass, re-pass, slide away and mingle in an infinite variety of postures and situations”

◦ The so-called “I” is in perpetual flux◦ Like the spoon, the self as an unchanging thing

is an illusion

God? …….. Descartes

◦ the innate idea of a perfect being The idea of a perfect, eternal, universal being is a

concept without properties in this world The idea must be given us from a source with such

properties. Hume

◦ God is not knowable through our senses◦ …if in fact God is not just a false complex idea…

How can I know the world is there?

Descartes1. Outer reality could be fantasy2. Mathematical properties confirm quantitative

reality3. Sense perceptions are subject to distortion and

subjective – qualitative reality4. But are we deceived completely about the

world? 5. No: a perfect, universal, infinite being – which

I’ve established must exist - would not, by definition, deceive us.

How can I know the world is there? According to David Hume

◦ Our senses are our source of knowledge◦ A world is mediated through the senses…◦ Big questions of ontology (study of being) are

unanswerable…

The Dialectic

DescartesRationalism

1600s

HumeEmpiricism

1700s

Kant’s blendForm of

knowledge A priori and

ContentA posteriori

Late 1700s, early 1800s

Becomes an everlasting and continuous building on ideas

The strongest and most correct ideas survive through the dialectic process

The most rational and reasonable thinking survives as history

Dialectic: Mechanism for Progress

Can history be viewed accurately in terms of the progress Hegel implies?

Is it true that the most correct or reasonable ideas survive and become the history we know today? Why or why not?

Dialectical Discussion

National Spirit: Volksgeist The sum total of a state’s essence and

personality; the sum total of the people who live in it

“The spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age."

The general cultural, intellectual, social and political climate within a nation in a given time

Spirit of the Age: Zeitgeist

A force that drives the progression of human history

This is the embodiment of all human culture, language, life, thought, and reason as humanity evolves

Through it man will be able to understand a teleological (purposeful) account of history

World Spirit Weltgeist

Humanity advances toward a self-knowledge and self-development as it progresses in rationality and freedom

Human culture and human development have made the world spirit conscious of its intrinsic value

Developing toward an expanding knowledge of itself History is the story of world spirit slowly gaining consciousness

of itself

History is, therefore, both progressive and purposeful

World Spirit

Unlike Descartes, Spinoza, Plato and other major philosophers, Hegel rejected the concept of inherited eternal truths

All truth is subjective and reflective of the time period in which it originated

Believed that human knowledge and cognition changed and evolved with each generation

Eternal Truths

History can be seen as the equivalent to a flowing river

A river flows and is affected by tiny variables upstream affected by the upstream

variables, prior history

Eternal truths prove impossible to know in the middle because of positioning No area of the river is the

‘truest’ part

Metaphor of the River

Do you believe that there is a reason for history?◦ Why or why not?

Does man become more rational and more free as history progresses?

Are there any eternal truths?

Discussion

What is the difference between these two terms?

What is the reason for human history?

Cause and Reason

Being Nothing

Becoming

Reality is full of opposites

Reality

The state is the highest embodiment of the dialectic process

Thesis Antithesis

Synthesis

Political Philosophy and the State

Family Individual

State

The state is seen as a complex spiritual organism as a realization of ethical ideas

It is in the state that the world spirit manifests itself in the world

That means that individuals are subservient to the greater progress of the nation

World Spirit

In three stages1. World spirit conscious of itself- subjective spirit2. Higher consciousness of the family, civil society, and state-

objective spirit

3. World spirit achieves self-realization – absolute spirit◦

Absolute spirit is art, religion, and philosophy Is the goal of history to reach absolutes But there has been none during the course of history

Philosophy is the highest form of knowledge because the world spirit reflects on its own impact on history

The World Spirit Discovers Itself

Does God develop? Does God grow through human history and become more…

Does God learn through human history?

If the World Spirit is God

The universe is rational and directed by a dialectic toward one absolute truth embodied in the world spirit ◦ The world spirit may be called God

The truth exists only as a whole of history

The dialectic is the process through which the truth is realized

Conclusion

Works Cited Falcone, Vincent J. Great Thinkers, Great Ideas. Norwalk: Cranbury

Publications, 1988. Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World. New York: Berkley Books, 1991. "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)." The European

Graduate School. The European Graduate School. 4 June 2008 <http://www.egs.edu/resources/hegel.html>.

"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Quotes." BrainyQuote. 2 June 2008 <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/g/georg_wilhelm_friedrich_h.html>.

"Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 13 Feb. 1997. Stanford University. 30 May 2008 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/>.

Kreis, Steven. "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)." Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History. 28 Feb. 2006. The History Guide. 4 June 2008 <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/hegel.html>.