Hegel, the End of History, and the Future

This book offers an alternative analysis of Hegel's famous 'end of history', detailing an alternative reading of Hegel on history.

Eric Michael Dale (Author)

9781107639225, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 16 March 2017

270 pages
23 x 15.4 x 1.5 cm, 0.4 kg

In Phenomenology of Spirit (1806) Hegel is often held to have announced the end of history, where 'history' is to be understood as the long pursuit of ends towards which humanity had always been striving. In this, the first book in English to thoroughly critique this entrenched view, Eric Michael Dale argues that it is a misinterpretation. Dale offers a reading of his own, showing how it sits within the larger schema of Hegel's thought and makes room for an understanding of the 'end of history' as Hegel intended. Through an elegant analysis of Hegel's philosophy of history, Dale guides the reader away from the common misinterpretation of the 'end of history' to other valuable elements of Hegel's arguments which are often overlooked and deserve to endure. His book will be of great interest to scholars and advanced students of Hegel, the philosophy of history, and the history of political thought.

Introduction
Part I. Hegel and the End of History: 1. The end of history as a question and a problem
2. Hegel and Nietzsche
3. Hegel and Engels
4. Hegel and Kojève
Part II. Hegel and the Philosophy of History: 5. Herder and history
6. Fichte and history
7. Hegel and history
8. The spirit and the end
9. The present and the future.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Philosophy [HP]