Is there an end to history?
Whereas most generally think of history as a record of past events,
philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
considered it to be a rational process,
moving towards completion.
Make no mistake, by end of history,
Hegel wasn't prophesying the end of the world,
but to discover what he did mean we must first ask ourselves,
"What is history?"
According to Hegel, history is the progression of reason,
brought about largely by confrontation and conflict.
For example, if a group of rebels siege a castle,
we have two opposing forces,
the establishment and the challenger.
Through this conflict, the opposing ideologies will collide
and produce a new establishment.
Like the one before it, this idea will eventually
invite upheaval.
And the dialectical process, yielding heightened rationality, will continue.
But such changes don't occur randomly.
To Hegel, history is pushed forward by freedom,
mankind's essential nature.
As history progresses, we become more self-conscious,
therefore, more rational.
And, therefore, more free.
For example, as a warrior gains more experience points,
he is granted more skills.
The more skills he gains, the more choices he has in combat.
And thus he is freer.
As the ages pass, we have become more free.
During the age of the Orient, only the ruler was free.
In ancient Greece, some were free.
And in Hegel's time, following the French Revolution,
it was thought that all should be free.
So if freedom is the end goal of history,
will there ever be a perfected state that invites no more change?
An end to the dialectic?
In his book, The Phenomenology of Spirit,
Hegel devised the concept of "world spirit",
or the manifestation of reason exhibited through a society's culture,
including its philosophy, religion, and art.
The ultimate freedom will occur when the world spirit,
or collective consciousness of a culture,
becomes entirely rational.
Only then can a unified society be established in which its laws
and institutions will invite no more change
because they are in perfect harmony with their culture.
And, thus, the dialectical process of history will end.
Hegel's philosophy of history inspired some of the most
important thinkers of the 19th century,
including one young poet who would one day become
one one of the world's most influential figures.