History of Philosophy

Philosophy of history: philosophy of the state vs Philosophy of history: philosophy of the state vs. philosophy of revolution (G.W.F. Hegel and K. Marx). Who was right Hegel or Marx? The goal and the end of history

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) Hegel: philosophy of history or historiosophy – a philosophical interpretation of history of mankind in terms of the end of history, its general tendency and means of achieving the end.

• the role of particular nations in making history • the role of individuals in making history: ‘Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.’ • the ‘cunning of reason’, i.e. the self- interested activities of individuals are used by the World-Spirit for the achievement of its object: the end of history

“The special interest of passion is thus inseparable from the active development of a general principle: for it is from the special and determinate and from its negation, that the Universal results. Particularity contends with its like, and some loss is involved in the issue. It is not the general idea that is implicated in opposition and combat, and that is exposed to danger. It remains in the background, untouched and uninjured. This may be called the cunning of reason, — that it sets the passions to work for itself, while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the penalty and suffers loss.

For it is phenomenal being that is so treated, and of this, part is of no value, part is positive and real. The particular is for the most part of too trifling value as compared with the general: individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but from the passions of individuals.” (Lectures on the Philosophy of Reason, §36, http://marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/hiconten.htm)

• the destiny of the world is Spirit’s expansion of its freedom and its consciousness of its freedom • Folk/National Spirits and the World-Spirit; stages or epochs of the expansion of freedom dominated by particular nations: ancient despotic regimes (except the despot all other people are not conscious of their freedom), Greek and Roman states and citizenship (free men and slaves), Christianity and the German state (freedom of all people, freedom as right, citizenship)

Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) Major works: Das Kapital (Capital), 3 vols., 1867-1894 Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848

Mechanism of history: Marx’s theory of capitalism and history • productive forces (raw materials, machinery, labour), products, relations of production – economic relations • changes in technology make existing relations of production obsolete, mechanised production demands free workers ready to sell their labour, to be hired labour force • conflict between relations of production the productive forces lead to a social revolution • structure and political and legal superstructure: tensions between them • stages of history of mankind: primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, ultimate communism

Critique of capitalism: • the capitalist exploitation, the labour theory of value, the surplus value and the subsistence wage, capitalist accumulation • the idea of the social(ist) revolution as the solution of inherent contradictions of capitalism and a Promethean promise of the liberation of the proletariat (working classes) and the mankind • the abolition of money and free market • the abolition of the state

his The End of History and The Last Man: The collapse of the Marxist theory and the political and economic systems based on it. Francis Fukuyama b.1952 A contemporary Hegelian interpretation of history by Francis Fukuyama in his The End of History and The Last Man: the liberal-democratic state as the final stage of history.