This chapter contains sections titled: The Recovery of the Philosophy of History The End of History: Hegel Redivivus The Clash of Civilizations: The Revenge of the Past? Bibliography.

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. (shrink)

The end of history by Fukuyama is mainly based on Hegel’s treatise of the end of history and Kojeve’s corresponding interpretation. But Hegel’s end of history is a purely philosophical question, i.e., an ontological premise that must be fulfilled to complete absolute knowledge. When Kojeve further demonstrates its universal and homogeneous state, Fukuyama extends it into a political view: The victory of the Western system of freedom and democracy marks the end of the development of (...) human history and Marxist theory and practice. This is a misunderstanding of Hegel. Marx analyzes, scientifically, the historical limitation of Western capitalism and maintains, by way of a kind of revolutionary teleology, the expectation of and belief in human liberation, which is the highest historical goal. His philosophy of history is hence characterized by theoretical elements from both historical scientificalness and historical teleology. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of central features of modern world history which suggest a confirmation, and extension, of something resembling Fukuyama's Kojeve-Hegel *end of history' thesis. As is well known, Kojeve interpreted Hegel as having argued that in a meaningful sense history, as struggle and endeavour to achieve workable stasis in the mutual relations of selves and state-society collectivities, literally came to an end with Napoleon's 1806 victory at the battle of Jena. That victory (...) led to the establishment or consolidation of a European system which significantly embodied the conceptually ideal roles and mutual relations of individual, state, law, and culture (including religious culture), in the aggregated states ruled or presided over by Napoleon. For Hegel the universal structures which constitute the progression of the Absolute are importantly independent of the actual concrete historical individuals and doings which embody and implement them. Once realized upon the earth, the idea of a civil society living, under law, with a sustainable religious and national normative ideology is inexpungible. Even if it has for a time dimmed, it will resurface and re-present itself, and, for Kojeve, has done so, in the gradual articulation of European union and the formations of the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations, in the world that is still our present world. It is much of this model that Fukuyama adopted, and conceived, more explicitly than perhaps either Hegel or Kojeve had done, as a realized triangulation of democracy, liberal individual rights ideology, and capitalism. The realization came to the fore, in Fukuyama's view, in the matrix of the events set in motion by the fall of communism in the European world in 1989. Contrary to Fukayama, of course, there has been rather a lot of 'history' very dramatically in the years in and since 1989, and of course especially explosively in 2001. This recent history notwithstanding, the end of history thesis seems plausible and defensible. Four large geopolitical struggles may be identified, as constituting sequential clusters of argument aimed at determining the human telos, or end-state. They constitute also a sequence of reductios of blueprints that are rivals to the liberalism-democracy-capitalism complex. The four are World War I and the geopolitical struggles between Liberal modernism and fascism, communism, and Islamism. Analyses of these four struggles are offered and defended. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of central features of modern world history which suggest a confirmation, and extension, of something resembling Fukuyama's Kojeve-Hegel *end of history' thesis. As is well known, Kojeve interpreted Hegel as having argued that in a meaningful sense history, as struggle and endeavour to achieve workable stasis in the mutual relations of selves and state-society collectivities, literally came to an end with Napoleon's 1806 victory at the battle of Jena. That victory (...) led to the establishment or consolidation of a European system which significantly embodied the conceptually ideal roles and mutual relations of individual, state, law, and culture, in the aggregated states ruled or presided over by Napoleon. For Hegel the universal structures which constitute the progression of the Absolute are importantly independent of the actual concrete historical individuals and doings which embody and implement them. Once realized upon the earth, the idea of a civil society living, under law, with a sustainable religious and national normative ideology is inexpungible. Even if it has for a time dimmed, it will resurface and re-present itself, and, for Kojeve, has done so, in the gradual articulation of European union and the formations of the League of Nations and its successor the United Nations, in the world that is still our present world. It is much of this model that Fukuyama adopted, and conceived, more explicitly than perhaps either Hegel or Kojeve had done, as a realized triangulation of democracy, liberal individual rights ideology, and capitalism. The realization came to the fore, in Fukuyama's view, in the matrix of the events set in motion by the fall of communism in the European world in 1989. Contrary to Fukayama, of course, there has been rather a lot of 'history' very dramatically in the years in and since 1989, and of course especially explosively in 2001. This recent history notwithstanding, the end of history thesis seems plausible and defensible. Four large geopolitical struggles may be identified, as constituting sequential clusters of argument aimed at determining the human telos, or end-state. They constitute also a sequence of reductios of blueprints that are rivals to the liberalism-democracy-capitalism complex. The four are World War I and the geopolitical struggles between Liberal modernism and fascism, communism, and Islamism. Analyses of these four struggles are offered and defended. (shrink)

The concept of the “End of History” was originally developed by G. W. F. Hegel in the Phenomenology of the spirit in 1806 (Hegel, 2018). The concept can be closely related to a utopia, the completion of the work of philosophers, and the creation of a perfect framework of the finished system of ideas. Hegel had a lot of influence on Western philosophy with the development of this idea and on Marx, who obviously thought of (...) class='Hi'>history in dialectic terms. However, he developed the idea of “communism”, which would have been a state of humankind very similar to the concept of Hegel, with no class differences and no opiates of the people—and no place for further development (Marx & Engels, 2002). The “End of History” is based on this theoretical viewpoint that mankind has reached the final and most advanced form of societal development. However, the theorists and their intellectual followers both have to realize a painful way that the phenomenon can only be attained preliminarily. It proves to be a utopia. (shrink)

The “end of history” by Fukuyama is mainly based on Hegel’s treatise of the end of history and Kojeve’s corresponding interpretation. But Hegel’s “end of history” is a purely philosophical question, i.e., an ontological premise that must be fulfilled to complete “absolute knowledge.” When Kojeve further demonstrates its “universal and homogeneous state,” Fukuyama extends it into a political view: The victory of the Western system of freedom and democracy marks the end of the development of (...) human history and Marxist theory and practice. This is a misunderstanding of Hegel. Marx analyzes, scientifically, the historical limitation of Western capitalism and maintains, by way of a kind of revolutionary teleology, the expectation of and belief in human liberation, which is the highest historical goal. His philosophy of history is hence characterized by theoretical elements from both historical scientificalness and historical teleology. (shrink)

This book explores the concept of the end of literature through the lens of Hegel's philosophy of art. In his version of Hegel's 'end of art' thesis, Arthur Danto claimed that contemporary art has abandoned its distinctive sensitive and emotive features to become increasingly reflective. Contemporary art has become a question of philosophical reflection on itself and on the world, thus producing an epochal change in art history. The core idea of this book is that this thesis (...) applies quite well to all forms of art except one, namely literature: literature resists its 'end'. Unlike other arts, which have experienced significant fractures in the contemporary world, Campana proposes that literature has always known how to renew itself in order to retain its distinguishing features, so much so that in a way it has always come to terms with its own end. Analysing the distinct character of literature, this book proposes a new and original interpretation of the 'end of art' thesis, showing how it can be used as a key conceptual framework to understand the contemporary novel. (shrink)

Through the summer and fall of 1989, Hegel scholars in America were treated to the unusual spectacle of a debate in the mass media over the meaning and truth of Hegel’s philosophy of history, a debate running through the pages of major daily newspapers, the weekly news magazines, and the journals of opinion. The occasion for this unaccustomed attention devoted to Hegel was the appearance of an article by Francis Fukuyama in the Summer 1989 issue of (...) The National Interest entitled “The End of History?”. (shrink)

This article investigates a tension that arises in Hegel’s aesthetic theory between theoretical and practical forms of reason. This tension, I argue, stems from Hegel’s appropriation of an Aristotelian framework for a historically unfolding social teleology which puts practical reason to work for the aims of theoretical reason. Recognizing that this aspect of Hegel’s dialectic is essential in overcoming problems left in Kant’s transcendental idealism, the appearance of incongruence does not lessen. Grouped together with absolute spirit, (...) class='Hi'>Hegel positions art as a transitory mode of mind, a vehicle, which aims to raise spirit to the higher cognition of philosophy. When the unfolding absolute concept becomes too complex for articulation in the material, art must end, as spirit’s message can be expressed only through the non-material form of philosophy. This study focuses on the ambivalence found in Hegel’s writings regarding his account of historical completion. Though Hegel sees in the Absolute a metaphysical solution to the unity of subject and object, the practical aspects of the unity appear to falter when philosophy becomes the dominant mode of expression at the close of a historical cycle. In Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel links his notion of the Absolute, albeit with modification, to Aristotle’s nous. As described in De Anima, this entails a progression in which active and possible intellect rise to the level of the eternal, while passive intellect, the imaginative element, passes on with the body. Because the architecture of Aristotle’s nous, which is not in line with his defense of poetry, is integrated into the blueprint of Hegel’s absolute, an unresolved tension emerges in the spirit of art. A divergence of aims is forced to the surface through Hegel’s application of a template for achievement of theoretical knowledge, with an end in the universal, to a form of practical knowing which has an end in the particular. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article explores the importance of the Socratic turn to Hegel’s conception of reason in the Philosophy of History. In the “Introduction” to his work, Hegel initially argues that Socrat...

What goes round at the end of history for the two Germans.

In the early 1990s the American academic, political commentator and government advisor, Francis Fukuyama, leapt to prominence with his argument that society had entered a new and lasting phase. He claimed that the change was so dramatic that it might be accurately depicted as the end of history. Fukuyama derived his argument from the writings of Kant, Hegel and a critical reading of Marx. This new phase represented the worldwide triumph of liberal democracy with the collapse of communism. (...) History has ended in the sense that there is no more room for large ideological battles. (shrink)

History ended, according to Hegel according to Kojève, with the establishment and proliferation in Europe of states organized along Napoleonic lines: rational, bureaucratic, homogenous, atheist. This state lives in some tension with the popular slogan that helped give it birth: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. But there is now also totalitarianism – the only new kind of regime, according to Arendt, created since the national state. Man is now in charge of nature, technology, and society; much of political life has (...) become a gavotte elaborating the meaning of the Napoleonic model. This interpretation, however opposed it seems to common sense, has been influential, particularly in France where the course of existentialism is unintelligible without taking it into account. Professor Cooper argues that it is inherently plausible and examines the arguments of Hegel and Kojève to reveal its consistency and explanatory power. And he applies it to more contemporary events – the experience of the atomic bomb, the Gulag system of extermination, and the growth of multinational corporations. The work concludes by pulling together the presuppositions and theories of the totalitarian system, the Hegelian version of the Napoleonic state, and our contemporary technological society. Overall, the reader will find here a complete and challenging presentation of how the modern world understands its collective life. (shrink)

The article ventures a reading of Russian postcommunist politics from the perspective of the messianic turn in continental political philosophy, specifically Giorgio Agamben’s conception of the ‘end of history’. Taking its point of departure from a retrospective construction in the Russian political discourse of the 1990s as a period of ‘timelessness’, the paper argues that postcommunism may indeed be viewed as a paradoxical ‘time out of time’, a rupture in the ordinary temporality that entirely dispenses with the teleological horizon (...) of politics. While the problematic of the ‘end of history’ has been popularized by Francis Fukuyama’s liberal recasting of Kojève’s reading of Hegel, the Russian experience is entirely contrary to this complacent and self-gratifying account of the triumph of liberalism and accords, instead, with Agamben’s understanding of the end of history as the deactivation of the teleological dimension of politics as such. The effect of this deactivation is not a catastrophic disintegration of the social order but rather the opening of the possibility of an inoperative political praxis that is oriented towards the affirmation of existence in the pure present. The article proceeds with outlining the implications of this reading of Russian postcommunism for understanding the present conjuncture of Russian politics. (shrink)

Nichols examines the major writings of Alexandre Kojève, and clarifies the character and brings to light the importance of his political philosophy. This is an essential assessment of Kojève which considers the works that preceded his turn to Hegel, seeks to articulate the character of his Hegelianism, and reflects in detail on the two different meanings that the end of history had in two different periods of his thought.

The article presents a conception of the end of history, developed on the basis of Giorgio Agamben’s critical engagement with Alexandre Kojève’s reading of Hegel. Departing from Agamben’s concept of inoperosity as an originary feature of the human condition, we argue that the proper or ‘second’ end of history consists not in the fulfilment of its dialectical process but rather in the radical interruption of the dialectic that terminates the teleological dimension of social praxis. Introducing the figure (...) of the ‘workless slave’ into the scenario of the Master—Slave dialectic, the article demonstrates how the dialectic of history may be ended in a non-dialectical fashion through inoperative praxis that subtracts itself from the struggle for recognition. In the conclusion, the implication of this reading of the end of history for the understanding of Agamben’s ‘coming politics’ is addressed. (shrink)

Human rights have become an important ideal in current times, yet our age has witnessed more violations of human rights than any previous less enlightened one. This book explores the historical and theoretical dimensions of this paradox. Divided into two parts, the first section offers an alternative history of natural law, in which natural rights are represented as the eternal human struggle to resist opression and to fight for a society in which people are no longer degraded or despised. (...) At the time of their birth in the 18th Century and again in the popular uprisings of the last decade, human rights became the dominant critique of law and society. The radical rhetoric of rights and its apparently endless expansive potential has led to its adoption by governments and individuals alike seeking to justify their actions on moral grounds and has undermined its radical edge. Part Two examines the philosophical logic of rights. The classical critiques of Kant, Burke, Hegel and Marx illuminate traditional aproaches to the concept of human rights. The work of Heidegger, Sartre and psychoanalysis is used to deconstruct the metaphisical essentialism of bothe universalists and cultural relativists. Finally, through a consideration of the ethics of otherness, and with reference to recent human rights violations, it is argued that the end of human rights is to judge law and politics from a moral stand point which both transcends the present and is historically relevant. (shrink)

Cooper, a political scientist, has given us a long, and sometimes complex, study of the fulfillment of Hegelian thought in the modern world, as well as a detailed interpretation of, and commentary on, Kojève's interpretation of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Since Kojève's original interpretation of the Phenomenology was politically surcharged, it is natural that Cooper has emphasized the political themes of Hegel's strange masterpiece, and has engaged in what may be called applied Hegelianism in regard to 'modernity'.

This book, now in its fourth year of publication, is, above all, a polemical work. As stated in its preface, the emphasis is on the “contemporary world and how to understand it. Next it is about Kojève’s book on Hegel. Finally it is about Hegel.” For the scholarly temper that would take delight in, say, a third translation of the Phenomenology, Cooper’s interest, methods, and approach could possibly be offensive. In this country it is widely held that Kojève (...) vulgarized Hegel. In a similar vein it would not surprise me to hear that this author did a smashing job of vulgarizing both. As stated in the introduction this “essay presents a point of view, not new information. It pushes investigation and argument to an extreme, and it does so in a mood of great confidence.”. (shrink)

The Recurrence of the End Times: Voegelin, Hegel, and the Stop-History Movements explores the deep connection between modern political ideologies and the secular eschatological hopes and dreams of a post-Christian society.

This book, now in its fourth year of publication, is, above all, a polemical work. As stated in its preface, the emphasis is on the “contemporary world and how to understand it. Next it is about Kojève’s book on Hegel. Finally it is about Hegel.” For the scholarly temper that would take delight in, say, a third translation of the Phenomenology, Cooper’s interest, methods, and approach could possibly be offensive. In this country it is widely held that Kojève (...) vulgarized Hegel. In a similar vein it would not surprise me to hear that this author did a smashing job of vulgarizing both. As stated in the introduction this “essay presents a point of view, not new information. It pushes investigation and argument to an extreme, and it does so in a mood of great confidence.”. (shrink)

To oversimplify quite a bit, scholars’ presentation of Hegel's teleology constitutes a continuum according to how more-or-less secured the progress towards the goal is supposed to be, which tracks roughly the nature of the end and its necessity. In this article, rather than focus on the end and progress towards it, we will focus on the means and structure of teleological relationships on Hegel's account. This focus follows from an essential feature of Hegel's discussion of teleology in (...) the Logic, in which teleology is introduced to solve a problem in the individuation of entities. It will turn out that the fullest actualization of the end is in the durable means, which is also thereby individuated. And it will turn out that the paradigmatic historical means—the state—is tensed, as it were, between the end and its realization that makes it synchronically historical. This synchronic historicity is missing in the usual progressive and thus diachronic accounts of the teleological process of history. But first we step back even farther (at least historically). We begin by taking up the two most important philosophical accounts of teleology for Hegel, namely those of Aristotle and Kant. Then we go to Hegel's Logic for his reconstruction of teleological processes against the background of the explanatory need for individuation. We focus on four aspects of Hegel's account: that teleology is a structure of reciprocal interaction, that the purpose is an immanent governing principle, that change is the price of immanence, and that the durable means is the teleological object par excellence. Finally, we trace these features through Hegel's account of world history and conclude with some brief remarks on the historicity of the state described in the Philosophy of Right. (shrink)

This essay constructs philosophical defenses against criticisms of my theory of the end of art. These have to do with the definition of art; the concept of artistic quality; the role of aesthetics; the relationship between philosophy and art; how to answer the question "But is it art?"; the difference between the end of art and "the death of painting"; historical imagination and the future; the method of using indiscernible counterparts, like Warhol's Brillo Box and the Brillo cartons it resembles; (...) the logic of imitation-and the differences between Hegel's views on the end of art and mine. These defenses amplify and fortify the thesis of the end of art as set forth in my After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History (1997). (shrink)

Il presente contributo intende proporre una considerazione critica dell’utilizzo del concetto di fine della storia proposto da F. Fukuyama. Pur soffermandosi sulla presunta genesi hegeliana della fine della storia e su una comparazione con il sistema di Hegel, l’obiettivo principale dell’articolo non è quello di offrire un’indagine filologica della lettura offerta da Fukuyama, ma, attraverso un confronto con la prospettiva interpretativa e filosofica di A. Kojève, quello di indagare l’origine politica della proposta di filosofia della storia delineata da Fukuyama (...) e di valutarne contraddizioni e criticità. (shrink)

This essay constructs philosophical defenses against criticisms of my theory of the end of art. These have to do with the definition of art; the concept of artistic quality; the role of aesthetics; the relationship between philosophy and art; how to answer the question “But is it art?”; the difference between the end of art and “the death of painting”; historical imagination and the future; the method of using indiscernible counterparts, like Warhol's Brillo Box and the Brillo cartons it resembles; (...) the logic of imitation—and the differences between Hegel's views on the end of art and mine. These defenses amplify and fortify the thesis of the end of art as set forth in my After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to explain why, in Hegel's view, art's history brings it to the point at which it can no longer afford the highest satisfaction of our spiritual needs and so fulfill its own highest calling, and why, nevertheless, we moderns still need art and still need it to create beauty. I argue that Hegel advocates a modern art of beauty because he believes that what has to be given aesthetic expression in the (...) modern world is concrete human freedom and life (ratherthan the abstract, subjective freedom of Romantic irony) and that the aesthetic expression of such concrete human freedom entails beauty. (shrink)

The article recasts the pre-history of philosophy as it is understood by G. W. F. Hegel, so as to examine what a “Lyrical Presentation of History” might have been. The essay argues that Hegel’s treatment of history at the end of his Lectures on Aesthetics suffers from an inattention to the specific philosophical content of modern lyrical poetry, which can be located in his claim that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with the subject. In contrast, (...) the author argues that Hegel’s account ought to have led him to hold that lyrical poetry is primarily concerned with subjective, alienated worlds, which he calls “counterworlds”. The essay ends with a brief treatment of three poems by Paul Celan to show how this shift in the meaning of lyrical poetry would have led Hegel to give greater weight to lyrical poetry in his theory of history. (shrink)

While Hegel’s infamous “end of art” thesis states that art is “for us, a thing of the past” he insists that philosophy and, to a degree that is often underestimated by contemporary readers, religion endure within the structure of modern life. In this paper I aim to demonstrate how by focusing on Hegel’s claim that religion meets no end, we can come to a better understanding of how and why he thinks art does end. This will lead us (...) away from common, but false, picture of Hegel as being indifferent (or even hostile) to art’s sensuous mode of intelligibility. Inasmuch as religion remains both necessarily sensuous and a component of social life that realizes freedom and divinity within modernity, the “problem” with art cannot be its sensuousness per se. What art ultimately finds itself unable to do, and what religion can do, is find a way to reconcile the destabilizing force of individual, subjective freedom with a jointly-held representation of who and what we are and what we value most, what Hegel calls “divinity” (das Göttliche). By countenancing the vital role of religion in Hegel’s thought, we can therefore better understand one of his most famous, and least understood philosophical claims. (shrink)

While Hegel’s infamous “end of art” thesis states that art is “for us, a thing of the past” he insists that philosophy and, to a degree that is often underestimated by contemporary readers, religion endure within the structure of modern life. In this paper I aim to demonstrate how by focusing on Hegel’s claim that religion meets no end, we can come to a better understanding of how and why he thinks art does end. This will lead us (...) away from common, but false, picture of Hegel as being indifferent (or even hostile) to art’s sensuous mode of intelligibility. Inasmuch as religion remains both necessarily sensuous and a component of social life that realizes freedom and divinity within modernity, the “problem” with art cannot be its sensuousness per se. What art ultimately finds itself unable to do, and what religion can do, is find a way to reconcile the destabilizing force of individual, subjective freedom with a jointly-held representation of who and what we are and what we value most, what Hegel calls “divinity” (das Göttliche). By countenancing the vital role of religion in Hegel’s thought, we can therefore better understand one of his most famous, and least understood philosophical claims. (shrink)

In this essay I consider the end-of-art thesis in its metaphysical and empirical versions. I show that both use the correspondence theory of truth as the basis for their conception of the history of art. As a counterpart to these theories I have chosen Patočka’s conception of the history of art. His theory is based also on the relationship between art and truth, but he conceives truth in the phenomenological sense of manifestation. In the rest of the essay (...) I seek to show the consequences Patočka’s conception has for the history of art. In the rst part, I set out to show Patocka’s critique of Hegel’s aesthetics as a system based on the correspondence theory of truth. In particular, I endeavour to explain his critique of some intrinsic problems of Hegel’s aesthetics, the general failure of Hegel’s system to achieve its goal, and, lastly, Hegel’s giving up on the meaning of the art in the present. I also seek to show that Danto’s version runs into the same problems and conclusions as Hegel’s. In the second part I discuss Patočka’s analysis of modern art and the aesthetic attitude, where he nds a hidden a nity between art and aletheia, which Hegel overlooked. e last part of the essay focuses on the consequences that the conception of the truth of art as aletheia have for the history of art. I conclude that art in such a conception represents an independent eld of the manifestation of being in history beside philosophy. Moreover, modern and contemporary art do not mean the end of art; rather, they have their place in art history based on aletheia, since they are more focused on the manifestation itself than on what is manifested. Unlike Hegel and Danto, therefore, Patočka retains the historical meaning of modern and contemporary art. His conception of the history of art, summed up under the idea of aletheia, has greater explanatory potential than Hegel’s and Danto’s conceptions, and it retains the historical meaning of modern and contemporary art. (shrink)