Progress of History: Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger

For Hegel, the idea of the progress of history was tied to his immersion in the world of Enlightenment and Romantic writers and thinkers. He lived at a time when the French Revolution occurred and reshaped the direction of history. The Revolution expressed and institutionalized new ideas about Reason (literally deified by the Revolution) as well as socio-political philosophy regarding fraternity, equality and liberty. Hegel came to maturity during this era and for him, philosophy consisted of a clash of forces -- and the old world concept of philosophy (the love of knowledge/wisdom) was what Hegel sought to transform in The Phenomenology of Spirit, as he clearly states in the book's Preface: "To help to bring philosophy nearer to the form of science -- that goal where it can lay aside the name of love of knowledge and be actual knowledge -- that is what I have set before me."[footnoteRef:1] In other words, Hegel wanted to redefine philosophy to be that thing it sought in the old world (pre-Reformation and Revolution) to understand. Instead of looking at knowledge in the way that Plato did -- as that which is acquired through one's ascent to truth (leaving the Cave of shadows and climbing the mountain towards the so-called highest realities), Hegel viewed the philosopher as the source of knowledge, the engagement in the dialectic as the ultimate source of the act of knowing, with perception and experience continually shaping one's knowledge. The progress of history therefore, as far as Hegel, Nietzsche and Heidegger are concerned, is tied to the philosopher's elevation of Self as definer, interpreter and mover of history, meaning, and time. This paper will assess Hegel's sense of the progress of history and compare it to that of Nietzsche's and Heidegger's. [1: G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (UK: Oxford University Press, 1952), Preface: 2.5.]

Foundation of Hegel's Thought

For Hegel, the phenomenon of knowing was what The Phenomenology of Spirit was all about. Yet, because of the primary place given to personal perceptions by Hegel, the method of knowing and the art of philosophy altered. Definable reality became fluid under these circumstances and parameters. The philosophers who followed -- Nietzsche and Heidegger -- faced the world from this Hegelian philosophical lens and took to describing their own perceptions of reality, of knowing, of philosophical truth. Nietzsche produce Beyond Good and Evil; Heidegger wrote Being and Time. Both act as rejections of the philosophical footholds that had come before: each acts as an attempt to reconcile the world with the questions, ideas, and interests within the respective philosophers. By projecting his words as knowledge rather than as a study (or love) of knowledge, Hegel inverted the system of philosophical order. There was no longer an insistence on an object (knowledge) to be studied and loved for its own self, its own goodness.

Hegel was interested in the experience of knowing rather than in what knowing produced. He was interested in the phenomenon itself rather than in the objective truths and realities proposed by the old world philosophy and religion. He himself states in the Preface: "The beautiful, the holy, the eternal, religion, love -- these are the bait required to awaken the desire to bite: not the notion, but ecstasy, not the march of cold necessity in the subject-matter, but ferment and enthusiasm -- these are to be the ways by which the wealth of the concrete substance is to be stored and increasingly extended."[footnoteRef:2] The ideals of Western philosophy articulated by Socrates and affirmed by the Christian teachings were here by Hegel renounced, described as "bait" to lure the thinker to the real reality, the real truth -- which for Hegel was, once again, the experience. Instead of seeking the "love" (the one, the good, the beautiful), Hegel sought a "love experience." In other words, he was more interested in the act than in the outcome. His philosophy was akin to fornication without procreation. The progress of history is thus that which is interpreted by the philosopher as he engages with the facts of reality while maintaining a distance, a remove -- just as a lover may engage in the act of love without actually consummating the love through the natural dissemination of the seed. Hegel's notion of the philosopher is like one who wants to be part of the experience of history yet not be responsible for any actual moral objective. History is a process and cannot be understood without... History thus is re-interpreted again on down the line, with each philosopher altering it and transforming as he engages with it. There is never an objective in the sense that the old world defined one. [2: G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (UK: Oxford University Press, 1952), Preface: 3.7.]
Hegel approached philosophy in a "rational spirit." The Revolutionaries would deify Reason: Hegel would define philosophy as an act of "Rationality."[footnoteRef:3] Oneness had new meaning in this light: it was not unchanging and whole in and of itself, but rather evolutionary and its wholeness derived only from the conscious examination of how the process of Rationality weighs in on the knowledge that is acquired. This is what Hegel means when he states: [3: G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (UK: Oxford University Press, 1952), Preface: 14.55.]

In the nature of existence as thus described -- to be its own notion and being in one -- consists logical necessity in general. This alone is what is rational, the rhythm of the organic whole: it is as much knowledge of content as that content is notion and essential nature. In other words, this alone is the sphere and element of speculative thought. The concrete shape of the content is resolved by its own inherent process into a simple determinate quality. Thereby it is raised to logical form, and its being and essence coincide; its concrete existence is merely this process that takes place, and is eo ipso logical existence.[footnoteRef:4] [4: G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit (UK: Oxford University Press, 1952), Preface: 14.56.]

If the outcome of the old world's love of knowledge was conformity (to doctrine, to a way, to an ideal, to truth, to the teachings of religion -- because of the appreciation of the objective facts that knowledge made plain), the outcome of Hegel's philosophy was the opposite. Conformity was not the purpose -- instead experience was the purpose. The examination and understanding of experience would lead to deeper and greater knowledge, but the cycle was constantly continuing. In some ways this was consistent with the idea of Plato about the philosopher climbing the mountain towards the Sun -- the Truth, because the higher the philosopher climbs the more deeply into the Oneness he sees.

However, in Hegel's view, the Oneness was mutable, was never really fixed, was always changing because it derived its meaning from the experience of the climber, the philosopher. It did not project meaning to which the philosopher should conform, but rather the philosopher's climb towards the perceived Oneness projected the meaning and the Oneness changed with regard to the climber's position. The focus, in this sense was away from the objective towards the subjective -- which describes modern philosophy as a whole in general. Hegel elevates the role of the subjective experience and diminishes the role of the objective. This same practice is furthered by both Heidegger and Nietzsche as each arrives at different conclusions about self, life, and truth based on their own subjective experiences, thoughts, and inclinations. Their relevance was made possible because of Hegel, and Hegel's relevance was made possible because of the Revolution and the role the Romantic-Enlightenment thinking played in European society. And, to take it one step further, Romantic-Enlightenment thinking was made relevant by the Reformation and the overthrow of the doctrinal system and the philosophical system that could be described as Thomistic, but which had roots in the foundations poured by Aristotle and the whole of philosophy that had come before. All of that was based on the love of knowledge -- of the objective.

The Reformation served as the first rejection of this old world objectivity and began the cascade of subjectivity evident in everything from Hegel to Nietzsche: the predominant rise of Self as opposed to the subjection of Self to the One (identified as God by the pre-Revolutionary world). It is thus that Hegel insists on the "scientific method" (as though method were lacking in the pre-modern world) and states: "This nature of scientific method, which consists partly in being inseparable from the content, and partly in determining the rhythm of its movement by its own agency, finds, as we mentioned before, its peculiar systematic expression in speculative philosophy."[footnoteRef:5] There is no separation between observer and the observed…