Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Hegel Misunderstanding Spirit

Chapter Five was disillusioning at best. Hegel basically states that the indigenous people of the Americas were uncultured and unable to work with Spirit. He doesn't comment on where they were in terms of freedom, simply that the Europeans had to have come and that it was a good thing that they gave them culture. He further asserts that there is no history in the Far East or Northern Europe, and comments that Catholic states are all but destined to fail. Aside from this chapter, I like what Hegel had to say. So, because these judgements are ideologically, rather than philosophically driven (or so it seems to be, being that the little arguments he gives are weak at best), I think we can say that Hegel could have gotten this part wrong, while maintaining that is philosophy is valid. I prefer the "false start" theory we discussed in class to the "Uncultured" theory Hegel presents.

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