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. Hoffmeister ed. tr. by Nisbet.
( Nisbet, page 53 )

1. One of the difficulties of philosophy is that most people think it deals ONLY with the particular and empirical existence of the individual.

2. But, spirit, in its consciousness of itself, is FREE; in this realisation, it has ONERCOME the limits of temporal existence and enters into relationship with pure being, which is also its own being.

3. The spirit is primarily its OWN object; but as long as it is this only in our eyes, and has not yet RECOGNISED ITSELF in its objects, it is not yet its own object in the true sense.

4. Its ultimate aim, however, is the attainment of knowledge; for the sole endeavour of spirit is to KNOW what it is IN and FOR itself, and to REVEAL itself to itself in its true form.

5. It seeks to CREATE a spiritual world in accordance with its own concept, to fulfil and realise its OWN true nature, and to produce religion and the state in such a way that it will conform to its OWN concept and be truly itself or becomes its own Idea.

6. (The Idea is the reality of the concept, of which it is merely a REFLECTION or EXPRESSION.)