Introduction

Summary

The Cloud of Unknowing and die Sache selbst

The English reader is given here a translation not of the whole of Hegel's philosophy of history, but of Johannes Hoffmeister's edition of Hegel's own Introduction to his lectures on the philosophy of world history. Since for Hegel philosophy is the science without presuppositions, through and through self-critical, and thus a self-developing whole or circle whose end is its beginning, any introduction to any section of it can only be a preliminary sketch of what is to come in the light of the whole. Hegel's Introduction therefore contains his whole philosophy in epitome.

There is no danger in this for those who know the other main texts. But because the philosophy of history is by far the easiest of these – Hegel himself seems to have thought of these lectures as a popular introduction to his philosophy – it is liable to be used as a substitute rather than an introduction, especially as a substitute for the Philosophy of Right, and one suspects that much of the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Hegel has been due to this. It contains the notorious phrases about the state being the divine Idea on earth, reason ruling the world and so on, which have been made to mean precisely the opposite of what Hegel intended.