A Skeptic Reads Hegel Part 1: Introductions

Something masochistic, or perhaps narcissistic, in me has decided it’s time to start reading Hegel. After seeing his name pop-up repeatedly in pop-philosophy, *cough zizek cough*, I figured it was time to take on some of his works myself.

I have barely started the introduction to his Philosophy of History and already I am running into some loaded concepts. In particular, the idea of the rational progression of history pointing to providence. In other words, History seems to be trending towards something which infers the existence of God. As I have barely started on Hegel’s works, I will reserve criticism. I do want to record my first impression so I can see how strong of a case can be built for this idea of Universal History imbued with Reason.

First, I can see no basis for asserting that history is rational or progressive. Even if we take the literal interpretation of what has happened in the past from our history books, forgetting all the flaws of historiography, human history seems more cyclical than progressive. Equilibrium -> growth -> crisis -> collapse -> equilibrium -> repeat. You could say that we never slide all the way back after a collapse and therefore the trend is progressive. However, that leads to another issue.

How do you define progress? Is billions of cars on roads around the world today progress over the horse and rail hundreds of years ago? Cars are more expedient (at least until everyone tries to get on the road at the same time), but also speeds the heating of our planet. Is twitter progress over the agora? I accept that in many ways our lives are easier and safer than they were in the past, but I am not convinced progress is something that can be applied to human history.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the concept. I’ve listened to hours of Terence McKenna rattling on about the concrescence of history. It would be awesome if history could be proved to be progressive, but I need more evidence to take me from “gee, that’s interesting” to truth.

Supposing I were to accept the rational foundation of history, there is also this idea that God, specifically the Christian God, can be revealed by studying this Universal History. Sounds like a leap to me, but I’ll check in after I have completed The Philosophy of History. Perhaps a conversion experience awaits.