The Historical Status of Philosophy

C. GENERAL DIVISION OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

II. The Beginning of the History of Philosophy

Where does the history of philosophy begin?

The history of philosophy begins where:

• thought in its freedom comes into existence
• thought cuts itself loose from its immersion in and unity with nature, constitutes itself for itself
• thinking goes into itself and remains with itself.

From the historical point of view, this emergence of spirit is intimately connected with the flowering of political liberty.

Political liberty, liberty within the state, begins where the individual feels himself to be an individual, where the subject knows himself in a universal manner, or where the consciousness of personality, of having in oneself infinite value, comes into the open – because I posit myself for myself and have value simply for myself.

Herein is contained, too, free thinking of the object, the absolute, the essential universal object. To think means to put something into the form of universality.

To think oneself, then, means to give oneself the determination of universality, to know oneself as universal – to know that I am a universal, an infinite – i.e., to know oneself as a free being relating oneself to oneself. That is precisely where the moment of practical political freedom comes in.

Philosophical thinking is immediately connected with this sort of thing because it, too, appears as thought of the universal object.

Thought is determined as something universal. This means:

• (a) it makes of the universal its object or of the objective something universal.

It determines the individuality of natural things, the way they are in sensible consciousness, as a universal, a thought, an objective thought. There we have the objective, but as thought.

• (b) Added to this is the second determination: I recognize this universal, thought knows that the universal happens.

This more precise relation of recognition and of knowledge to the universal enters in only to the extent that the objective in question continues to be for me the objective and that I continue to grasp myself for myself.

Insofar as I think the objective, it is mine; and even though it is my thinking, it counts for me as the absolutely universal. Insofar as it is present as objective, I have thought myself in it; I myself am contained in this infinite and at the same time. I am conscious of this. Thus, I retain the standpoint of objectivity and at the same time that of knowing, and I maintain the latter standpoint.

That, in general, is the connection between political freedom and the emergence of freedom of thought.

Philosophy, then, makes its appearance in history when free political institutions exist, such as in the Orient.

In the Oriental world, however, there is no proper philosophy. Spirit does arise in the Orient, but conditions are such that the subject, the individuality, is not a person, but is determined as being swallowed up in the objective.

There the substantial relation is dominant.

There substance is represented partly as suprasensible, as thought, partly as more on the side of the material.

The relation which the individual or the particular has, then, is simply that of being a negative over against the substantial.

The highest which such an individual can achieve is eternal blessedness, which consists in being simply submerged in this substance, in abdicating consciousness, and thus being annihilated as subject, with a consequent destruction of the difference between substance and subject.

The supreme relationship, then, is unconsciousness.

In the Orient, individuals have not attained this blessedness. They exist still in an earthly way. They are excluded from the unity of the substantial and the individual.

The relation they have is that of being determined as without spirit, without substance and – as regards political freedom – without rights.

Will in this case is not substantial.

• It is only determined by the arbitrariness and contingency of nature (e.g., by the caste system).
• It is a being without inner consciousness.

That is the fundamental situation of the Oriental character.

What is affirmative is simply substance. The individual is without substance, and is accidental.

Political liberty, rights, moral freedom, pure consciousness, thinking – all are absent.

If these are to come about, it is necessary that the subject, too, posit himself as consciousness over against the substance and be recognized for what he is.

But, in the Oriental character the subject does not count as thus knowing himself.

The subject is not there for himself and he has in his own self-consciousness no value for himself.

The Oriental subject can be great, noble, sublime. But he is without rights. What he creates himself is determined either by nature or by arbitrariness.

The Oriental’s arbitrariness of character includes:

• nobility
• sublimity
• the utmost magnanimity of attitude

Missing are such things as rights and moral standards, which consist in objective and positive determinations to be:

• respected by all
• valid for all
• in which all are accorded recognition.

When the Oriental acts, he has the advantage of complete independence because for him there is nothing fixed and determined.

The freer and more undetermined his substance is, the more arbitrary and independent is he.

A free substance such as this no more has the character of an objectivity which is valid for all universally than it has freedom.

What we call rights, moral standards, the state, are there present in a natural, substantial, patriarchal way, i.e., without subjective freedom.

The kind of morality which we call conscience is also nonexistent there.

Instead, there is a petrified natural order which permits what is worst to exist side by side with supreme nobility.

The situation is such that in it supreme arbitrariness holds the highest place.

Consequently, philosophical knowledge is not to be looked for in the Orient, since it is proper to philosophical knowledge to be conscious of, to know, the substance, i.e., the universal insofar as I think it, develop it within me, determine it, in such a way that in the substance I have my own determinations and am also contained subjectively or affirmatively.

In this way the determinations in question are not merely subjective, not merely opinions, but just as they are my thoughts so too are they thoughts of what is, objective; they are substantial thoughts.

Oriental philosophy thus is to be excluded from the history of philosophy.

Formerly, it was customary to acclaim Indian wisdom and even to make a great fuss about it, without anyone knowing exactly why.

• Indian philosophy is now revealed to be of general vague character.

Thus, proer philosophy has its beginning only in the West.

• There the spirit is submerged in itself.
• It immerses itself in itself
• It posits itself as free
• It is free for itself.

Only under such conditions can philosophy exist. Only in the West do we find free political institutions.

The happiness and the infinity which characterize the individual in the West are determined in such a way that within the substantial the subject holds its own, is not demeaned, does not appear as a slave, destined for annihilation in its dependence on the substance.