Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:08:31.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hegel and Colonialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2017

Alison Stone
Alison Stone*
Affiliation:
Lancaster University, UKa.stone@lancaster.ac.uk
Get access

Abstract

This article explores the implications of Hegel’s Philosophy of World History with respect to colonialism. For Hegel, freedom can be recognized and practised only in classical, Christian and modern Europe; therefore, the world’s other peoples can acquire freedom only if Europeans impose their civilization upon them. Although this imposition denies freedom to colonized peoples, this denial is legitimate for Hegel because it is the sole condition on which these peoples can gain freedom in the longer term. The article then considers whether Hegel’s basic account of freedom can be extricated from his Eurocentric and pro-colonialist interpretation of the course of history. The article argues that matters are more complicated because that interpretation has significant connections with Hegel’s conception of freedom as self-determination.

Type
Articles
Information
Hegel Bulletin , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , August 2020 , pp. 247 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Hegel Society of Great Britain, 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bernal, M. [1987] (1991), Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilisation, Vol. 1. London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Bernasconi, R. (1998), ‘Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti’, in S. Barnett (ed.), Hegel After Derrida. Albany NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Bernasconi, R. (2007), ‘The Return of Africa: Hegel and the Question of the Racial Identity of the Egyptians’, in P. T. Grier (ed.), Identity and Difference. Albany NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Bernasconi, R. (2016), ‘China on Parade: Hegel’s Manipulation of his Sources and his Change of Mind’, in B. Brandt and D. L. Purdy (eds.), China in the German Enlightenment. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Bird-Pollan, S. (2014), Hegel, Freud and Fanon: The Dialectic of Emancipation. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.Google Scholar
Bonetto, S. (2006), ‘Race and Racism in Hegel—An Analysis’, Minerva: An Internet Journal of Philosophy 10.Google Scholar
Brennan, T. (2013), ‘Hegel, Empire, and Anti-Colonial Thought’, in G. Huggan (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Buchwalter, A. (2009), ‘Is Hegel’s Philosophy of History Eurocentric?’, in W. Dudley (ed.), Hegel and History. Albany NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Buck-Morss, S. (2000), ‘Hegel and Haiti’, Critical Inquiry 26:4: 821–865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burbidge, J. (2007), Hegel’s Systematic Contingency. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Laurentiis, A. (2014), ‘Race in Hegel: Text and Context’, in M. Egger (ed.), Philosophie Nach Kant: Neue Wege zum Verständnis von Kants Transzendental- und Moralphilosophie. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Dussel, E. [1992] (1995), The Invention of the Americas, trans. M. D. Barber. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Dussel, E. (1993), ‘Eurocentrism and Modernity’, Boundary 2 20:3: 65–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fanon, F. [1952] (2008), Black Skin, White Masks, trans. R. Philcox. New York: Grove.Google Scholar
Guha, R. (2002), History at the Limit of World-History. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hardimon, M. (1993), Hegel’s Social Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1970), Philosophy of Nature, trans. A. V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1971), Philosophy of Mind, trans. W. Wallace and A. V. Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1975), Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction: Reason in History, trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1986), Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte. Werke Vol. 12, ed. E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. [English translation: Sibree.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1988), Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte Vols. 1-3, ed. G. Lasson. Vols. 1–4. Hamburg: Meiner. [English translation of volume 1: Nisbet.]Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1991), The Philosophy of History, trans. J. Sibree. Buffalo NY: Prometheus Books.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1992), Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. H. B. Nisbet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1995), ‘Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte: Einleitung’, in W. Jaeschke (ed.), Vorlesungsmanuskripte II (1916–1831). Gesammelte Werke Vol. 18. Hamburg: Meiner. [English translation: Brown and Hodgson.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (1996), Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, Berlin 1822/23. Nachschriften von Griesheim, Hotho und Kehler, ed. Karl Brehmer, K.-H. Ilting und Hoo Nam Seelmann. Hegel: Vorlesungen: Ausgew. Nachschriften und Manuskripte Vol. 12. Hamburg: Meiner. [English translation: Brown and Hodgson.]Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (2005), Die Philosophie der Geschichte: Vorlesungsmitschrift Heimann (Winter 1830/1831), ed. K. Vieweg. Berlin: Wilhelm Fink. Abb. Hei.Google Scholar
Hegel, G. W. F. (2011), Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Volume 1: Manuscripts of the Introduction and the Lectures of 1822–3, ed. and trans. R. F. Brown and P. C. Hodgson, with assistance of W. G. Geuss. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Houlgate, S. [1991] 2015, An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Johansen, B. E. (1982), Forgotten Founders: How the American Indians Helped Shape Democracy. Boston: Harvard Common Press.Google Scholar
McCarney, J. and Bernasconi, R. (2003), ‘Exchange: Hegel’s Racism?’, Radical Philosophy 119(May/June): 32–37.Google Scholar
Monahan, M. (ed.) (2017), Creolizing Hegel. London: Rowman and Littlefield International.Google Scholar
Mowad, N. (2013), ‘The Place of Nationality in Hegel’s Philosophy of Politics and Religion: A Defense of Hegel on the Charges of National Chauvinism and Racism’, in A. Nuzzo (ed.), Hegel on Religion and Politics. Albany NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Parekh, S. (2009), ‘Hegel’s New World: History, Freedom, and Race’, in W. Dudley (ed.), Hegel and History. Albany NY: SUNY.Google Scholar
Patten, A. (1999), Hegel’s Idea of Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Purtschert, P. (2010), ‘On the Limit of Spirit: Hegel’s Racism Revisited’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 36:9: 1039–1051.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quijano, A. (2000), ‘Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America’, Nepantla: Views from South 1:3: 533–580.Google Scholar
Sahota, J. P. (2016), ‘Hegel’s Critique of Hinduism: A Response’, Hegel Bulletin 37:2: 305–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serequeberhan, T. (1989), ‘The Idea of Colonialism in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’, International Philosophical Quarterly 29:3: 301–318.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shohat, E. and Stam, R. [1994] (2014), Unthinking Eurocentrism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tibebu, T. (2010), Hegel and the Third World: The Making of Eurocentrism in World History. Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Wa Thiong’o, N. (2012), Globalectics: Theory and the Politics of Knowing. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar