李榮添 : 歷史之理性 -- 黑格爾歷史哲學導論述析 ( Hoffmeister, Nisbet)

李榮添 : 歷史之理性 -- 黑格爾歷史哲學導論述析 ( Hoffmeister, Nisbet)
excerpted from Lectures on the Philosophy of World History : Introduction : Reason in History. tr. by Nisbet.
( Nisbet, page 29)

1. "It has already been shown and will again emerge in the course of this enquiry that the history of the world is a rational process, th rational and necessary evolution of the world spirit."

2. The spirit [is] the substance of history; its nature is always one and the same; and it discloses this nature in the existence of the world. ( The world spirit is the absolute spirit.)

3. ... he brings his categories with him, and they influence his vision of the data he has before him.

( Nisbet, page 30)

1. " it concentrates its attention on the concrete spiritual principle in the life of nations, and deals not with individual situations but with a universal thought which runs throughout the whole.

2. "the object of history is the most concrete of all, for it comprehends every aspect of existence; the world spirit is its individuality.

3. What philosophy is therefore concerned with in its treatment of history is th concrete object in its concrete form, and it traces the necessary development of this object.

4. its chief concern is the spirit of the events themselves, the moving spirit within them, ...

5. Its criteria of the essential and the inessential will vary according to the end it is pursuing in its examination of history, and the ends it sets itself can also vary enormously.