Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

is a highly structured system, and its structure is in a certain sense developmental. I say ‘in a certain sense’ because the Idea doesn’t happen in time, one bit after another; Hegel’s doctrine is rather that it embodies a natural order of thought, so that the thought of one element inexorably leads the mind to another, and the thought of those two to a third, and so on until the whole system is revealed.
The second big difference is that whereas Plato speaks as if his Ideas exist independently of anything else, Hegel’s Idea can exist only if something embodies it. So there has to be ‘Nature’—the familiar collection of concrete objects that surround us. And Nature, since it exists in order to embody the Idea, reflects all the Idea’s properties. The ‘development’, which in the Idea was metaphorical, makes a literal appearance in the changing patterns of Nature.
So the Idea and Nature are very closely related: each is a form of the other. But at the same time they are so different that you might well think of them as opposites. The Idea is abstract, and neither temporal nor spatial, whereas Nature is spatio-temporal and concrete. The Idea is composed of universals, general concepts, whereas Nature comprises myriads of particular things. And it is material, which the Idea is certainly not. Hegel now uses this situation—the existence of opposites which are nevertheless in a sense the same thing—as the starting-point for a deeply characteristic move.
Suppose that you want to know something about yourself, say, what you really think about some question or other. Should you sit down meditatively and try to introspect your own thoughts? No—you will just think you see whatever you wanted to see. You should do something, make something, write something, in general produce something that expresses you, your own work—and look at it. That is what will tell you about yourself.
Good advice, and nothing especially new. (‘By our works shall we know ourselves.’) But Hegel now makes a very surprising (and rather obscure) use of it. He holds, remember, that Nature is the concrete expression of the Idea. So the Idea is confronted by its own work, and the situation is ripe for it to start to understand itself. Thus is born what Hegel calls Geist, usually translated ‘spirit’—consciousness, awareness. Human minds are its vehicle, but what is really happening in them is that the Idea is gradually moving towards full self-understanding. (OK, I told you that this was my example of high-altitude metaphysics!) There’s more to come: Hegel believes that the whole purpose of reality is precisely this, that the Idea should come to full knowledge of its own nature. And this is to happen in us, in the minds of the human race. No philosopher has ever cast us in a more prestigious role. Indeed, could there be one? This is the high-water mark of human self-assessment.
So what of history? History begins only when there are conscious beings and something one might call a culture, that is to say when we have reached Hegel’s Stage 3—Spirit or Geist. History is driven by Reason, the Idea: Hegel makes no bones of announcing this as established fact, something which philosophy (his own philosophy) has shown. In history, the Idea is working out its rational purposes.
If you find this thought rather alien, remember that to most of Hegel’s audience it would have sounded quite familiar; it is a close relative of something they had been brought up to accept. Providence is at work. Behind all the mundane detail of life, God is realizing his aims. In spite of everything, Good is gradually defeating Evil. All is for the best. That thought is familiar to all of us, including those of us who snort at it. What makes Hegel’s version of it feel unfamiliar is, first, his conception of ‘the best’—the Idea, the force that drives it all, comes to full knowledge of its own nature—and second, his highly intellectualized account of what is doing the driving—not a personal God or deified Superman, but the Idea, something like a system of Platonic forms. A theology student in his youth, Hegel knows perfectly well how to present this as a version of the orthodox Christian story (in fact he thinks he is improving on it); and he can preach with the best of them, as you’ll quickly discover as you read.
But history, surely, is driven by the actions of human beings? And they have their own human schemes, interests, and motives—one thing they aren’t trying to do is ensure that the Idea comes to perfect self-knowledge. (How could they be? Most of them have never even heard of it.) Now we meet a famous doctrine: the Cunning of Reason. Without their knowledge, the Idea (or Reason) really is at work, influencing and directing them towards its own ends.
So is there an external force, like the ancient Fates, looking down on us and manipulating our lives? No, Hegel’s view is subtler and less superstitious than that. Remember that our minds, in Hegel’s grand plan, do embody the Idea, but not yet with any clear consciousness of it. (Think of the way a seed—Hegel much approved of organic metaphors—‘contains’ the adult organism, but will only show it gradually in the process of growth and development.) Because there is this something within us, active though obscure, we can consciously pursue our own limited and individual ends and purposes whilst really serving the turn of Reason.
The Idea, now as Spirit or Geist, directs the course of history through the will of ‘world-historical individuals’ (the famous people you read about in history books). Their feeling for the requirements of Spirit is a little more advanced than that of their contemporaries, their dissatisfaction with the present state of things slightly sharper and better focused. Hegel describes them (never let anyone tell you he couldn’t write!): ‘They do not find their aims and vocation in the calm and regular system of the present . . .