Necessity in Hegel’s Philosophy of History

Abstract

Abstract With Kant, Hegel appreciates that unless we can connect what happens by means of a unifying idea, we undercut the possibility of narrating world history. Since Hegel is in addition committed to the assumption that the idea of unity that links events of world history is a specific idea of human freedom, we arrive at the paradoxical-sounding conclusion that it is a specific idea of freedom, on his account, that is responsible for history’s necessity. The author argues that in describing the purposive development of history as unfolding with necessity, Hegel does not commit himself to the view that the course of world history, and likewise reason’s special concepts and laws, are settled in advance. His insistence upon history’s necessity is instead compatible with his view that human reason and freedom are anchored in and therefore indebted to the realm of the actual.