XIX - Philosophy

Summary

This philosophy also has a history. Before examining this, it might be well to take stock, since we have been through a number of histories which are intricated into each other.

In fact there is only one history, that of Spirit, whose different aspects we have been following in examining the development of political society, art, religion and now philosophy. Any given stage in history is a totality in which the same spirit manifests itself in all these different modes. All the different forms (Gestaltungen) of an age belong together.

The essential category is that of unity, the inner connection of all these diverse forms. We must firmly grasp this, that there is only one spirit, one principle, which leaves its impress on the political situation as well as manifesting itself in religion, art, ethics, sociability, commerce and industry, so that these different forms are only branches of one trunk.

(GPhil, 148)

Philosophy is one side of this. It is a reflection of the spirit of the times. It cannot thus stand over its time. Or rather, in a sense it does, since philosophy always has the same basic insight. So that it can sometimes be thought afterwards to have shown the world the way it had to go – as Neo-Platonic philosophy foreshadowed the reconciliation which Christianity would achieve (GPhil, 150). But on its own level of development, rather than seen in the light of the eternal truths it points to, a philosophy cannot step over its time.