Sophie's World, "Hegel" (pp. 360- 371)
  • Hegel rejected Kant's idea that the material world, "the thing in itself" was beyond the human ability to directly perceive. Even so, he asserted that the truth is subjective and changes from generation to generation. He believed that there are no eternal truths.
  • Hegel believed the truth to be inherent in an evolving "world spirit" which is the sum of human utterances, thought and culture. 
  • Only through studying the history of ideas can we gain insight into the way the world spirit is evolving and the forms it has taken in different ages.
  • Human actions can only be deemed to be right or wrong in relation to their historical context. (ex slavery)
  • Progress: Reason is progressive: the world spirit is developing towards 'consciousness of itself': a state of greater rationality and human freedom. The world spirit has passed through two phases (the subjective and the objective) and it will culminate in a third phase (the absolute).
  • The Dialectic:  the history of ideas progresses through conflict: a thought generates its opposite and then a third thought creatively synthesizes the two. 
  • For example,
The Eleatics
(material substance is eternal). vs.
(everything constantly changes)


synthesized both ideas in his atomic theory.


Descartes's rationalism

Hume's empiricism

Kant's synthesis of the two