Does history make sense? : Hegel on the historical shapes of justice / Terry Pinkard.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pinkard, Terry P., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich.

History--Philosophy.

History.

Justice (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

272 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.

Summary:

Although Hegel's philosophy of history is recognized as a great intellectual achievement, it is also widely regarded as a complete failure. Taking his cue from the third century Greek historian Polybius, who argued that the rapid domination of the Mediterranean world by Rome had instituted a new phase of world history, Hegel wondered what the rise of European modernity meant for the rest of the world. In his account of the contingent paths of world history, he argued that at work behind it is an eternal human struggle over justice, and that it had led to a new conception of justice in which nobody by nature had authority to rule over anybody else. Moving away from the ancient conception of justice as ordered through a cosmic system, the modern conception is based instead on freedom. This is, so Hegel argues, not an accident of history but part of the necessary development of the institutions and practices through which humans establish and maintain their changing shapes of agency. Behind it is an infinite end, justice, which as infinite is neither something which can ever be finally achieved nor a goal to which we are getting closer but which requires an infinite effort at sustaining.-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Preliminaries : the logic of self-conscious animals

Building an idealist conception of history

Hegel's false start : non-Europeans as failed Europeans

Europe's logic

Infinite ends at work in history.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-257) and index.

ISBN:

9780674971776

0674971779

OCLC:

959648417