Although these latter remarks have a fatalistic ring to them, Hegel nevertheless insists that freedom and necessity have been “reconciled [ausgesöhnt]” in his time (PH 42/57). What kind of reconciliation can he have in mind? The answer to this question is obviously linked to his particular understanding of the terms “freedom” and “necessity”—and it is here that his methodological commitments are illuminating. As we will see, Hegel’s methodological assumptions place limits on what he believes the possible objects of his inquiry can be. His methodological assumptions thus constrain what he means by the concepts “freedom” and “necessity”. By considering the method Hegel brings to his philosophy of history, we can shed some light on his understanding of the reconciliation of freedom and necessity.
In the final section of this chapter, I briefly review reactions to Hegel’s philosophy of history by the two later nineteenth-century figures Marx and Nietzsche. Their critical reception of Hegel gives us a glimpse into later nineteenth-century developments in the philosophy of history.
22.2 HEGEL’S “PHILOSOPHICAL” APPROACH TO HISTORY
In his Introduction to the Lectures, Hegel informs us that he will defend the thesis that the rationality of history—or the ways of divine providence—can be known by us. This turns out to be a central objective of his philosophy of history. He praises Anaxagoras for appreciating that “reason rules the world,” but bemoans the fact that, for Anaxagoras, the ways of providence must remain hidden from us (PH 16/25).7 Hegel states that his aim, in contrast, is to “recognize the ways of providence in history” (PH 16/26). The story he has to tell about how God’s will reveals itself in history is not just a piece of faith or speculation but has an evidential basis.8
Hegel asserts that we discover the ways of providence by considering history itself—by examining written records and archaeological data, by listening to oral reports, and so forth. Indeed, this is our only means of access to divine providence, in his view. Hegel thus announces that he will provide historical “proof” that “there is a divine providence presiding over the events of the world.” He will “take history as it is, and proceed historically, empirically” (PH 13/22; see also PH 15f./25, PH 19/29).
In keeping with his stated commitment to proceed historically, Hegel expresses his opposition to those who interpret history through the lens of what he calls “a priori fabrications [apriorische Erdichtungen]” (PH 13/22). He dismisses the approach, for example, which puts forward as “fact” the “fiction” of a “primordial condition” or “Paradise” in which an “original, primeval people” received direct instruction from God (PH 13/22). He associates the reliance on a priori fabrication with an approach to history he labels “reflective”; and he mentions as an instance of this approach the “higher criticism” of “Germans” such as Friedrich von Schlegel.9 On Hegel’s characterization, the “reflective” historian is content to replace historical data with “subjective notions”; she introduces into her reading of history the “unhistorical abortions of a vain imagination” (PH 9/18f.).
In light of Hegel’s criticisms of the “a priori fabrications” of the reflective historian, it is curious that he sometimes characterizes his own approach as “a priori” (PH 68/87). His own method for interpreting history, then, seems to somehow be at once empirical or historical and a priori. His method is empirical insofar as it is guided by the assumption that our thinking about history must attend to the facts. In his words, world history is “subordinated to the given and to what exists.” His method is at the same time a priori, however, because it is a “philosophical” approach to history, and because philosophy brings to history “thoughts of its own” (PH 10/20). Hegel acknowledges the appearance of a contradiction here. But he insists that there is no contradiction, because although the historian has the duty to attend to “what exists,” this is never a matter of a purely passive absorption of the facts. Our attention to the facts cannot be simply passive, according to Hegel, because human perception is invariably accompanied by thinking. As he puts the point in his Introduction, there is “thinking in our perception, our cognition and intellect, in our drives and volition” (PH 10/20).10
Hegel’s brief remarks on the scientific method of Johannes Kepler shed more light on how he understands his consideration of world history to be at once empirical and a priori. Kepler relied on observation in his study of the planets, but he did not, in Hegel’s words, “derive his laws of planetary motion simply by staring up at the heavens” (PH 68/87). Kepler relied in addition on “a priori cognition”: he “had to have a priori acquaintance with ellipses, cubes, and squares, and with the theory of how they are related, before he could invent—from empirical data—his immortal laws” (PH 68/87). Here Hegel highlights the fact that Kepler’s observations, rather than simply receptive, were aided by his acquaintance with geometrical forms and the laws governing their relations. Kepler brought to his investigations the “elementary concepts” of his science. In another text, Hegel mentions Kepler’s effort to grasp the order of the solar system “according to the laws of music harmony.”11
In similar fashion, Hegel’s study of world history is the product of something more than a merely passive absorption of the facts. Hegel characterizes his method as “a priori” because he wishes to underscore the fact that, like Kepler, he cannot avoid bringing a conceptual framework and set of methodological assumptions to his collection of historical data. At the same time, however, Hegel clearly does not consider his philosophy of history to be an exercise in “a priori fabrication.” Somehow, his a priori method is significantly different from the “higher criticism” of the “reflective” historian, who introduces into her observations the “unhistorical abortions of a vain imagination” (PH 9/18f.)
Hegel seems convinced that the “reflective” historian suffers from a certain naïveté. She believes she brings to her study of history concepts that spring ex nihilo from her reflective or imaginative powers; she has the capacity to generate concepts (or “ideas”) thanks to her capacity to wholly rise above her particular place in history. She awards her ideas of the rationality or providence of history this special kind of status.
From Hegel’s point of view, the naïveté of this position stems from its assumption that human reflection is capable of such lofty flights—capable of achieving complete detachment from the realm of the actual. Hegel’s opposition to this assumption is a central theme of all his works. The assumption reflects a failure to appreciate what he takes to be a fundamental fact about us, namely that:
each individual is the child of his people, and likewise the child of his time…No one is left behind by his time, nor can he overstep it (PH 55/72; emphasis added).12
Hegel discovers not just naïveté but also a certain vanity in the a priori fabrications of the reflective historian. The charge of vanity is puzzling, at least if it is supposed to be directed at those (such as Kant) who hold that precisely because the concepts of historical progress and of divine providence refer to objects outside the realm of human experience, such concepts cannot contribute to our knowledge of that realm. How can this position be anything other than an expression of a modest assessment of the limits of our cognitive powers? What justifies the charge of vanity?
Here, it is worth pointing out that Hegel does not deny that concepts referring to objects such as “God” or the “rationality of history” or “freedom” are significantly different from concepts describing the nature and behavior of objects of empirical science. That is, he does not set out to altogether collapse the distinction between objects of natural science and objects of faith or speculation. Hegel’s charge of vanity is instead directed at a certain understanding of the basis of that distinction. The position of the “reflective” historian that Hegel thinks is not just naïve but also vain is the one we considered a moment ago: it attributes excessive abstractive capacities to human reflection. In overestimating our powers of abstraction, it encourages bloated claims—if not about the scope of
our scientific knowledge, then about our capacity to transcend our age in thought. This overestimation of our abstractive capacities shows up in grandiose assertions about the absolutely fixed nature and limits of human knowledge, and the absolutely fixed boundary separating science and faith.13 Hegel expresses his impatience with this kind of vanity in the following passage:
When the Divine Being is placed beyond the reach of our knowing and beyond human affairs altogether, we gain the convenience of indulging in our own imaginings. We are thereby freed from having to give our knowledge some relation to the Divine and the True. On the contrary, the vanity of human knowledge and subjective feeling receives a complete justification for itself. And when pious humility places the knowing God at a distance, it knows full well what it has thereby gained for its arbitrariness and vain efforts (PH 17/27).
Those who insist that God is unknowable, grant themselves permission to specify God’s nature any way they please. In convincing themselves that evidence in support of their claims is unavailable, they save themselves the trouble of looking for it.
From our discussion in this section, we can conclude that the method Hegel brings to his study of world history is a moderate a priori approach. Hegel offers this method as a sober alternative to that of the “reflective” historian who considers herself justified in indulging in “unhistorical abortions of a vain imagination” (9/18f.). For Hegel, no ideas or concepts of human imagination are ever wholly products of pure reason or unconditioned imagination. Our claims—even about objects of speculation—invariably reflect where we are. Although our historical investigations cannot be purely passive, they are not the outcome of wholly unbridled flights of abstraction either.14
22.3 OUR HISTORICALLY GROUNDED KNOWLEDGE OF PROVIDENCE
We have just been considering a central thesis of Hegel’s philosophy of history, namely, that we can know the ways of divine providence (or, equivalently, know the rationality of history). Hegel is convinced that we can know divine providence by means of evidence that is empirical or historical. The task of a philosophy of history, as he understands it, is to appeal to historical facts in justifying a story about the way in which God’s will has revealed itself in world history.
We also saw, however, that attending to historical facts is not, for Hegel, merely a matter of opening up our senses to the world. This at least in part explains why he describes his own approach to world history as “philosophical.” His approach, he says, is a “thoughtful consideration of history” (PH 10/20). A “thoughtful” or “philosophical” consideration of history acknowledges the role concepts and methodological assumptions play in guiding our collection of evidence. It is an “a priori” approach; but, as we just saw, it is a moderate a priori approach. While granting that we bring thoughts or concepts to our collection of facts, Hegel’s “philosophical” consideration of history renounces vain pretensions to transcendent insight. It acknowledges that even our most abstract concepts are historically grounded.
We can now move on and ask: how can these features of Hegel’s method help us solve the puzzle with which we started? How can they, in other words, clarify the reconciliation of freedom and necessity Hegel claims to discover in his age? And what does Hegel’s moderate a priori approach reveal about the meaning of his fatalistic sounding remarks about the course of world history?
As our discussion so far suggests, any story we tell about the progress or rationality of history (any story we tell, then, about divine providence) is a story we tell, in Hegel’s view, from within history. The historian has a duty to attend to the facts, to justify her narrative with reference to historical evidence. But since the historian cannot wholly escape her world, her story is at the same time anchored in that world. Her narrative thus invariably reflects, and is made possible by, the spirit of her age.
This point about the historically grounded nature of our concepts, and about the limits of our powers of abstraction, has implications for how we should interpret Hegel’s own pronouncements on the rationality and necessity of world history. As we have seen, Hegel wishes us to recognize that his claims are something other than “a priori fabrications.” He does not presume that he can justify them by appealing to pure reason or transcendent insight. Instead, he understands that even his most abstract generalizations are to some extent indebted to his own particular vantage point. His generalizations, then, about what does and does not belong to the rationality of history; about what is and is not evidence of historical progress; about what can and cannot be historically knowable—these are generalizations he makes from his particular place in history. They result from his “thoughtful” consideration of history, that is, from his conceptually mediated collection of data and discovery of regularities or causal relations. Even his insistence upon the “conceptual necessity” of historical progressions is a product of this procedure. It derives from the narrative he constructs—not from vain imagination or pure reason, but from his historically grounded inquiry into what is and has been.
I have been emphasizing the fact that Hegel’s commitment to the historically conditioned nature of his reflections on history follows from his insistence upon the limits of our powers of abstraction. The point, once again, is this: since no thinker can overleap her age, no thinker can justifiably award her thoughts timeless validity. It is important that we notice, in addition, that Hegel does not take this thesis about the limits of our abstractive powers to imply that knowledge of the rationality and progressive nature of history (knowledge of the ways of divine providence) is unavailable to us. On the contrary, his thesis about the limited nature of our reflective powers is precisely what allows him to “save” this kind of knowledge.
Characterized in such general terms, this strategy may remind us of Kant, since it infers from a premise about the limits of our cognitive powers, a conclusion about how we nonetheless are entitled to attribute to ourselves a certain kind of knowledge. But Hegel’s strategy departs from Kant’s in crucial respects. First, the thesis that we can wholly escape history in thought, or that our reason can generate concepts that are absolutely a priori or absolutely pure, is a thesis Kant affirms but Hegel denies. Second, the knowledge Hegel believes he is able to “save” (including knowledge of the ways of divine providence), is not knowledge that can be considered universally and necessarily valid—not even in the restricted sense of universally and necessarily valid for beings like us. The knowledge Hegel believes he is able to “save” is instead in principle revisable.
A scientist like Kepler determines the laws governing planetary motion with the help of his thoughtful consideration of empirical data. From his thoughtful consideration of the data, he separates out what is essential from what is merely accidental. He proceeds in this manner without pretending to possess trans-historical insight. He is mindful that his findings may be falsified tomorrow, and that the line between the essential and accidental may therefore need to be redrawn.
Hegel holds that the philosopher proceeds in much the same manner. She does so, even though she brings to her inquiries a different set of concepts than those of the natural scientist (PH 68/87). Like the scientist, the philosopher is engaged in a thinking consideration of what is. She learns from her historical studies that there have been various conceptions of the aim and rationality of history throughout history, as well as various interpretations of the nature of human freedom. On the basis of the historical evidence, she concludes that, overall, the trajectory of world history has been progressive. She in addition recognizes that her own historical narrative may someday be superseded.
If this interpretation of Hegel’s methodological commitments is on the mark, then we have grounds for concluding that the key assertions of his philosophy of history we reviewed earlier are accurate (his claims, namely, that evil has not prevailed in human history; that there has been progress in the development of human freedom; and that freedom and necessity have been reconciled in his time)—all of these are claims which have at best a pro
visional validity, in his view. They have a provisional validity, because Hegel is aware that, in his reflections on history, not even he is capable of overleaping his time. He has a certain story to tell about the rationality of history, a story about where we should draw the line between what is essential and what is accidental in history. But he tells that story from where he is. From where he is, the historical evidence so far suggests that the line between the essential and the accidental will likely need to be redrawn.15 World history, after all, is “still on the march,” as Hegel writes (PH 28/40). So far, the evidence suggests that its story will go on being rewritten.16
22.4 THE RECONCILIATION OF FREEDOM AND NECESSITY IN HEGEL’S TIME
We are now in a better position to explain what Hegel has in mind when he claims that, in his age, freedom and necessity have been reconciled (PH 42/57). In my introductory remarks, I proposed that his method—his “philosophical” approach to history—places constraints on what he can mean by the terms “freedom” and “necessity”. I noted, in addition, that his method limits what he can judge to be the suitable means of justifying his particular understanding of these terms.
The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century Page 82