Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, Volume II

Abstract The first volume, containing the Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822–23, was published by OUP in 2011. The second volume, containing the last of Hegel’s lectures on this topic, had to await the German critical edition of the Lectures of 1830–31, which appeared in 2020. The main source is the transcription by Karl Hegel (the philosopher’s son), but three other transcriptions of these lectures have been examined, and variations and additions from these other sources are included in an elaborate apparatus. A simplified and abbreviated version of the apparatus appears in translation. The manuscripts of the introduction contained in volume 1 include Hegel’s own incomplete lecture manuscript for the Introduction to the Lectures in 1830–31. The transcription of the lectures as delivered provides an interesting comparison with what Hegel actually wrote. The present volume contains a lengthy Introduction that includes a discussion of the nature of Spirit, the concrete existence of freedom, the means Spirit uses, the state and ethical life, erroneous views of freedom and the state, constitution or systems of government, the course of world history, and the usefulness of world history. A preliminary part includes sections on climate and geography, the distinction between the old world and the new world, how the course of world history moves from East to West, and the four main divisions of it (Oriental, Greek, Roman, and European). While the German editors have provided complete critical editions of the lectures for every year that Hegel delivered them, only the first and last years appear in our English edition.