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Lectures on the Philosophy of History, also translated as Lectures on the Philosophy of World History (German:Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte), is a major work by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, originally given as lectures at the University of Berlin in 1821, 1824, 1827, and 1831. It presents world history in terms of the Hegelian philosophy in order to show that history follows the dictates of reason and that the natural progress of history is due to the outworking of absolute spirit.
The text was originally published in 1837 by the editor Eduard Gans, six years after Hegel's death, utilizing Hegel's own lecture notes as well as those found that were written by his students. A second German edition was compiled by Hegel's son, Karl, in 1840. A third German edition, edited by Georg Lasson, was published in 1917.


With this work, Hegel introduced a scientific approach to the study of the history of philosophy. The author himself regarded this book as a popular introduction to his entire philosophy, and it ranks among his most readable and accessible writings. Hegel develops the concept of history as a rational proceeding, rather than a series of random events. His doctrine of the historical process — governed according to the laws of evolution and embodying the spirit of freedom — exercised an enormous and enduring influence.

We have considered two aspects of Freedom, — the objective and the subjective; if, therefore, Freedom is asserted to consist in the individuals of a State all agreeing in its arrangements, it is evident that only the subjective aspect is regarded. The natural inference from this principle is, that no law can be valid without the approval of all. This difficulty is attempted to be obviated by the decision that the minority must yield to the majority; the majority therefore bear the sway. But long ago J. J. Rousseau remarked that in that case there would be no longer freedom, for the will of the minority would cease to be respected. At the Polish Diet each single member had to give his consent before any political step could be taken; and this kind of freedom it was that ruined the State. Besides, it is a dangerous and false prejudice, that the People alone have reason and insight, and know what justice is; for each popular faction may represent itself as the People, and the question as to what constitutes the State is one of advanced science, and not of popular decision.

Georg Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher, and a major figure in German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.

Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system", of absolute idealism to account in an integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge, psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy. In particular, he developed the concept that spirit manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and united, without eliminating either pole or reducing one to the other. Examples of such contradictions include those between nature and freedom, and between immanence and transcendence.

Hegel influenced writers of widely varying positions, including both his admirers and his detractors. Barth compared Hegel to a "Protestant Aquinas". Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote, "All the great philosophical ideas of the past century—the philosophies of Marx and Nietzsche, phenomenology, German existentialism, and psychoanalysis—had their beginnings in Hegel...". In the study of war, scholars point out a Hegelian approach in Carl von Clausewitz's magnum opus On War. Michel Foucault has contended that contemporary philosophers may be "doomed to find Hegel waiting patiently at the end of whatever road we travel". Hegel's influential conceptions are those of speculative logic or "dialectic", "absolute idealism". They include "Geist" (spirit), negativity, sublation (Aufhebung in German), the"Master/Slave" dialectic, "ethical life" and the importance of history.