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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 June 2010
The significance of time for Hegel's thought is still overlooked. Indeed it is generally maintained that time plays no fundamental role in Hegel's philosophy. Some of Hegel's interpreters, including McTaggart and Bradley, have gone so far as to claim that time is in a fundamental sense unreal for Hegel; others more recently have endeavoured to show that time is in some sense real.
1 Cf. e.g. A. B. Brinkley, “Time in Hegel’s Phenomenology,” in Studies in Hegel, Tulane Studies in Philosophy, vol. IX, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1960, pp. 3–15.
2 Although Kierkegaard's attack upon Hegel's system is the most notorious, it reflects the interpretation of Hegel that has prevailed. Unlike Kierkegaard, the majority of Hegel's disciples and commentators have been able to accommodate themselves to it. Walter Kaufmann's Hegel: Reinterpretation, Texts and Commentary, New York, 1965, is a refreshing exception to the standard works on Hegel. Findlay in his Hegel: A Re-Examination, New York, 1962 also succeeds to a considerable extent in loosening Hegel's thought from the procrustean system to which it had been wedded by earlier commentators, although he too misses the importance of time in Hegel's thought.
3 G. W. F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History, trans. Sibree, New York, 1956, p. 15. (Henceforth referred to as P.H. ) Unless they are notably inaccurate, I have used the translator's renditions rather than my own.
4 P.H., p. 77.
5 In the Logic Hegel touches upon time only briefly, speaking of it as the restless negativity that breaks up the stability of the side-by-sideness of space. Cf. The Science of Logic, trans. Johnston and Struthers, London, 1961, 2 vols., I, pp. 203–214; 250, 324, 249, 361–2; vol. II. 477, 483–6. (Henceforth referred to as SC. Log. ) Also, The Logic of Hegel, trans. Wallace, London, 1950, pp. 90, 101, 115, 160, 185, 209–13; 233, 341. (Henceforth referred to as Logic ) . Cf. also Encyclopedia, 197–212 (Philosophy of Nature), summarized but not translated by Muller in Hegel, Encyplodia of Philosophy, New York, 1959.
6 G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. Baillie, London, 1961. (Henceforth referred to as Phen. ) It may seem hazardous to base a reading of Hegel even in part upon a work not published by him but one reconstructed from lecture notes. Although it is a valid principle of scholarly research that a man's published writings should be given primary consideration, other works should be drawn upon when they illuminate and clarify aspects alluded to but not completely explicated in an author's published works. I have been unable to find any counter-evidence to the conception of time developed in the P.H. or any suggestion that Hegel either modified or abandoned it.
7 Phen., p. 800.
8 Ibid., p. 807.
9 P.H., p. 72.
10 Ibid., p. 77.
11 Ibid., pp. 75–6. That Hegel's mythodology is inexact is of no importance; what is at issue is the meaning of the myth which is unaffected by Hegel's slight alteration of it.
12 Ibid., p. 76.
13 Ibid., p. 73; Phen., p. 800.
14 Hegel distinguishes existence and actuality. What is actual is concrete or embodied reason and thus is rational; what exists may or may not be rational, i.e. actual. Cf. Logic 142–146; Sc. Log. II, pp. 160–186.
15 P.H., p. 73.
16 Ibid., p. 77.
17 Ibid., pp. 77–9.
18 Ibid., pp. 73; 75–6.
19 Phen., p. 800.
20 Hegel's term Aufhebung exhibits both a logical and a temporal dimension. Thus in Sc. Log. I, p. 119: “To transcend (aufheben) has this double meaning, that it signifies to keep or to preserve and also to make to cease, to finish. To preserve includes the negative element, that something is removed from its immediacy and therefore from a Determinate Being exposed to external influences, in order that it may be preserved.” Cf. P.H., p. 72. “Time is the negative element in the sensuous world. Thought is the same negativity....”
21 Cf. Logic, pp. 46–59.
22 Phen. p. 808. Thus it is clear that the annulment of time for Hegel means more than annulment “in and for philosophy” as Findlay maintains. Findlay trivializes Hegel's conception of the annulment of time when he interprets it as meaning that “for the philosopher, concepts are universal and principles true, and that the precise moment at which any one appropriates them is completely unimportant.” (Findlay, op. cit., p. 146). This is true, but trivial.
23 Cf. Philosophy of Right, trans. Knox, London 1942, Preface. (Henceforth referred to as P.R. )
24 Cf. M. E. Williams, “Hegel's Philosophy of History” in The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. XVI, No. 1 (61), Aug. 1962, pp. 139–144. To say that history has come to an end does not mean that the idea of human freedom could not be realized by nations other than the Germanic peoples. What it does entail is that the process whereby any other state became free would be a repetition of the original process.
25 P.R., Preface.
26 Ibid.
27 In The Dawn of Day (1861)
28 P.R., Preface.
29 Phen. Preface.
30 Cf. F. Bergmann, “The Purpose of Hegel's System” in Journal of the History of Philosophy, 1964 (II. 2), pp. 189–204 for a definitive examination of Hegel's conception of necessity.