Application of these Notions (Bestimmungen) to the History of Philosophy

a. In accord with these notions philosophy is thought brought to consciousness, occupied with itself, made into its own object, thinking itself, and that in terms of the various notions proper to it.

Thus, the science of philosophy is a development of free thought, or rather, it is the whole of this development; it is a circle which returns into itself, remains entirely with itself, is entirely itself, and wants to return only to itself. When we are occupied with the sensible we are not with ourselves but with something other. It is different when we are occupied with thought; thought is with itself only.

Philosophy, then, is the development of thought, undisturbed in its activity.

Thus, philosophy is a system.

In recent times, system has become a term of reproach, because from it one gets the impression that it clings to a one-sided principle. The proper meaning of system, however, is totality, and it is true only as such a totality, whose point of departure is the most simple but which makes itself ever more concrete through development.

b. The history of philosophy is precisely that and nothing else.

In philosophy as such, in the present, most recent philosophy, is contained all that the work of millennia has produced; it is the result of all that has preceded it.

The same development of Spirit, looked at historically, is the history of philosophy. It is the history of all the developments which Spirit has undergone, a presentation of its moments or stages as they follow one another in time. Philosophy presents the development of thought as it is in and for itself, without addition; the history of philosophy is this development in time. Consequently the history of philosophy is identical with the system of philosophy.

Admittedly, this identity is at this point simply asserted; the proper speculative proof cannot here be given. The proof involves the nature of reason, of thinking, and this is to be taken up in the science of philosophy itself.

The history of philosophy provides the empirical proof. Such a history’s task is to show that its own process is the systematizing of thought itself. In it will be presented what is presented in philosophy, simply with the addition of time, of the incidental historical circumstances connected with countries, various individuals, etc. When in time philosophy appears is a matter we shall consider in the second part of the Introduction.

Spirit in and for itself is quite completely, through and through, concrete. Since it is active, not only does its form consist in its becoming conscious of itself in pure thought, but it emerges in the totality of what belongs to its manifestation. (Gestaltung), a world-historical manifestation.

When Spirit progresses it must progress in its totality, and, since its progress takes place in time; its total development, too, takes place in time.

The thought which is fundamental to a given time is the all-pervading spirit. This latter must progress in consciousness of itself, and such a progress is the development of the whole mass (Masse), of the concrete totality, which is externalized and, therefore, takes place in time.

Since the history of philosophy has to do with pure thought it is itself a science, i.e., not an accumulation of knowledge ordered in a certain manner but a thought-development which in and for itself is necessary. It must, however, take into account the necessity that the emergence of thought take place in time.

This, after all, is a course in history, and we must proceed historically, i.e., we must take up these manifestations (Gestaltungen) in their temporal succession, whereby they give the impression, in the manner in which they appear, of being contingent and unconnected. In so doing, however, we must emphasize the necessity inherent in the process of philosophy.

This is the sense, the meaning, of the history of philosophy. Philosophy develops through its history, and vice versa.

Philosophy and history of philosophy mirror each other. To study the history of philosophy is to study philosophy itself, and this principally as a logic. We shall speak further on of the concrete. In order to interpret the history of philosophy in this way, one must, it is true, previously know what philosophy is and what its history is. Still, one must not take an a priori view of the history of philosophy based on the principles of one philosophy. Purely historically, thought shows the way it progresses for itself.

c. How does the development of philosophy make its appearance in time?

With regard to thought, there is no asking what its meaning is, since it is its own meaning. There is nothing hidden behind it – not, however, in the ordinary sense of that expression.

Thought itself is the ultimate, the deepest, behind which there is nothing further. It is entirely itself.

Still, thought also has an appearance. To the extent that one distinguishes the appearance from the thought, it is possible to speak of thought’s meaning.

One of the ways thought appears. After all, is in one’s own idea of it; another is the historical.

The first appearance of thought is such that thinking, or thought, appears as something particular.

In addition to the fact that we think, that there are thoughts, there are sense-perceptions, drives, inclinations, determinations of the will, etc.

We have, thus, other faculties or activities of the soul which possess a right equal to that of thinking. In this way, then, thought is there as a particular among particulars.

In philosophy, however, an entirely different notion (Vorstellung) of thinking and of thought must be formed.

Thinking is the activity of the universal. Insofar as in addition there are other activities, of course, this activity is particular.

It is its true nature, however, to subsume under itself all the others. Thus, it is through thinking that man is distinguished from the beast.

Feelings, drives, etc., are common to man and beast. Still, special types of feeling, such as religious, legal,’ or moral feelings, are proper to man alone.

In themselves feelings are as such in no way either worthwhile or true. What is true in them – e.g., that a feeling is religious – derives only from thinking.

The beast has no religion, but it does have feelings. Moreover, man has religion only because he is a thinking being. Thinking is the simply universal, and concrete thinking has in itself its own particularization, which is to say that in thought the particular is not equivalent to the abstract.

Connected with this last, another way that thinking appears is as subjective.

Thought is proper to man alone – not, however, to man only as an isolated individual subject; we have to look at thought as essentially objective.

Thought is simply the universal; even in nature, with its class-concepts and its laws, we recognize the presence of thoughts. They are, then, not only in the form that consciousness gives them but in and for themselves and, by that very fact, objectively.

The world’s reason is not subjective reason. Thought is the substantial, the true, as compared with the singular, which is momentary, passing, temporary.

To know the nature of thought is to eliminate the subjective manner in which it appears. This means, then, that it is not merely something particular, subjective, belonging only to our own consciousness, but rather the universal, the objective in and for itself.

A second appearance of thought is the historical, according to which the determinations of thought have emerged at a particular time, in a particular place, to a particular individual , with the result that the sequence in which thought is manifested seems accidental.

We have already spoken of how such an impression is supported.

We take up thoughts historically, in the way they have made their appearance in this or that individual, etc. Here there is a temporal development, but one which follows the inner necessity of the concept.

The only worthwhile way of looking at the history of philosophy, what makes it truly interesting, is seeing that it shows there is rationality in the world, even from this point of view.

There is a strong antecedent presumption that this is so; the history of philosophy is the development of thinking reason; hence its growth can be presumed to have been rational.

The temple of reason in its consciousness of itself is loftier than Solomon’s temple and others built by man. The building of it has been rational – not like the way the Jews or the Freemasons go about building Solomon’s temple.

One can bring with him to the enterprise the belief that the building process has been rational.

This is a belief in providence – in a somewhat different way. What is best in the world is what thought has produced. It makes no sense, then, to see reason only in nature and not in spirit, in history, etc.

If on the one hand we are of the opinion that providence governs the world and, on the other, hold that world-events in the realm of spirit – which is what philosophies are – are accidental, the second view (Vorstellung) contradicts the first.

To put it more forcibly: the belief in providence is not serious; it is mere empty chatter. What has happened, however, has happened, because providence with its thoughts has been in charge.