Is there a metaphysical meaning behind History and development? (Hegel)

[NK13]

So I was reading Hegel's lectures on the Philosophy of History and found these paragraphs interesting, where he proposes that the objective and Goal of Geist (Spirit) is ultimately to know itself. @Leo Gura it reminds of your claim that God will eventually awaken to itself but I'm kinda confused of whether it's a historical development of Nature/Mankind that takes millions of years or it's rather an individual awakening? I know you can say wake up for yourself now nevertheless I'm interested in your interpretation of history. 

"The principle of Development involves also the existence of a latent germ of being — a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself. This formal conception finds actual existence in Spirit; which has the History of the World for its theatre, its possession, and the sphere of its realization. It is not of such a nature as to be tossed to and for amid the superficial play of accidents, but is rather the absolute arbiter of things; entirely unmoved by contingencies, which, indeed, it applies and manages for its own purposes..."

"Between the Idea and its realization — the essential constitution of the original germ and the conformity to it of the existence derived from it — no disturbing influence can intrude. But in relation to Spirit it is quite otherwise. The realization of its Idea is mediated by consciousness and will; these very faculties are, in the first instance, sunk in their primary merely natural life; the first object and goal of their striving is the realization of their merely natural destiny — but which, since it is Spirit that animates it, is possessed of vast attractions and displays great power and (moral) richness. Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it has to overcome itself as its most formidable obstacle. That development which in the sphere of Nature is a peaceful growth is, in that of spirit, a severe, a mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it..."

 

Edited August 23, 2022 by NK13

[Oeaohoo]

As is generally the case with modern philosophers, Hegel confounds certain profound truths with a vain and eccentric personal philosophy. The important parts of what you have quoted are really just restatements of eternal truths: the “absolute arbiter of things entirely unmoved by contingencies” is the Unmoved Mover of Aristotelian metaphysics; the spirit as Hegel describes it is essentially the Holy Spirit of Christianity, which is the feminine presence and driving power of God’s Will; the “latent germ of being” that he speaks of is the Hiranyagarbha (“World Egg”) of Hinduism; the completion and ultimate fulfilment of creation is the Pleroma (“Fullness”) of Gnosticism; and so on… To quote Ecclesiastes: “The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun”!

If you are interested, there is an excellent book on the influence of esoteric Christian doctrine on Hegel called Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. The only difference between the ideas of Hegel and the traditional doctrines I have described above is that Hegel distorts them to fit in with the trending progressivist ideology of his time. History according to him is moving towards the freedom of consciousness. I don’t see much evidence for that personally; if anything, it seems to be moving towards the total enslavement of consciousness to power, passion and a merely material prosperity… The Stoic philosopher and slave Epictetus was more free in his consciousness than most people today! That being said, if we take “progress” to simply refer to the full unfoldment of the possibilities latent in the “germ of being” or “World Egg”, there is no problem.

[Carl-Richard]

12 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

I don’t see much evidence for that personally; if anything, it seems to be moving towards the total enslavement of consciousness to power, passion and a merely material prosperity… The Stoic philosopher and slave Epictetus was more free in his consciousness than most people today!

Do you believe in evolution by natural selection?

[Tyler Robinson]

Where did you find these lectures? On YouTube? 

 

[AtheisticNonduality]

I've only indirectly read Hegel, but I agree with his progressive ideals, yet am concerned about the inevitability of them, the freedom from contingencies mentioned. And then there was the pessimistically "non-progress-oriented" Schopenhauer who had a hate of a Hegel (so over-the-top in its ridiculousness you can tell there's genuine emotion put into it). You can take this however seriously you want to, but Schopenhauer quotes about Hegel:

Quote

Hegel's philosophy is absolute nonsense - 3/4 of it empty and 1/4 insane notions.

Quote

Hegel had no spirit at all.

Quote

Hegel was a flat, witless, disgusting-revolting, ignorant charlatan who, with unexampled impudence, kept scribbling insanity and nonsense that was trumpeted as immortal wisdom by his venal adherents and actually taken for that by dolts, which gave rise to such a complete chorus of admiration as had never been heard before.

Quote

May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course.

Quote

But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel. It became the instrument of the most ponderous and general mystification that has ever existed, with a result that will seem incredible to posterity, and be a lasting monument of German stupidity.

Quote

. . . and the brains of the present generation of savants are disorganised by Hegelian nonsense: incapable of reflection, coarse and bewildered, they fall a prey to the low Materialism which has crept out of the basilisk's egg. Good speed to them. I return to my subject.

And:

Quote

He despised Hegel; having seen Hegel in person, he said that he could tell by the shape of his head and the look in his eye that he wasn’t a genius.

 

[Oeaohoo]

2 minutes ago, Tyler Robinson said:

Where did you find these lectures? On YouTube? 

Hegel died almost 200 years ago. I doubt his lectures are on YouTube... If they are, they might be a little fuzzy!

They are published in book form.

1 minute ago, Carl-Richard said:

Do you believe in evolution by natural selection?

No.

At least, not in the sense that this is generally meant. In this sense, evolution by natural selection is an attempt to explain all biological existence with reference to nature alone, excluding any explanation in terms of a "supernatural" or transcendent influence. This naturally emerged in the Victorian world of which Darwin was a product because that world was already more or less atheistic. Whilst it doesn't necessarily refute the idea that species adapt to their environment through processes of natural selection, it seems unspeakably obvious to me that there is a power at work in the natural world that is itself super-biological and supernatural. Even Hegel would not believe in an evolution conceived in these terms: in his philosophy, evolution does not occur through natural selection but through the action of Spirit as Consciousness and Will.

1 minute ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

He despised Hegel; having seen Hegel in person, he said that he could tell by the shape of his head and the look in his eye that he wasn’t a genius

[Oeaohoo]

9 minutes ago, AtheisticNonduality said:

But the greatest effrontery in serving up sheer nonsense, in scrabbling together senseless and maddening webs of words, such as had previously been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel. It became the instrument of the most ponderous and general mystification that has ever existed, with a result that will seem incredible to posterity, and be a lasting monument of German stupidity.

I've always enjoyed Schopenhauer and Nietzsche's hatred of almost everything German. I feel very much the same about the English...

 

[Tyler Robinson]

9 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

Hegel died almost 200 years ago. I doubt his lectures are on YouTube... If they are, they might be a little fuzzy!

They are published in book form.

Then I don't think I'll find them 

Old stuff is kinda hard to dig. 

 

 

[Oeaohoo]

9 minutes ago, Tyler Robinson said:

Then I don't think I'll find them 

Old stuff is kinda hard to dig.

Indeed. Hegel talks about antiquated things like the State and civil society!

[Danioover9000]

@NK13

4 hours ago, NK13 said:

So I was reading Hegel's lectures on the Philosophy of History and found these paragraphs interesting, where he proposes that the objective and Goal of Geist (Spirit) is ultimately to know itself. @Leo Gura it reminds of your claim that God will eventually awaken to itself but I'm kinda confused of whether it's a historical development of Nature/Mankind that takes millions of years or it's rather an individual awakening? I know you can say wake up for yourself now nevertheless I'm interested in your interpretation of history. 

"The principle of Development involves also the existence of a latent germ of being — a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself. This formal conception finds actual existence in Spirit; which has the History of the World for its theatre, its possession, and the sphere of its realization. It is not of such a nature as to be tossed to and for amid the superficial play of accidents, but is rather the absolute arbiter of things; entirely unmoved by contingencies, which, indeed, it applies and manages for its own purposes..."

"Between the Idea and its realization — the essential constitution of the original germ and the conformity to it of the existence derived from it — no disturbing influence can intrude. But in relation to Spirit it is quite otherwise. The realization of its Idea is mediated by consciousness and will; these very faculties are, in the first instance, sunk in their primary merely natural life; the first object and goal of their striving is the realization of their merely natural destiny — but which, since it is Spirit that animates it, is possessed of vast attractions and displays great power and (moral) richness. Thus Spirit is at war with itself; it has to overcome itself as its most formidable obstacle. That development which in the sphere of Nature is a peaceful growth is, in that of spirit, a severe, a mighty conflict with itself. What Spirit really strives for is the realization of its Ideal being; but in doing so, it hides that goal from its own vision, and is proud and well satisfied in this alienation from it..."

 

   Good paragraph from Hegel.

   Hegel is like that one bagel, thinking in circles around an issue, using is-ness to get at the heart of an issue, without using a Philosopher's stone toaster, but still had to rollercoaster with his trolling muse to diffusion what is from what isn't.

   Like an eagle, he baldly goes where most philosophers at his time dared not to go, and therefore he forwarded and pioneered a movement called idealism to try to bridge that schism between reason and intuition.  

[Carl-Richard]

8 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

Hegel is like that one bagel, thinking in circles around an issue, using is-ness to get at the heart of an issue, without using a Philosopher's stone toaster, but still had to rollercoaster with his trolling muse to diffusion what is from what isn't.

Like an eagle, he baldly goes where most philosophers at his time dared not to go, and therefore he forwarded and pioneered a movement called idealism to try to bridge that schism between reason and intuition.  

Why are you rapping?!? 

[Oeaohoo]

17 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

 

Good paragraph from Hegel.

   Hegel is like that one bagel, thinking in circles around an issue, using is-ness to get at the heart of an issue, without using a Philosopher's stone toaster, but still had to rollercoaster with his trolling muse to diffusion what is from what isn't.

   Like an eagle, he baldly goes where most philosophers at his time dared not to go, and therefore he forwarded and pioneered a movement called idealism to try to bridge that schism between reason and intuition.  

Hegel, he came before Nagel. He believed the future was better than the past: what a fable! He snuck in alchemical doctrine under the table. Schopenhauer labelled him a fraud and wondered if he was really able, to come up with anything more profound than a baby’s babble! He wasn’t disabled but he was rather ugly, nor did his dry dreary philosophy enable him to transcend the world of labels. He spoke about spirit without ever having seen it, he spoke about God without ever having been it. Still, at least he spoke about the State, before it was too late!

[Danioover9000]

@Oeaohoo

3 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

Hegel, he came before Nagel. He believed the future was better than the past: what a fable! He snuck in alchemical doctrine under the table. Schopenhauer labelled him a fraud and wondered if he was really able, to come up with anything more profound than a baby’s babble! He wasn’t disabled but he was rather ugly, nor did his dry dreary philosophy enable him to transcend the world of labels. He spoke about spirit without ever having seen it, he spoke about God without ever having been it. Still, at least he spoke about the State, before it was too late!

   Negal or Hegel, despite being a late bloomer, anti doom and anti-gloom viewer of realist-passivist views, followed still the raising progressivist movements. Probably I had a helping hand in that mad man's mad insight, let me explain the story:

   When he wrote of the state, in his bed, he had a bad stroke of luck, a stroke, and a flash of life before his eyes, in his dream, truncated him to his past life as Ecclesiastes, and saw a hot Goddess called Claire in Ancient Greece doing naughty divine polygamy things, before rebounding to the future,  Nostradamus style, 80o0 nautical miles, on the backs of naughty Sirens this time, scried too far, saw Andrew Tate, explaining hypergamy, complaining, and mansplaining, how Claire dumbed him like a cold éclair cake! The jarring experience of once getting pervaded on, then red pill spiel shocked him and sent him into my arms, where I had to calm, disarm and charm him without harm, using my dark arts as the hot witch god! Too dumb founded, scarred, and drugged by my rugged rainbow pills, I instilled in him my wisdom of God in my catty choice of language, while laying the foundations of spirit with my whimsicality styled de-spirited lyricism, Being nice, divine, and devilish, I showed him the modern day pleasures and relished the lasting impressions in his fragmented state of mind, how he processed my magic horse radish. Reddish cheeks and maybe scarred and imprinted schisms in his conscious mind into a dreary ugly mind, not even Timothy Leary would mind, as he's busy doing bass and drums on Ram Dass's Dyke over dosing on whiskey and rums! Because I'm extra sick minded that day, I ex-spelled him into the right time frame, aiming for his safe landing on a body of water. Unfortunately the shack wave had bodied Schopenhauer, who's at a soap opera, in that hour, KA-POWED! Him into a crowd, injured, had to take copious amounts of my magic pills for life, while mounting costs for life, plus compound interest, probably also the source of his bitter pessimism that time. 

   However, I'm so sorry, and I'd like to take the time, to apologies, to those following this narrative, who forgot to swallow a pinch of salt, to no one in this fabled story of mine! Why? After all, you all are baited into my imagination ball, appalled by this dance hall, inside my Assassin's Creed story line, which I lye done in my bedding, deem, to be, and decree, my ABSOLUTE SOVEREIGNTY OVER THEE! As the only hot witch roaming these streets on this bedded wheelhouse, housing tricks and treats in my eternal Halloween gallery, lyrically,  with my card game skill: polymerization. Mesmerized? Riddle me this origin, apothecary + astrology, who am I? A wild witch doctor, which pops the canary's blind mind eye, so pupils can see beyond space time astronomically. I know, phenomenal, my magical polytonality seams the fabrics of time...with lime sorcery.

   So! In conclusion, if anyone feuds and colludes against me, feudal to modern style, it's no use, cuz I'd Oreo-Hoo-Toe them with my feet-thigh-foe-and-thumbs cupping up cappas, coated in odors of English black pudding, slow cooked, be it alive or be it dead, gonna render flesh and blood to a dry husk, and whisk and grind away to make my coffee roasted bread! Wow, those trippy lines rhymes with @Oeaohoo that time, how funny and pun pun, this lyrical murder, don't mined my Thunderdell thundering away, still miles away from hitting Ya way, giga-giga-chida-chida chad! Mad? Sad? Relax, lad. I'm just joking Mat-but-no-Damon.

@NK13 Hegel's a decent philosopher, but don't get trapped into mental masturbation. Less philosophizing, more practicing being, like me.

[NK13]

10 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

 Hegel's a decent philosopher, but don't get trapped into mental masturbation. Less philosophizing, more practicing being, like me.

The problem with this kind attitude is that you end up with insights with no relation to the bigger picture if you don't put them in context. I see Hegel here making sense of consciousness development for society as a whole. Philosophy is not necessarily always mental gymnastics, you have to think about what you directly experience.

16 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

He spoke about spirit without ever having seen it, he spoke about God without ever having been it.

I guess you were buddies and you know a lot about him

So what's the point of Progress if not consciousness realizing itself and collapsing into Oneness? 

[Oeaohoo]

4 hours ago, NK13 said:

I guess you were buddies and you know a lot about him

We were just playing around with rhyming phrases. Who knows, maybe Hegel had some deep experiences in his life. He probably did.

4 hours ago, NK13 said:

So what's the point of Progress if not consciousness realizing itself and collapsing into Oneness? 

Consciousness begins as itself; then it manifests a world of sentient beings who still remember and are connected with their divine origin; as time progresses, the distance between these creatures and their creator deepens and they forget who they really are; this process continues until, by the end of time, they have become completely lost in the dream of their separateness; at this point, consciousness realises itself once again and collapses everything back into Oneness. Those beings who had recognised their real nature within this cyclic process are liberated and do not return to limited and separate existence. The rest go round and round in this fashion until they finally wake up...

This is the true vision of history. Anything else is "petty human bullshit"!

Edited August 24, 2022 by Oeaohoo

[NK13]

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

at this point, consciousness realises itself once again and collapses into Oneness.

So they grow ever more in seperation and suddenly at some point it happens? how does that happen? and how do you know? 

and what's "end of time"?

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

The rest go round and round in this fashion until they finally wake up...

then what?

Edited August 24, 2022 by NK13

[Oeaohoo]

2 hours ago, NK13 said:

So they grow ever more in seperation and suddenly at some point it happens? how does that happen? and how do you know? and what's "end of time"?

How do people awaken? In all sorts of ways. Ideally, and ordinarily in prior times, through a mastery of some spiritual discipline. In most cases today, separation makes people miserable and they start looking for a way out of their misery.

They grow in separation simply because time itself is a movement away from the original manifestation of the world out of consciousness. As time goes on, the memory of this origin becomes more distant.

You don't have to take my word for it: what else did Plato mean when he said that all real understanding is remembering? The process that I have described is essentially that which every religion describes, albeit with certain variations and adaptations given the specific time and place.

The end of time is the point at which the world is no longer serving any purpose. The salt has lost it's saltiness and so on... The world at this point is withdrawn back into pure consciousness and created anew. This process repeats itself indefinitely.

3 hours ago, NK13 said:

then what?

When they finally wake up? Like you said, consciousness has realised itself and they collapse into Oneness!

[NK13]

@Oeaohoo You're kinda contradicting yourself tbh 

6 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

They grow in separation simply because time itself is a movement away from the original manifestation of the world out of consciousness. As time goes on, the memory of this origin becomes more distant.

At first you claim with time the separation grows 

6 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

You don't have to take my word for it: what else did Plato mean when he said that all real understanding is remembering

Then you say this which is quite the opposite?!

Anyway the Platonic concept of anamnesis and of the Neoplatonic theory of emanation would be rather closer to Hegel's Idea of Progess. For Hegel, truth is not only, as 
for Plato, something that does not change and is eternal, but truth is, on the contrary, a result. Which is my essential question. 

Is oneness a result of historical development and all people would be involved in it or more like just YOU as an individual awaking? Maybe it's an overlap?! If it's the later what's the point of societal Progress anyway?

On 23.8.2022 at 5:27 PM, Oeaohoo said:

 

 

[Oeaohoo]

30 minutes ago, NK13 said:

@Oeaohoo You're kinda contradicting yourself tbh 

At first you claim with time the separation grows 

Then you say this which is quite the opposite?!

These two ideas are perfectly harmonious.

With time, mankind becomes increasingly separate from its origin as pure consciousness. As a result of this, the sanctity of this original state is forgotten. Therefore, wisdom is a remembrance of this sanctity and origin. As time goes on, this wisdom becomes an increasingly rare phenomenon…

What has to be understood is that the pursuit of spiritual awakening is a going against the grain of decay and entropy. This is true on both a micro- and macrocosmic level. As each individual naturally loses connection with his origins, only regaining the sanctity of his primordial state through spiritual disciplines of various kinds, so the world itself loses this connection.

That is why humanity has become more and more materialistic and disconnected from consciousness. Even so-called “spirituality” today is largely materialistic: physical yoga, drugs, “tantric sex” practices…

30 minutes ago, NK13 said:

Anyway the Platonic concept of anamnesis and of the Neoplatonic theory of emanation would be rather closer to Hegel's Idea of Progess. For Hegel, truth is not only, as 
for Plato, something that does not change and is eternal, but truth is, on the contrary, a result. Which is my essential question. 

Exactly. Plato overemphasises the Being (transcendent) aspect whereas modern philosophers emphasise the Becoming (imminent) aspect.

30 minutes ago, NK13 said:

Is oneness a result of historical development and all people would be involved in it or more like just YOU as an individual awaking? Maybe it's an overlap?!

The idea that oneness is a result of historical development is obviously absurd. How could you develop toward oneness? It already is what it is.

30 minutes ago, NK13 said:

If it's the later what's the point of societal Progress anyway?

Indeed, a very good question…

The point of societal unfoldment is to provide a space and a time for people to awaken from the dream of space and time. The profundity and beauty of the original state of the world lures people into existence, whilst the decay and entropy which gradually set in force them to return to their original state.

After all, when we are talking about history we are talking about a grand illusion.

[NK13]

@Oeaohoo Thanks for the answers! Very helpful

38 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

How could you develop toward oneness? It already is what it is.

Yeah I was trying to understand this. I think he claims it's and has always been Absolute Spirit but it's deceiving itself. My problem with his claim that the Absolute is a result, is by definition, nothing can precede the Absolute how could the finite possibly precede the Infinite.. but yeah