Hege is famous for saying that we don't really know what comes next. Hegel does not identify any single t as being the perfect embodiment of the idea of freedom. So in fact, what's interesting is the realization of freedom more or less in a group of states, none of which is the perfect embodimenta freedom. And of course, bob said before that things had gone pear shaped. In fact, they went pear shaped in 18 forty one. As far as egel's concerned, well, he was dead then, but, but he would have thought that was where it hee. It went pear shaped. There was a threat of its going pear shaped even in 19 so
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) on history. Hegel, one of the most influential of the modern philosophers, described history as the progress in the consciousness of freedom, asking whether we enjoy more freedom now than those who came before us. To explore this, he looked into the past to identify periods when freedom was moving from the one to the few to the all, arguing that once we understand the true nature of freedom we reach an endpoint in understanding. That end of history, as it's known, describes an understanding of freedom so far progressed, so profound, that it cannot be extended or deepened even if it can be lost.
With
Sally Sedgwick
Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Boston University
Robert Stern
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sheffield
And
Stephen Houlgate
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Warwick
Producer: Simon Tillotson