The question with respect to modern hermeneutics, then, is whether the increases in economic, social, psychological, and political pressure, that lead, via the ways in which the meaning of actions becomes less and less transparent to the agent, to a hermeneutics of suspicion, wholly obviate an ethical orientation in hermeneutics of the kind suggested by Schleiermacher’s attention to individuality. The most obvious contemporary contrast with a Nietzschean hermeneutic perspective is provided by Jürgen Habermas, who refuses to regard communication as being solely another form of action undertaken in the strategic pursuit of instrumental goals. Language has a dimension which he thinks takes it outside of the means–ends relationship. He therefore opposes the reduction of communication and interpretation to being just means for the conscious or unconscious exercise of power, a position whose assertion, as we saw, is threatened by the kind of regress with which we began the chapter. ‘Coming to an understanding’ for Habermas is part of the inherent ‘telos’ of language: if we did not think we might arrive at new and better understandings by opening ourselves to the perspectives of the other, our conception of communication would omit significant dimensions of what always already happens in language use in the life-world. In this respect Habermas is an heir to the hermeneutic tradition established by Schleiermacher. However much understanding of human expressions may also be illuminated by the revelation of their structural conditions and of the power relations in which they occur, an awareness of the ethical importance of realizing that understanding is always an ongoing task, not something definitively attainable, means the modern forms of hermeneutics that developed in the first half of the nineteenth century still offer crucial reminders for contemporary philosophy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Birus, Hendrik (1982), Hermeneutische Positionen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Bowie, Andrew (1997), From Romanticism to Critical Theory, London, New York: Routledge.
Bowie, Andrew (2003), Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bowie, Andrew (2007), Music, Philosophy, and Modernity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brandom, Robert (2008), Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bruns, Gerald L. (1992), Hermeneutics Ancient and Modern, New Haven, and London: Yale University Press.
Coffa, J. Alberto (1991), The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Crouter, Richard (2008), Friedrich Schleiermacher: Between Enlightenment and Romanticism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Davidson, Donald (1984), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dilthey, Wilhelm (1981), Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Dilthey, Wilhelm (1983), Texte zur Kritik der historischen Vernunft, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Dilthey, Wilhelm (1990), Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens, Gesammelte Schriften Vol. 5, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Dummett, Michael (1993), The Seas of Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Forster, Michael N. (2009), After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frank, Manfred (1977), Das individuelle Allgemeine. Textstrukturierung und -interpretation nach Schleiermacher, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Frank, Manfred (1988), Grenzen der Verständigung, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1975), Wahrheit und Methode, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg (1986), Hermeneutik: Wahrheit und Methode 2. Ergänzungen, Register, Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg, and Boehm, Gottfried (1976), Seminar: Philosophische Hermeneutik, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Gjesdal, Kristin (2012), Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hamann, J.G. (1949-57), Sämtliche Werke, 6 Vols., Vienna: Herder.
Makkreel, Rudolf A. (1992), Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Mariña, Jacqueline (2005), The Cambridge Companion to Friedrich Schleiermacher, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ormiston, Gayle (1982), The Hermeneutic Tradition: From Ast to Ricoeur, Albany: SUNY Press.
Palmer, Richard E. (1969), Hermeneutics: Interpretation Theory in Schleiermacher, Dilthey, Heidegger and Gadamer, Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Rössler, Beate (1990), Die Theorie des Verstehens in Sprachanalyse und Hermeneutik, Berlin: Dunker and Humblot.
Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1839), Dialektik, ed. L. Jonas, Berlin: Reimer.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1974), Hermeneutik, ed. H. Kimmerle, Heidelberg: Abhandlungen der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1976), Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik, ed. Rudolf Odebrecht, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1977), Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Manfred Frank, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1990), Ethik (1812/13), Hamburg: Meiner.
Schnädelbach, Herbert (1984), Philosophy in Germany 1831–1933, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* * *
1 Immanuel Kant (1787), Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, B 172/A 133 (my translation).
2 Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 322.
3 This idea will be decisive for the later Wittgenstein, and for his reception in contemporary pragmatism.
4 On the history of hermeneutics, see Dilthey’s essay in Gesammelte Schriften Vol. V (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1990), 317–32.
5 Chladenius, Johann Martin (1742), Einleitung zur richtigen Auslegung vernünftiger Reden und Schriften, intro. L. Goldsetzer (Reprint of edition Leipzig: Lanckisch 1742), Düsseldorf: Stern, 86.
6 Cited in Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1977), Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Manfred Frank, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 14–15; this is an edited version of Hermeneutik und Kritik, Berlin: Reimer 1838.
7 Birus, Hendrik (1982), Hermeneutische Positionen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 24.
8 Friedrich Ast, Grundlinien der Grammatik, Hermeneutik und Kritik, Landshut: Thomas 1808, 178–9.
9 Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1990), Ethik (1812/13), Hamburg: Meiner, 116.
10 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1839), Dialektik, ed. L. Jonas, Berlin: Reimer, 261.
11 From the secular ‘Allgemeine Hermeneutik’ (‘General Hermeneutics’ of 1809–10), in F.D.E. Schleiermacher, ‘Hermeneutics and Criticism’ and Other Texts, ed. Andrew Bowie, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 229. This is the best condensed account of Schleiermacher’s ideas on hermeneutics. In German, ed. Wolfgang Virmond, Schleiermacher-Archiv Vol. 1, 1271–310, Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 1985.
12 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1942), Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik, ed. Rudolf Odebrecht, Leipzig: Hinrichs, 480–481.
13 Schleiermacher, Friedrich Schleiermachers Dialektik, 77.
14 Schleiermacher, Ethik (1812/13), 256.
15 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, ed. Odebrecht, 230.
16 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, 35.
17 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, 137–8.
18 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, 49.
19 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s Sämmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. Schelling, I Abtheilung Vols. 1–10, II Abtheilung Vols. 1–4, Stuttgart: Cotta, 1856–61, I/3, 508.
20 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, ed. Jonas, 103.
21 ‘Über den Begriff der Hermeneutik mit Bezug auf F. A. Wolfs Andeutungen und Asts Lehrbuch’, in Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Frank, 326.
22 ‘Über den Begriff der Hermeneutik mit Bezug auf F. A. Wolfs Andeutungen und Asts Lehrbuch’.
23 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, ed. Jonas, 563.
24 Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Frank, 78.
2
5 Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Frank, 171.
26 Davidson, Donald (1984), Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 196–7.
27 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1988), Dialektik (1814–15). Einleitung zur Dialektik (1833), Hamburg: Meiner, 132–4.
28 Brandom, Robert (2008), Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 8.
29 Coffa, J. Alberto (1991), The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 30.
30 Dummett, Michael (1993), The Seas of Language, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 22.
31 Rössler, Beate (1990), Die Theorie des Verstehens in Sprachanalyse und Hermeneutik, Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, 140.
32 Wheeler, Samuel C. III (2000), Deconstruction as Analytic Philosophy, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 63.
33 Once it does play a role it would seem that one can no longer think in terms of a specifically analytical approach to philosophy. The fact that there has been a growing debate over the history and nature of analytical philosophy in recent years suggests that the analytical–European division is now merely a matter of institutional and ideological divisions, not one with any philosophical substance.
34 Schleiermacher, Friedrich (1990), Ethik (1812/13), Hamburg: Meiner, 256.
35 Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Frank, 94.
36 Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik, ed. Frank, 95.
37 Schleiermacher, Dialektik, ed. Odebrecht, 511.
38 Schleiermacher, ‘General Hermeneutics’, in ‘Hermeneutics and Criticism’ and Other Texts, 257.
39 Schleiermacher (1990), Ethik (1812/13), 259.
40 See Bowie, Andrew (2003), Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche (second edition), Manchester: Manchester University Press, chapter 6.
41 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1830), Der christliche Glaube I, Berlin: de Gruyter 1960, 26.
42 Schleiermacher, F. D. E. (1842), Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, Berlin: Reimer, 399–400.
43 See Bowie, Andrew (2007), Music, Philosophy, and Modernity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, chapter 5.
44 Schleiermacher, Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik, 633.
45 See Bowie (2007), chapter 8.
46 Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften, Leipzig: Teubner 1877, 87.
47 Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der philologischen Wissenschaften, 56.
48 See Makkreel, Rudolf A. (1992), Dilthey: Philosopher of the Human Studies, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
49 Dilthey, Wilhelm (1990), Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens, Gesammelte Schriften Vol. 5, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 27.
50 Dilthey, Die geistige Welt. Einleitung in die Philosophie des Lebens, 144.
51 Dilthey, Wilhelm (1981), Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 180.
52 Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, 99.
53 Dilthey, Der Aufbau der geschichtlichen Welt in den Geisteswissenschaften, 99.
54 Dilthey, Die geistige Welt (1990), 334.
55 Dilthey, Der Aufbau (1981), 379.
56 Dilthey, Wilhem (1983), Texte zur Kritik der historischen Vernunft, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 310.
57 The term is used by Marx, but already occurs in Schelling.
58 See, for example, Honneth, A. (2005), Verdinglichung: Eine anerkennungstheoretische Studie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp.
CHAPTER 22
PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY
SALLY SEDGWICK
22.1 INTRODUCTION
THIS is a chapter about philosophy of history, a topic I will approach through the lens of Hegel. Hegel’s approach to history is “philosophical,” because it is more than a mere catalogue or record of past events. Hegel is interested in determining whether meaningful connections can be discovered in past events. That is, he looks for patterns in history and asks whether lessons can be learned from history—lessons, for example, about the nature of human freedom and about whether humanity is making moral progress over the long term. Like Marx and Nietzsche, the other two figures I consider briefly in this chapter, Hegel engages in a philosophical consideration of history in that he raises questions about the nature of the evidence history can provide for our claims about its purpose and meaning.
The subject matter of Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History is world history.1 Although the term “world,” as he describes it, “includes both physical and mental [psychische] nature,” he tells us that the “substance” of his philosophy of history is mental nature or “Spirit [Geist]” (PH 19/29). The “essence” of Spirit, on his definition, is freedom (PH 20/30). World history “presents…the development of Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom” (PH 67/86). It tells the story of how Spirit’s consciousness of its freedom is actualized in the various domains of its activity: in religion, science, and art; in ethics, politics, and law.
Hegel’s world history is a history not of individuals but of peoples. Moreover, it is concerned “only with those peoples that have formed states” (PH 41/56).2 Hegel acknowledges that much of interest can happen to a people prior to its coming together to form a state. Families may coalesce into tribes, tribes may develop into rich cultures with sophisticated languages and form nations that wage wars (PH 66/85). But for Hegel, what happens to a people prior to the formation of a state belongs strictly speaking to “pre-history” (PH 63f./82f.). World history only properly begins when Spirit becomes conscious of its freedom, and Spirit becomes truly conscious of its freedom only when it advances to the stage at which it recognizes that it must allow itself to be governed by “rules, laws, universal and universally binding directives” (PH 65/83). Prior to forming a state, a people’s freedom exists as “only a possibility” (PH 62/81).3
The foregoing summarizes the subject matter of Hegel’s philosophy of history. As for some of the lessons Hegel believes we should draw from world history, he announces in his Introduction to the Lectures that his discussion of world history will offer us “proof” of the truth of Anaxagoras’ thesis that “nous” or “reason” “rules the world,” and that world history has been “the rational, necessary course of World Spirit” (PH 13–15/20–5, 28/40). Hegel notes that this commitment to the rationality of history is commonly expressed in religious terms as the idea that there is a “divine providence [Vorsehung] presiding over the events of the world” (PH 15/25). He tells us that his philosophy of history will indeed demonstrate that “God governs the world” and that the “content of His governance, the fulfillment of His plan, is world history” (PH 39/53).4
In endorsing the thesis that world history is rational, Hegel says he joins Anaxagoras in opposing those (such as Epicurus) who attribute everything that happens to chance (PH 15/24). Sometimes Hegel seems to defend an even more radical thesis. He sometimes conveys the impression that he believes chance has no role to play in world history whatsoever. This message is suggested when he writes, for instance, that “the world is not subject to chance and to eternal contingencies” (PH 15/25), and that Spirit does not “toss itself about in the external play of contingencies” (PH 58/75).5
Hegel’s confidence in the rationality of world history is furthermore apparent when he asserts that history teaches us that the “real world is as it ought to be” (PH 39/53). Although remarks like this appear to imply that Hegel turns a blind eye to the reality of human misery and presence of evil, he is no Pollyanna. He describes world history as a “slaughter-bench [Schlachtbank]” (PH 24/35). In his words, it would be no “rhetorical exaggeration” to “paint the most fearful picture of the misfortunes suffered by the noblest of nations and states as well as by private virtues” (PH 24/35).
Hegel describes the course of world history not just as rational but also as progressive. The development of world history, in his words, is an “advance from the imperfect to the
more perfect” (PH 60/78; see also PH 57/74). Since Spirit is the “substance” of world history, on his account, the “advance” he has in mind refers to an advance in human freedom. World history progresses through various stages of maturity. The stages are objectified in the form of “world-historical National Spirits [Volksgeister],” and the stages exhibit “determinate shapes of ethical life” in government, art, religion and philosophy (PH 82/104; see also PH 56/73). The “Germanic peoples,” Hegel proudly proclaims, stand at the apex of this development. “Through Christianity,” these peoples have arrived at the awareness that “every human is free by virtue of being human” (PH 21/31).6
Finally, Hegel tells us that his world history is a “theodicy,” a “justification of the ways of God” (PH 18/28). He aims to show that “whatever was intended by the Eternal Wisdom has come to fulfillment” in the realm of Spirit. He believes world history warrants us in concluding that, for all the miseries humans have inflicted upon each other, “evil has not prevailed…in any ultimate sense” (PH 18/28).
In this chapter, I am most interested in Hegel’s discussion in the Introduction to his Philosophy of History of the method he brings to his study of world history. I say very little about, and do not set out to assess, his particular descriptions of the histories and characters of specific nations. I focus on Hegel’s method, because my principal concern is to shed light on the justificatory basis he takes himself to have for the bold claims outlined above. That is, I wish to clarify his view of the epistemic standpoint he occupies in telling his story.
Among the reasons Hegel’s method is of interest is that it contains clues to how we should understand what appears to be a deep inconsistency in his philosophy of history. On the one hand, he tells us that world history is a history of the progress of Spirit (whose “essence” is freedom). On the other hand, however, he asserts that advances in the development of Spirit proceed in accordance with “conceptual necessity [Begriffsnotwendigkeit]” (PH 81/104). The process of world history, he says, arises from the “concept of world history” (PH 67/86), and the actualization of Spirit in time is the unfolding of “what it already is implicitly” (PH 58/75). In writing that world history is the carrying out of “God’s will for the world” (PH 23/33), Hegel seems to invite us to infer that, as he understands it, history is the unfolding of a divine plan that has been fully laid out from the start.
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