Hegel’s Philosophy of History

26 May, 2022 900 History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those who came before us. To explore this, he looked into the past to identify periods when freedom was moving from the one to the few to the all, arguing that once we understand the true nature of freedom we reach an endpoint in understanding. That end of history, as it’s known, describes an understanding of freedom so far progressed, so profound, that it cannot be extended or deepened even if it can be lost.

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Guests

  • Sally Sedgwick No other episodes
    Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Boston University
  • Robert Stern 2 episodes
    Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
  • Stephen Houlgate No other episodes
    Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick

Reading list

  • Hegel, the End of History, and the Future
    Eric Michael Dale (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century
    Michael N. Forster and Kristin Gjesdal (eds.) (Oxford University Press, 2015) Google Books →
  • The Philosophy of History
    G. W. F. Hegel (trans. J. Sibree) (Dover, 1956) Google Books →
  • Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction, Reason in History
    G. W. F. Hegel (ed. Johannes Hoffmeister) (Cambridge University Press, 1975) Google Books →
  • Elements of the Philosophy of Right
    G. W. F. Hegel (trans. H. B. Nisbet) (Cambridge University Press, 1991) Google Books →
  • Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, volume 1: Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822-3
    G. W. F. Hegel (ed. and trans. Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson) (Oxford University Press, 2011) Google Books →
  • Freiheit: Stuttgarter Hegel-Kongress 2011
    Gunnar Hindrichs and Axel Honneth (eds.) (Klostermann, 2011) Google Books →
  • Shapes of Freedom: Hegel's Philosophy of World History in Theological Perspective
    Peter C. Hodgson (Oxford University Press, 2012) Google Books →
  • Hegel: Freedom, Truth, and History
    Stephen Houlgate (Blackwell, 2005) Google Books →
  • A Companion to Hegel
    Stephen Houlgate and Michael Baur (eds.) (John Wiley & Sons, 2011) Google Books →
  • Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of History
    Jean Hyppolite (trans. Bond Harris and Jacqueline Bouchard Spurlock) (University Press of Florida, 1996) Google Books →
  • Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel
    Thomas A. Lewis (Oxford University Press, 2011) Google Books →
  • Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel on History
    Joe McCarney (Routledge, 2000) Google Books →
  • Memory, History, Justice in Hegel
    Angelica Nuzzo (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) Google Books →
  • Hegel on Reason and History
    George Dennis O'Brien (Chicago University Press, 1975) Google Books →
  • Does History Make Sense? Hegel on the Historical Shapes of Justice
    Terry Pinkard (Harvard University Press, 2017) Google Books →
  • Time and History in Hegelian Thought and Spirit
    Sally Sedgwick (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) Google Books →
  • Hegel's Philosophy of History: Theological, Humanistic, and Scientific Elements
    Rudolf J. Siebert (University Press of America, 1979) Google Books →
  • Exorcising Hegel's Ghost: Africa's Challenge to Philosophy
    Olufemi Taiwo (African Studies Quarterly, 1, 1998)
  • Hegel's Philosophy of History
    Burleigh Taylor Wilkins (Cornell University Press, 1974) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m0017k8w

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017k8w

Auto-category: 901.9 (Philosophy of history)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. Hegel, 1770 to 1831, is one of the most influential of modern philosophers.