Historicism and dialectics of Hegel

Georg Hegel is a German philosopher of the 19th century. His system claims to be universal in its scope. An important place in it is the philosophy of history.

Hegel's dialectic is a developed view of history. History in its understanding appears as a process of the formation and self-development of the spirit. It is generally regarded by Hegel as the realization of logic, that is, the self-movement of an idea, of an absolute concept. For the spirit, as the main subject, the historical and logical necessity is to know oneself.

Phenomenology of the spirit

One of the important philosophical ideas that Hegel developed was the phenomenology of the spirit. The spirit for Hegel is not an individual category. This refers not to the spirit of the individual subject, but to the superpersonal principle, which has social roots. The spirit is the "I", which is "we", and "we", which is the "I". That is, this is a community, but it is a kind of individuality. This also manifests the dialectic of Hegel. The form of the individual is a universal form for the spirit, so that concreteness, individuality is inherent not only to the individual person, but also to any society or religion, philosophical doctrine. The spirit knows itself, its identity with the object, therefore progress in knowledge is progress in freedom.

The concept of alienation

Dialectics of Hegel Is closely connected with the concept of alienation, which he considers an inevitable phase of development of whatever. The subject of the process of development or cognition perceives any object as something alien to him, creates and forms this object, which acts as an obstacle or something that dominates the subject.

Alienation refers not only to logic and knowledge, but also to social life. The spirit objectifies itself in cultural and social forms, but all of them are external forces towards the individual, something alien that suppresses it, tends to subordinate, break it down. The state, society and culture as a whole are institutions of repression. The development of man in history is the overcoming of alienation: his task is to master what compels him, but at the same time is his creation. This is dialectics. Philosophy Hegel poses to man the task: to transform this force so that it is a free continuation of his own being.

Purpose of history

For Hegel, history is the final process, that is, it has a clearly defined goal. If the goal of cognition is the comprehension of the absolute, then the goal of history is the formation of a society of mutual recognition. In it the formula is realized: I am we, and we are I. This community of free individuals, who recognize each other as such, recognize the community itself as a necessary condition for the realization of individuality. Dialectics of Hegel Is also manifested here: the individual is free only through society. The society of mutual recognition, according to Hegel, can exist only in the form of an absolute state, and the philosopher understands it conservatively: it is a constitutional monarchy. Hegel always believed that history had already come to its finale, and even originally associated its expectations with the activities of Napoleon.