WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.519 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. We are doing something 00:00:04.519 --> 00:00:06.179 a little different today. Usually we're looking 00:00:06.179 --> 00:00:08.480 at a specific event in the news or a scientific 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.880 breakthrough or maybe a business case study. 00:00:11.019 --> 00:00:13.060 Right. Something with a clear beginning and end. 00:00:13.179 --> 00:00:17.359 Exactly. But today we are standing at the foot 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:21.000 of a mountain. And I don't mean a metaphorical 00:00:21.000 --> 00:00:24.280 hill or a gentle slope. I mean the Mount Everest 00:00:24.280 --> 00:00:27.320 of Western thought. It really is the peak, isn't 00:00:27.320 --> 00:00:29.039 it? If you want to understand the landscape of 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:32.000 modern thinking, Marxism, existentialism, critical 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:33.960 theory, even, you know, parts of psychology, 00:00:34.200 --> 00:00:36.579 you eventually have to climb this mountain. You 00:00:36.579 --> 00:00:38.039 have to make the ascent. But the air is thin 00:00:38.039 --> 00:00:39.840 up there and a lot of people, they turn back. 00:00:40.119 --> 00:00:43.179 We are talking, of course, about Georg Wilhelm 00:00:43.179 --> 00:00:45.479 Friedrich Hegel, the philosopher everyone has 00:00:45.479 --> 00:00:48.039 heard of. But let's be honest, very few people 00:00:48.039 --> 00:00:51.359 actually understand. The name alone summons up 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:53.840 images of dust jackets, sentences that run for 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:56.979 three pages without a verb, and this creeping 00:00:56.979 --> 00:01:00.200 anxiety that you are missing the punchline of 00:01:00.200 --> 00:01:02.640 a very complicated joke. That is the reputation. 00:01:02.659 --> 00:01:05.219 He's the final boss of philosophy for a lot of 00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:06.980 students. You get through Kant, you think you're 00:01:06.980 --> 00:01:09.260 smart, and then you hit Hegel and just hit a 00:01:09.260 --> 00:01:13.579 wall. He is notoriously difficult. Exactly. But 00:01:13.579 --> 00:01:16.340 here is our mission for today. We are going to 00:01:16.340 --> 00:01:19.049 strip away that scary reputation. We've got a 00:01:19.049 --> 00:01:22.170 massive stack of sources here, biographical details, 00:01:22.450 --> 00:01:25.549 deep textual breakdowns of the phenomenology 00:01:25.549 --> 00:01:28.530 of spirit and the science of logic, and historical 00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:31.010 records from his time in Jena and Berlin. A lot 00:01:31.010 --> 00:01:33.730 to get through. A lot. Our goal is to find the 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:36.819 Hume story underneath the jargon. and more importantly, 00:01:37.019 --> 00:01:39.939 to figure out why this 19th century German professor 00:01:39.939 --> 00:01:42.340 still matters. And he does matter. That's the 00:01:42.340 --> 00:01:44.359 critical thing. The world we live in, the way 00:01:44.359 --> 00:01:46.760 we think about history, progress, and even our 00:01:46.760 --> 00:01:50.040 own identities is profoundly Hegelian, whether 00:01:50.040 --> 00:01:52.319 we realize it or not. So let's start with the 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.700 central tension of his life. Because on paper, 00:01:54.879 --> 00:01:56.579 this guy shouldn't have been a revolutionary. 00:01:56.879 --> 00:01:59.579 He looks like the ultimate insider. Not at all. 00:01:59.640 --> 00:02:01.939 We tend to think of Hegel as this abstract machine, 00:02:02.180 --> 00:02:04.060 this system builder who lived in an ivory tower. 00:02:04.719 --> 00:02:07.180 But the sources, they paint a picture of a man 00:02:07.180 --> 00:02:10.319 whose life was incredibly chaotic. Really? Oh, 00:02:10.319 --> 00:02:14.460 yeah. Revolution, war, financial ruin, illegitimate 00:02:14.460 --> 00:02:17.500 children, intense personal struggle. He didn't 00:02:17.500 --> 00:02:19.219 just want to add a chapter to philosophy. He 00:02:19.219 --> 00:02:21.199 wanted to finish the book. He really thought 00:02:21.199 --> 00:02:24.020 he had the final answer. He claimed to have created 00:02:24.020 --> 00:02:26.819 a system that explains everything. God, nature, 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:30.020 history, freedom, the whole shebang. A system 00:02:30.020 --> 00:02:32.080 of science that covers the whole of reality. 00:02:32.870 --> 00:02:35.009 It's audaciously ambitious. It's almost arrogant, 00:02:35.169 --> 00:02:37.330 but in a way that you have to respect. You do, 00:02:37.409 --> 00:02:39.189 but he didn't start that way. Let's look at where 00:02:39.189 --> 00:02:41.550 he came from. Okay, so part one. The formative 00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:44.590 years. He was born in Stuttgart in 1770. And 00:02:44.590 --> 00:02:46.569 to understand Hegel, you have to understand the 00:02:46.569 --> 00:02:49.069 timeline. He is stepping into the world right 00:02:49.069 --> 00:02:52.289 at the friction point of two massive tectonic 00:02:52.289 --> 00:02:54.430 plates in history. You mean the Enlightenment 00:02:54.430 --> 00:02:56.710 and Romanticism. Exactly. You have the end of 00:02:56.710 --> 00:02:58.810 the Enlightenment, that era of strict reason, 00:02:58.990 --> 00:03:02.189 categorization, science, Isaac Newton, a world 00:03:02.189 --> 00:03:04.780 of, you know, clockwork. Everything in its box. 00:03:04.939 --> 00:03:07.780 Precisely. And then you have the beginning of 00:03:07.780 --> 00:03:10.039 the romantic movement, which was all about emotion, 00:03:10.360 --> 00:03:14.060 art, nature, the sublime, the individual spirit. 00:03:14.699 --> 00:03:17.460 Hegel was born right on that fault line. And 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:19.099 his background was pretty straight -laced, right? 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:22.280 Very. His father was a revenue officer, a civil 00:03:22.280 --> 00:03:25.060 servant, so he came from a respectable, bureaucratic 00:03:25.060 --> 00:03:27.639 background. He was expected to follow a very 00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:30.949 specific, rigid path. But the real magic, the 00:03:30.949 --> 00:03:33.689 spark, happens when he goes to college. He heads 00:03:33.689 --> 00:03:36.210 to the Protestant seminary in Tübingen, the Stift. 00:03:36.909 --> 00:03:39.330 And looking at the records, it seems like he 00:03:39.330 --> 00:03:41.389 ended up in the most intellectually stacked dorm 00:03:41.389 --> 00:03:43.770 room in human history. It really was a dream 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:46.909 team. It's almost statistically impossible. Imagine 00:03:46.909 --> 00:03:48.969 this. You have Hegel, who is studying theology. 00:03:49.110 --> 00:03:50.969 He's the old man of the group, a bit serious, 00:03:51.150 --> 00:03:53.150 a bit plotting, even though they're roughly the 00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:55.949 same age. Then you have his roommates. Friedrich 00:03:55.949 --> 00:03:59.050 Hölderlin, who becomes one of Germany's greatest 00:03:59.050 --> 00:04:02.169 lyric poets, just a beautiful, sensitive soul. 00:04:02.389 --> 00:04:05.030 And Friedrich Schelling, who becomes a philosophical 00:04:05.030 --> 00:04:08.770 prodigy. I mean, this guy is famous across Europe 00:04:08.770 --> 00:04:12.110 by age 20. He's a wunderkind. That's insane. 00:04:12.330 --> 00:04:14.590 It's like finding out that Lennon and McCartney 00:04:14.590 --> 00:04:16.850 were randomly assigned roommates in a freshman 00:04:16.850 --> 00:04:20.269 dorm with, I don't know, James Joyce. It really 00:04:20.269 --> 00:04:22.670 is that level of talent packed into one small 00:04:22.670 --> 00:04:24.970 space. But they weren't just hanging out studying 00:04:24.970 --> 00:04:28.189 the Bible, were they? No, far from it. The atmosphere 00:04:28.189 --> 00:04:31.269 in the Stift was repressive. It was orthodox, 00:04:31.370 --> 00:04:34.470 dogmatic, and very conservative. The teachers 00:04:34.470 --> 00:04:36.730 were trying to mold these young men into proper, 00:04:36.769 --> 00:04:39.110 obedient pastors. And they were having none of 00:04:39.110 --> 00:04:41.389 it. None of it. The three of them bonded over 00:04:41.389 --> 00:04:44.509 a shared rebellion. They hated the dry, dusty 00:04:44.509 --> 00:04:47.250 theology they were being fed. They wanted something 00:04:47.250 --> 00:04:49.709 alive, something that spoke to the spirit of 00:04:49.709 --> 00:04:52.170 the age. And the thing that electrified them 00:04:52.170 --> 00:04:54.430 was the news coming from across the border. The 00:04:54.430 --> 00:04:57.250 French Revolution. 1789. They were watching the 00:04:57.250 --> 00:05:00.639 old world crumble. Kings. hierarchies, the church. 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:03.060 It was all being challenged by the ideas of liberty, 00:05:03.220 --> 00:05:05.779 equality, and fraternity. And this wasn't just 00:05:05.779 --> 00:05:08.220 an abstract political thing for them. No, it 00:05:08.220 --> 00:05:10.680 was personal. The sources tell us that Hegel 00:05:10.680 --> 00:05:13.379 and his friends read the newspapers with shared 00:05:13.379 --> 00:05:16.360 enthusiasm. There's a wonderful detail in the 00:05:16.360 --> 00:05:19.180 biography. They reportedly planted a liberty 00:05:19.180 --> 00:05:22.759 tree in a meadow near Tübingen. A liberty tree? 00:05:22.819 --> 00:05:24.819 What does that involve exactly? Well, it was 00:05:24.819 --> 00:05:27.980 a symbol of the revolution. You plant this sapling 00:05:27.980 --> 00:05:31.319 as a living monument to freedom. They danced 00:05:31.319 --> 00:05:33.779 around it, likely singing revolutionary songs 00:05:33.779 --> 00:05:36.399 like the Marseillaise, which was strictly forbidden. 00:05:36.680 --> 00:05:39.339 So this was an act of political defiance. A huge 00:05:39.339 --> 00:05:41.519 one. Now, scholars debate whether this literally 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:43.620 happened or if it's a legend that grew up around 00:05:43.620 --> 00:05:46.720 them. But spiritually, it's true. It shows where 00:05:46.720 --> 00:05:49.379 their heads were at. Hegel wasn't a stuffy academic. 00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:52.379 He was a young radical. And I read that he kept 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:54.120 a ritual for the rest of his life because of 00:05:54.120 --> 00:05:56.850 this. Yes. This is one of my favorite details 00:05:56.850 --> 00:06:00.589 about him. Every single year on July 14th, Bastille 00:06:00.589 --> 00:06:03.329 de Hegel would drink a toast to the storming 00:06:03.329 --> 00:06:05.589 of the Bastille. Every single year. Without fail. 00:06:06.209 --> 00:06:08.329 Even decades later, when he was a distinguished 00:06:08.329 --> 00:06:10.889 professor in Berlin, rubbing elbows with Prussian 00:06:10.889 --> 00:06:13.029 ministers and seen as a conservative figure, 00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:16.910 he kept that flame of 1789 alive and private. 00:06:17.149 --> 00:06:20.050 That's fascinating. It shows a core belief that 00:06:20.050 --> 00:06:22.300 never really went away. He identified with the 00:06:22.300 --> 00:06:25.000 Girondins, the moderate Republicans. Even when 00:06:25.000 --> 00:06:27.019 the terror started and things got bloody with 00:06:27.019 --> 00:06:30.339 Robespierre, Hegel never lost that fundamental 00:06:30.339 --> 00:06:32.759 commitment to the principles of liberty that 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:35.879 the revolution represented. So these three roommates, 00:06:36.160 --> 00:06:39.420 Schelling and Holderlin, are the stars. They 00:06:39.420 --> 00:06:41.800 are publishing. They are famous. What is Hegel 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:44.759 doing? Hegel is struggling. He is a late bloomer. 00:06:45.019 --> 00:06:47.639 A classic late bloomer. While Schelling is rewriting 00:06:47.639 --> 00:06:50.439 philosophy at 23, Hegel graduates and has to 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:53.480 take a job as a Hoffmeister. Which sounds fancy 00:06:53.480 --> 00:06:56.480 in German, but is basically a glorified... live 00:06:56.480 --> 00:06:59.339 -in babysitter for rich families. Precisely. 00:06:59.339 --> 00:07:01.300 It was a holding pattern, a dead -end job, really. 00:07:01.399 --> 00:07:03.339 He spent years in Bern and Frankfurt tutoring 00:07:03.339 --> 00:07:06.519 children. But this wilderness period was crucial 00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:08.579 for his development. Why is that? Because while 00:07:08.579 --> 00:07:11.120 he was teaching kids grammar and Latin, he was 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:13.600 writing these private essays on religion and 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:16.980 love. He was heavily influenced by his poet friend, 00:07:17.160 --> 00:07:19.810 Holderlin, at this point. He was trying to figure 00:07:19.810 --> 00:07:22.889 out how love could be a philosophical principle, 00:07:23.050 --> 00:07:26.250 a way to unify opposites. That seems like the 00:07:26.250 --> 00:07:28.569 seed of his later dialectic. He's always trying 00:07:28.569 --> 00:07:31.250 to bring opposing things together into a higher 00:07:31.250 --> 00:07:34.290 unity. It is the seed. He moves from criticizing 00:07:34.290 --> 00:07:36.750 Christianity for being too positive, meaning 00:07:36.750 --> 00:07:39.930 too focused on authority, rules, and dogma, to 00:07:39.930 --> 00:07:42.370 exploring how the life and teachings of Jesus 00:07:42.370 --> 00:07:45.110 could represent a unity of life. He's trying 00:07:45.110 --> 00:07:47.170 to bridge the gap between the infinite, you know, 00:07:47.170 --> 00:07:49.509 God and the finite man. But he's doing this all 00:07:49.509 --> 00:07:51.790 in private notebook. All private. It's not until 00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:54.149 1801 that he finally gets his chance and steps 00:07:54.149 --> 00:07:56.490 onto the public stage. Okay, this brings us to 00:07:56.490 --> 00:07:59.290 part two of our outline, the Jena period. This 00:07:59.290 --> 00:08:01.889 is where the biopic really picks up the pace. 00:08:02.009 --> 00:08:04.269 It really does. Jena was the intellectual capital 00:08:04.269 --> 00:08:06.629 of Germany at the time. It was where the Romantics 00:08:06.629 --> 00:08:08.689 were gathering, the center of the universe for 00:08:08.689 --> 00:08:10.589 German thought. And his old roommate gives him 00:08:10.589 --> 00:08:13.360 a call. Yes. Schelling, his old roommate, who 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:15.199 is now a big shot, basically calls him up and 00:08:15.199 --> 00:08:17.600 says, come to Jenna. Let's work together. So 00:08:17.600 --> 00:08:19.939 he shows up, but he doesn't get a salary. He's 00:08:19.939 --> 00:08:22.740 a private dozen. Right. An unsalaried lecturer. 00:08:22.980 --> 00:08:25.100 Yeah. You were paid directly by the students 00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:27.339 who took your class. If nobody showed up to your 00:08:27.339 --> 00:08:29.300 lecture, you didn't eat. Talk about pressure. 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:32.759 Immense pressure. He and Schelling edit a philosophy 00:08:32.759 --> 00:08:35.440 journal together, but Hegel is still seen as 00:08:35.440 --> 00:08:38.370 Schelling's junior partner, his protege. He needs 00:08:38.370 --> 00:08:40.730 to break out. He needs to define himself with 00:08:40.730 --> 00:08:45.139 a major work. And then we hit 1806. the crisis 00:08:45.139 --> 00:08:47.419 i was reading the source notes on this yeah and 00:08:47.419 --> 00:08:49.460 the pressure on this man was unbelievable it's 00:08:49.460 --> 00:08:52.940 a perfect storm it really was hegel is 36 years 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:55.220 old that's not young for a philosopher in those 00:08:55.220 --> 00:08:57.820 days he has not published his masterpiece yet 00:08:57.820 --> 00:09:00.299 he's running out of money he is under immense 00:09:00.299 --> 00:09:02.460 pressure from his publisher to finish his first 00:09:02.460 --> 00:09:05.679 great book the phenomenology of spirit he needs 00:09:05.679 --> 00:09:08.419 the advance to live he desperately needs it and 00:09:08.419 --> 00:09:10.559 while he is trying to write the final pages of 00:09:10.559 --> 00:09:14.360 this incredibly complex mind -bending book Napoleon's 00:09:14.360 --> 00:09:17.159 army is literally marching toward the city. It's 00:09:17.159 --> 00:09:20.159 the Battle of Janna. The French Grand Armée is 00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:22.840 at the gates. And there's this letter he writes. 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:25.379 I think this is one of the most famous letters 00:09:25.379 --> 00:09:27.639 in the history of philosophy. He looks out his 00:09:27.639 --> 00:09:29.539 window, or he's walking through the town, and 00:09:29.539 --> 00:09:32.799 he sees him. He sees Napoleon. Yes. He writes 00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:36.120 to his friend Niehammer. And the line is unforgettable. 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:40.039 He says, I saw the emperor, this world soul, 00:09:40.139 --> 00:09:42.990 riding out of the city on reconnaissance. The 00:09:42.990 --> 00:09:46.649 world's sole on horseback. Die Welt ist zu fern. 00:09:47.049 --> 00:09:49.190 That is such a heavy metal description. But he 00:09:49.190 --> 00:09:50.970 doesn't mean it like a fanboy meeting a celebrity, 00:09:51.029 --> 00:09:52.909 does he? No, no, no. This is pure metaphysics. 00:09:52.970 --> 00:09:55.450 This isn't hero worship. Hegel sees Napoleon 00:09:55.450 --> 00:09:57.850 not just as a conquering general, but as an agent 00:09:57.850 --> 00:10:00.370 of history with a capital H. An instrument of 00:10:00.370 --> 00:10:03.129 something larger. Exactly. He describes the sensation 00:10:03.129 --> 00:10:06.110 of seeing such an individual who, concentrated 00:10:06.110 --> 00:10:08.830 here at a single point astride a horse, reaches 00:10:08.830 --> 00:10:11.610 out over the world and masters it. For Hegel, 00:10:11.769 --> 00:10:14.909 Napoleon is the vehicle for the Geist, the spirit 00:10:14.909 --> 00:10:17.159 of the age. So he's... He's basically the French 00:10:17.159 --> 00:10:19.399 Revolution made flesh. The French Revolution 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:22.659 on horseback. He was spreading the Code Napoleon, 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:26.580 a modern rational legal system, equality before 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.399 the law, the end of feudalism across Europe with 00:10:29.399 --> 00:10:32.240 his armies. Hegel believed that history moves 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.740 forward through these specific world historical 00:10:34.740 --> 00:10:37.899 individuals who embody the necessary change of 00:10:37.899 --> 00:10:40.639 their time. So Napoleon isn't just a man. He's 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:42.820 a principle in action. That's the idea. He's 00:10:42.820 --> 00:10:45.700 the force that's dragging a... backwards feudal 00:10:45.700 --> 00:10:47.919 Germany into the modern world. But the irony 00:10:47.919 --> 00:10:49.899 is brutal. I mean, while he's having this profound 00:10:49.899 --> 00:10:53.120 philosophical insight, admiring this world soul, 00:10:53.419 --> 00:10:57.080 that same world soldiers are looting the city 00:10:57.080 --> 00:10:59.639 and completely ruining Hegel's life. The irony 00:10:59.639 --> 00:11:02.700 is staggering. It was total chaos. French soldiers 00:11:02.700 --> 00:11:05.440 burst into his lodging. He had to grab the last 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:07.919 manuscript pages of the phenomenology and stuff 00:11:07.919 --> 00:11:09.960 them in his coat pocket to keep them safe. Wow. 00:11:10.159 --> 00:11:12.580 He called the book his voyage of discovery, but 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:14.679 the physical voyage was him. fleeing the burning 00:11:14.679 --> 00:11:17.320 city with his career in tatters. And his personal 00:11:17.320 --> 00:11:19.659 life was just as messy at this time, right? The 00:11:19.659 --> 00:11:23.539 sources mention a landlady. Yes, Christiana Burckhardt. 00:11:24.340 --> 00:11:27.279 While all this intellectual and military drama 00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:30.720 was unfolding, Hegel had an affair with his landlady. 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:33.899 She had been abandoned by her husband, and she 00:11:33.899 --> 00:11:37.120 gave birth to an illegitimate son, Ludwig Fischer. 00:11:37.419 --> 00:11:39.799 So let's just recap the scoreboard for Hegel 00:11:39.799 --> 00:11:43.500 in 1807. He's broke. His university is wrecked 00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:46.600 by war. The students have fled. He has a child 00:11:46.600 --> 00:11:49.120 out of wedlock that he needs to support. He has 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.019 no job. And he has a very, very difficult book 00:11:52.019 --> 00:11:54.299 that he just sent to the printers with no guarantee 00:11:54.299 --> 00:11:56.320 that anyone will ever read it, let alone understand 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:58.980 it. He hit rock bottom. Absolutely. He had to 00:11:58.980 --> 00:12:01.639 leave academia entirely. For the next year, he 00:12:01.639 --> 00:12:04.100 worked as a newspaper editor in Bamberg. A newspaper 00:12:04.100 --> 00:12:07.059 editor. Yep. And interestingly, it was a pro 00:12:07.059 --> 00:12:09.419 -French paper. He was writing editorials in support 00:12:09.419 --> 00:12:11.559 of Napoleon, which got him in hot water with 00:12:11.559 --> 00:12:13.919 the Bavarian censors. It's strangely comforting. 00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:16.379 You know, even Jörg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel had 00:12:16.379 --> 00:12:18.139 to take a day job he didn't really want because 00:12:18.139 --> 00:12:20.580 he needed the cash. It humanizes him completely. 00:12:20.820 --> 00:12:23.460 He eventually moves on from that to be a headmaster 00:12:23.460 --> 00:12:26.460 at a high school, a gymnasium in Nuremberg. And 00:12:26.460 --> 00:12:28.159 he was there for a while. Correct. He stayed 00:12:28.159 --> 00:12:30.460 there for eight years. This was a period of stability 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:32.980 for him. He actually got married during this 00:12:32.980 --> 00:12:35.600 time to Marie von Tücker, who was from a patrician 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:38.039 family half his age, and he started a legitimate 00:12:38.039 --> 00:12:40.580 family. So things started to look up. They did. 00:12:40.759 --> 00:12:43.919 But those years in the wilderness, teaching philosophy 00:12:43.919 --> 00:12:46.419 to high schoolers, were where he wrote his second 00:12:46.419 --> 00:12:49.220 masterpiece, the monster of a book called The 00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.059 Science of Logic. Okay. We have to talk about 00:12:52.059 --> 00:12:54.059 the book that was in his pocket when he fled 00:12:54.059 --> 00:12:57.409 Jena. The Phenomenology of Spirit. This book 00:12:57.409 --> 00:13:01.450 has a reputation for being, let's just say, impenetrable. 00:13:01.570 --> 00:13:03.909 It does. It is often cited as one of the most 00:13:03.909 --> 00:13:05.990 difficult books ever written in any language. 00:13:06.429 --> 00:13:09.169 People pick it up, read three sentences, their 00:13:09.169 --> 00:13:11.169 eyes glaze over, and they put it down for the 00:13:11.169 --> 00:13:13.789 rest of their lives. So if I'm a listener and 00:13:13.789 --> 00:13:16.210 I summon the courage to pick it up, what am I 00:13:16.210 --> 00:13:18.730 looking at? The outline calls it a voyage of 00:13:18.730 --> 00:13:21.090 discovery. What is the mission of this book? 00:13:21.309 --> 00:13:23.230 Well, first off, don't expect a normal textbook. 00:13:23.450 --> 00:13:26.110 It's not a list of arguments. It's a story. It's 00:13:26.110 --> 00:13:28.950 a Bildungsroman, a coming -of -age novel for 00:13:28.950 --> 00:13:31.370 consciousness itself. For consciousness itself, 00:13:31.690 --> 00:13:34.909 not for a person. Not for one person. It's the 00:13:34.909 --> 00:13:37.990 story of spirit, or geist, coming to know itself 00:13:37.990 --> 00:13:40.409 through human history. Let's pause on geist. 00:13:40.809 --> 00:13:43.750 That is the quintessential Hegel word. How should 00:13:43.750 --> 00:13:45.809 we translate that? Is it a ghost? Is it God? 00:13:45.990 --> 00:13:48.620 Is it the mind? What is it? It's tricky because 00:13:48.620 --> 00:13:51.299 the German word covers all those bases and more. 00:13:51.440 --> 00:13:55.200 It is usually translated as spirit or mind. In 00:13:55.200 --> 00:13:57.159 Hegel, it means something like the collective 00:13:57.159 --> 00:14:00.259 human mind, the culture, the shared rationality 00:14:00.259 --> 00:14:04.179 of a people across time. But it also has a religious, 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:07.659 almost divine connotation. So in the phenomenology, 00:14:07.779 --> 00:14:09.759 Hegel is trying to show how consciousness evolves 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:12.139 from the most basic level of just sensing, I 00:14:12.139 --> 00:14:14.960 see a cup. all the way up to absolute philosophical 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:17.279 knowledge where it understands its own structure 00:14:17.279 --> 00:14:19.539 and its place in the universe. And the source 00:14:19.539 --> 00:14:22.440 material mentions this path of despair. That 00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:25.279 sounds incredibly emo. It is, in a way. Hegel 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.200 says that for consciousness to learn, it has 00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:30.200 to suffer. It has to fail. You start with a worldview, 00:14:30.340 --> 00:14:32.480 right? You think you understand reality. And 00:14:32.480 --> 00:14:34.659 then you encounter an anomaly, something that 00:14:34.659 --> 00:14:36.659 doesn't knit your theory. A contradiction. A 00:14:36.659 --> 00:14:40.440 contradiction. Your worldview crashes. You experience 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:44.360 despair. But out of that wreckage, you are forced 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:47.080 to rebuild a more complex, more sophisticated, 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:51.259 more capable worldview. So failure is a necessary 00:14:51.259 --> 00:14:53.419 part of learning. It's the only way to learn. 00:14:53.539 --> 00:14:55.799 He uses the analogy that you cannot learn to 00:14:55.799 --> 00:14:57.840 swim without getting in the water. You have to 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:00.799 risk drowning. You have to flail around and feel 00:15:00.799 --> 00:15:03.480 that desperation to learn. That's actually very 00:15:03.480 --> 00:15:06.360 relatable. Growth requires the destruction of 00:15:06.360 --> 00:15:09.309 your previous self. Precisely. The most famous, 00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:11.509 the most influential example of this growth in 00:15:11.509 --> 00:15:14.289 the entire book is the section on the master 00:15:14.289 --> 00:15:16.230 -servant dialectic. Okay, let's unpack this. 00:15:16.269 --> 00:15:18.470 This is the Lord Bondsman section. The source 00:15:18.470 --> 00:15:20.470 notes make a specific point about the translation. 00:15:20.769 --> 00:15:23.470 It is often called master -slave, but the source 00:15:23.470 --> 00:15:25.710 says that's a mistranslation. That's right, and 00:15:25.710 --> 00:15:27.549 it's an important distinction. The German word 00:15:27.549 --> 00:15:30.879 he uses is necht. which means servant or bondsman, 00:15:30.899 --> 00:15:34.000 not sclave, which is the word for slave. So why 00:15:34.000 --> 00:15:35.799 are they confused? The master -slave phrasing 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:38.460 became popular much later, largely through French 00:15:38.460 --> 00:15:41.539 interpretations by Alexandre Kochev in the 1930s. 00:15:41.580 --> 00:15:44.980 His lectures were hugely influential. But lord 00:15:44.980 --> 00:15:47.580 and bondsman is more accurate to the original 00:15:47.580 --> 00:15:51.039 text. However, the dynamic is absolutely one 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.940 of domination. So walk us through the scene. 00:15:54.000 --> 00:15:56.240 What happens? How does this start? Hegel asks 00:15:56.240 --> 00:15:58.759 a fundamental question. How do we become self 00:15:58.759 --> 00:16:01.419 -conscious? How do I know who I am? And he argues, 00:16:01.500 --> 00:16:03.539 I can't just know myself in isolation sitting 00:16:03.539 --> 00:16:05.580 in a room thinking about it. I need you to recognize 00:16:05.580 --> 00:16:09.879 me. I need recognition. Anerkennung. Yes, that's 00:16:09.879 --> 00:16:12.919 the key word. So imagine two primitive self -consciousnesses 00:16:12.919 --> 00:16:15.080 meet for the first time in some primordial forest. 00:16:15.500 --> 00:16:17.460 They both want to be the main character. They 00:16:17.460 --> 00:16:19.500 both want to be recognized as independent and 00:16:19.500 --> 00:16:22.360 absolute. But they see the other person as a 00:16:22.360 --> 00:16:24.700 threat to that independence. Two egos collide. 00:16:25.100 --> 00:16:27.000 Exactly. So they fight. It's a life and death 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.419 struggle for recognition, for pure prestige. 00:16:29.759 --> 00:16:31.360 And the outcome of this fight determines who 00:16:31.360 --> 00:16:33.279 is the master and who is the servant. Right. 00:16:33.460 --> 00:16:35.899 At a certain point in the fight, one combatant 00:16:35.899 --> 00:16:39.159 realizes they value their biological life more 00:16:39.159 --> 00:16:40.960 than their abstract freedom. They get scared 00:16:40.960 --> 00:16:43.340 of dying. So they submit. They drop their sword. 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:45.740 They become the servant. And the other one. The 00:16:45.740 --> 00:16:47.940 other one values freedom more than life itself. 00:16:48.179 --> 00:16:50.740 They are willing to die for recognition. So they 00:16:50.740 --> 00:16:53.480 win. They become the master. So at first glance, 00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:55.419 the master has won. He gets the recognition. 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:58.200 The servant does what he says. Game over, right? 00:16:58.379 --> 00:17:00.919 You would think so, but here is the Hegelian 00:17:00.919 --> 00:17:04.539 twist, and it is absolutely brilliant. The master 00:17:04.539 --> 00:17:06.980 is actually stuck. He's in a dead end. How so? 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:09.660 He wanted recognition from an equal, someone 00:17:09.660 --> 00:17:11.960 whose opinion matters, but he just turned the 00:17:11.960 --> 00:17:14.700 other guy into a servant, a thing, a tool. You 00:17:14.700 --> 00:17:16.680 can't get meaningful recognition from a tool 00:17:16.680 --> 00:17:19.859 or a machine, so the master becomes lazy, dependent 00:17:19.859 --> 00:17:22.420 on the servant's labor and his development. just 00:17:22.420 --> 00:17:25.240 stops. He stagnates. He's painted himself into 00:17:25.240 --> 00:17:27.539 a corner. He's the guy who peaked in high school 00:17:27.539 --> 00:17:30.220 and now he just relives the glory days. That's 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:32.720 a perfect analogy. Meanwhile, look at the servant. 00:17:32.819 --> 00:17:34.700 The servant is forced to work. He's dealing with 00:17:34.700 --> 00:17:36.839 the resistance of the physical world. He's plowing 00:17:36.839 --> 00:17:38.960 the field. He's building the wall. He's shaping 00:17:38.960 --> 00:17:41.339 raw material. He's getting his hands dirty. He's 00:17:41.339 --> 00:17:43.200 getting his hands dirty. He has to discipline 00:17:43.200 --> 00:17:45.680 his impulses and think rationally to get the 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:48.200 job done. And through this work, the servant 00:17:48.200 --> 00:17:51.359 looks at what he has made. the field, the wall, 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.440 and realizes something profound. What's that? 00:17:54.619 --> 00:17:59.019 He realizes, wait, I'm the one changing the world. 00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:02.819 My mind, my rationality is impressed into this 00:18:02.819 --> 00:18:05.619 object. I have the power to transform nature. 00:18:06.190 --> 00:18:08.829 So the servant achieves a higher level of consciousness 00:18:08.829 --> 00:18:12.190 and freedom through labor than the master ever 00:18:12.190 --> 00:18:14.970 could through idleness. Exactly. The truth of 00:18:14.970 --> 00:18:17.569 the situation, the real engine of progress, shifts 00:18:17.569 --> 00:18:20.490 to the servant. And this is why Karl Marx loved 00:18:20.490 --> 00:18:23.130 this section so much. He took this dynamic and 00:18:23.130 --> 00:18:26.049 applied it directly to social classes, the bourgeoisie 00:18:26.049 --> 00:18:28.190 as the master and the proletariat as the servant. 00:18:28.309 --> 00:18:30.069 You could see the direct line. It's a straight 00:18:30.069 --> 00:18:34.039 line. But it also influenced feminism. With Simone 00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:36.279 de Beauvoir analyzing the male -female dynamic 00:18:36.279 --> 00:18:39.759 and anti -colonialism with Frantz Fanon, who 00:18:39.759 --> 00:18:42.059 talked about the colonizer and the colonized. 00:18:42.180 --> 00:18:44.599 The idea that the oppressed have a deeper insight 00:18:44.599 --> 00:18:47.059 into reality than the oppressor, that is pure 00:18:47.059 --> 00:18:49.700 Hegel. And this is just one stop on this voyage 00:18:49.700 --> 00:18:51.920 of discovery. The book keeps going after this, 00:18:51.920 --> 00:18:53.700 right? Oh, it keeps going. It's a marathon. It 00:18:53.700 --> 00:18:56.740 goes through stoicism, skepticism, the unhappy 00:18:56.740 --> 00:18:59.319 consciousness, which is this internal split where 00:18:59.319 --> 00:19:01.480 you feel separated from God or the absolute. 00:19:01.559 --> 00:19:03.319 It analyzes the... Enlightenment, the French 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:05.579 Revolution, the terror. It's a tour of Western 00:19:05.579 --> 00:19:08.579 history and psychology, all framed as the internal 00:19:08.579 --> 00:19:11.019 development of the mind. Incredible. OK, so he 00:19:11.019 --> 00:19:13.680 finishes this massive book, survives the war 00:19:13.680 --> 00:19:16.039 and eventually gets a job in Nuremberg. And then 00:19:16.039 --> 00:19:18.470 he writes. The science of logic. Now, when I 00:19:18.470 --> 00:19:20.890 hear logic, I think of math or, you know, A plus 00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:23.829 B equals C. But Hegel's logic is weird. It is 00:19:23.829 --> 00:19:27.109 not formal logic at all. It's metaphysical logic. 00:19:27.549 --> 00:19:30.049 He's trying to describe the very structure of 00:19:30.049 --> 00:19:33.170 reality itself, or as he puts it, God as he is 00:19:33.170 --> 00:19:35.369 in his eternal essence before the creation of 00:19:35.369 --> 00:19:38.529 nature and a finite spirit. That is a bold claim. 00:19:38.950 --> 00:19:41.109 I'm going to map out the mind of God before the 00:19:41.109 --> 00:19:45.099 Big Bang. Hegel was nothing if not bold. And 00:19:45.099 --> 00:19:47.099 this brings us to the biggest myth we need to 00:19:47.099 --> 00:19:50.160 bust about him. The whole thesis antithesis synthesis 00:19:50.160 --> 00:19:53.160 thing. Yes. If you Google Hegel, that's the first 00:19:53.160 --> 00:19:55.180 thing that comes up. History moves by thesis 00:19:55.180 --> 00:19:57.759 antithesis synthesis. You see it in business 00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:01.000 presentations. But our sources say. This is fake 00:20:01.000 --> 00:20:04.359 news. Absolute fake news. Hegel never, ever used 00:20:04.359 --> 00:20:06.539 those three terms to describe his method. He 00:20:06.539 --> 00:20:08.380 never used them in that sequence. Seriously, 00:20:08.519 --> 00:20:10.640 where did it come from then? That formula actually 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:13.079 comes from an earlier philosopher, Finberg, and 00:20:13.079 --> 00:20:15.180 was later popularized by a guy named Heinrich 00:20:15.180 --> 00:20:17.579 Moritz Schlebeius, who was trying to simplify 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:19.779 Hegel for students. Hegel actually thought that 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:22.059 formula was too mechanical, too lifeless. It 00:20:22.059 --> 00:20:23.900 implies you just smash two things together and 00:20:23.900 --> 00:20:26.019 take them up. He wanted something organic, something 00:20:26.019 --> 00:20:29.019 that grows. So what is his method? If it's not 00:20:29.019 --> 00:20:31.839 that tidy little triangle, how does change happen 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:34.319 in his system? The key German word, the magic 00:20:34.319 --> 00:20:38.059 word in all of Hegel is Aufheben. Aufheben. And 00:20:38.059 --> 00:20:40.220 this word is a linguistic nightmare because it 00:20:40.220 --> 00:20:42.539 has three contradictory meanings, right? It's 00:20:42.539 --> 00:20:44.519 a translator's despair, but a philosopher's delight. 00:20:45.180 --> 00:20:47.539 Aufheben in German means three things simultaneously, 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:51.319 and Hegel uses all three meanings at once. It 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:54.700 means, one, to lift up or to raise to a higher 00:20:54.700 --> 00:20:59.039 level. Two. to cancel, destroy, or abolish, and 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:02.240 three, to preserve or to keep. Okay, hold on. 00:21:02.279 --> 00:21:04.839 How can you destroy and preserve something at 00:21:04.839 --> 00:21:06.980 the exact same time? Give us an example. Okay, 00:21:07.019 --> 00:21:09.140 think of a fruit tree. You have a blossom on 00:21:09.140 --> 00:21:12.259 a branch. For the fruit, say, an apple to appear, 00:21:12.519 --> 00:21:14.619 what has to happen to the blossom? The blossom 00:21:14.619 --> 00:21:16.960 has to die. It wilts and falls off. Right. The 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:20.390 fruit... negates the blossom it destroys it the 00:21:20.390 --> 00:21:22.849 blossom is gone but the fruit is also the truth 00:21:22.849 --> 00:21:25.049 of the blossom it's what the blossom was trying 00:21:25.049 --> 00:21:28.410 to become all along i see so the blossom is cancelled 00:21:28.410 --> 00:21:31.109 it's physically gone but it's also preserved 00:21:31.109 --> 00:21:33.390 its genetic purpose is fulfilled and carried 00:21:33.390 --> 00:21:36.109 forward in the fruit and the whole process is 00:21:36.109 --> 00:21:38.650 lifted up to a higher level of the plant's life 00:21:38.650 --> 00:21:41.779 cycle That is El Pipo. Okay, that makes sense. 00:21:41.859 --> 00:21:44.500 It's not just A beats B. It's that A and B clash. 00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:48.440 And out of that clash comes a new thing, C, that 00:21:48.440 --> 00:21:51.869 keeps the essential truth of both A and B. but 00:21:51.869 --> 00:21:54.490 gets rid of their one -sidedness. Exactly. That 00:21:54.490 --> 00:21:56.809 is the dialectic. It's a process of internal 00:21:56.809 --> 00:22:00.009 conflict and resolution. Hegel believes that 00:22:00.009 --> 00:22:02.410 concepts and history itself move through this 00:22:02.410 --> 00:22:04.650 organic process. You have a state of affairs, 00:22:04.789 --> 00:22:07.349 it develops an internal contradiction, it collapses 00:22:07.349 --> 00:22:10.089 under that weight, and a new higher state emerges 00:22:10.089 --> 00:22:12.750 that resolves the tension. This leads into his 00:22:12.750 --> 00:22:15.509 system. Hegel devised reality into three big 00:22:15.509 --> 00:22:18.369 chunks, logic, nature, and spirit. We talked 00:22:18.369 --> 00:22:20.500 about logic. What about nature? This is often 00:22:20.500 --> 00:22:22.259 the part of Hegel that gets criticized the most, 00:22:22.319 --> 00:22:24.160 especially by scientists. He was writing before 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:26.099 Darwin, obviously, so some of his science is 00:22:26.099 --> 00:22:29.740 outdated. But he sees nature as petrified intelligence. 00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:32.180 Petrified intelligence. That sounds like a cool 00:22:32.180 --> 00:22:35.240 band name. It does. He means rationality frozen 00:22:35.240 --> 00:22:38.740 in physical form. He defended a holistic, organic 00:22:38.740 --> 00:22:41.000 view of nature against the purely mechanical 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:43.740 view that nature is just a clockwork machine 00:22:43.740 --> 00:22:47.069 made of dead matter. He saw nature as an organism, 00:22:47.269 --> 00:22:49.910 always striving toward life and eventually consciousness. 00:22:50.289 --> 00:22:52.450 And then we have the philosophy of spirit. This 00:22:52.450 --> 00:22:54.369 is the human stuff, the world of culture and 00:22:54.369 --> 00:22:56.930 history. Right. And he divides this into three 00:22:56.930 --> 00:22:59.589 more parts. Subjective spirit, which is basically 00:22:59.589 --> 00:23:02.089 psychology and anthropology, the individual soul. 00:23:02.289 --> 00:23:04.910 OK. Then objective spirit, which is law, society, 00:23:05.250 --> 00:23:09.430 ethics and state. And finally. absolute spirit, 00:23:09.529 --> 00:23:11.509 which is where spirit fully understands itself 00:23:11.509 --> 00:23:14.730 through art, religion, and philosophy. I noticed 00:23:14.730 --> 00:23:17.130 in the source material for subjective spirit, 00:23:17.190 --> 00:23:19.369 specifically the anthropology section, there's 00:23:19.369 --> 00:23:21.849 a note about his views on race. We have to address 00:23:21.849 --> 00:23:23.670 that. We do. It's important to be transparent 00:23:23.670 --> 00:23:26.650 here and not gloss over it. Hegel was a man of 00:23:26.650 --> 00:23:29.450 the early 19th century, and he held views that 00:23:29.450 --> 00:23:32.390 are, by today's standards, racist. In what way? 00:23:32.529 --> 00:23:34.869 He believed that climate and geography affected 00:23:34.869 --> 00:23:38.230 human development, and he made unfounded hierarchical 00:23:38.230 --> 00:23:41.329 claims about different races, placing Africans 00:23:41.329 --> 00:23:43.349 at a lower stage of development, for instance, 00:23:43.589 --> 00:23:46.490 and Europeans at the highest. These were typical 00:23:46.490 --> 00:23:49.789 of the prejudices of his time, but they are deeply 00:23:49.789 --> 00:23:53.220 problematic and scientifically wrong today. So 00:23:53.220 --> 00:23:55.240 the Universal Spirit had some very specific... 00:23:55.849 --> 00:23:59.450 Very European blind spots. Huge ones. It's crucial 00:23:59.450 --> 00:24:01.890 to note he didn't believe race was a fixed biological 00:24:01.890 --> 00:24:04.849 destiny. He thought anyone could achieve freedom 00:24:04.849 --> 00:24:06.869 because the potential for reason is universal 00:24:06.869 --> 00:24:09.869 in humanity. But he definitely bought into the 00:24:09.869 --> 00:24:12.690 cultural hierarchies of his era. It's a stark 00:24:12.690 --> 00:24:14.750 reminder that even the greatest thinkers are 00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:17.250 trapped in their own time. Let's move to objective 00:24:17.250 --> 00:24:20.289 spirit then, which is basically politics. Hegel 00:24:20.289 --> 00:24:21.970 wrote a book called The Philosophy of Right. 00:24:22.049 --> 00:24:23.890 This is where he talks about freedom in the state. 00:24:25.230 --> 00:24:27.269 controversial in a different way. Some people 00:24:27.269 --> 00:24:29.950 accuse Hegel of being a Prussian apologist, basically 00:24:29.950 --> 00:24:32.589 an intellectual who just provided a fancy justification 00:24:32.589 --> 00:24:35.910 for the authoritarian Prussian monarchy. Whatever 00:24:35.910 --> 00:24:37.990 the king does is right. That was the criticism 00:24:37.990 --> 00:24:40.390 for a long time, especially from liberals like 00:24:40.390 --> 00:24:43.230 Karl Popper. But modern scholarship, for the 00:24:43.230 --> 00:24:46.150 most part, defends him against that charge. Hegel's 00:24:46.150 --> 00:24:48.549 view of freedom is much more complex. He doesn't 00:24:48.549 --> 00:24:51.630 think freedom is just negative liberty. And what's 00:24:51.630 --> 00:24:53.869 negative liberty? That's the idea that freedom 00:24:53.869 --> 00:24:56.349 means being left alone. No one tells me what 00:24:56.349 --> 00:24:58.589 to do. The don't tread on me version of freedom. 00:24:58.710 --> 00:25:00.990 The freedom from interference. Exactly. Hegel 00:25:00.990 --> 00:25:03.470 thinks that is shallow. That's just being a slave 00:25:03.470 --> 00:25:06.690 to your own arbitrary whims and impulses. For 00:25:06.690 --> 00:25:09.539 him... True freedom is something positive. It's 00:25:09.539 --> 00:25:12.259 being at home with oneself in a rational society. 00:25:12.579 --> 00:25:14.940 Being at home with oneself. That's a lovely phrase. 00:25:15.079 --> 00:25:17.400 What does it mean in practice? It means you aren't 00:25:17.400 --> 00:25:19.759 alienated from the world you live in. You live 00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:22.180 in a state where the laws and institutions make 00:25:22.180 --> 00:25:25.140 sense to you. You follow the law not because 00:25:25.140 --> 00:25:26.660 you're afraid the police will hit you with a 00:25:26.660 --> 00:25:29.319 stick, but because you genuinely agree that the 00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:32.460 law is rational and good. And it reflects your 00:25:32.460 --> 00:25:34.640 own will. So it's about identification with the 00:25:34.640 --> 00:25:37.660 community. Yes. He famously called the state 00:25:37.660 --> 00:25:40.980 the actuality of the ethical idea. That sounds 00:25:40.980 --> 00:25:44.119 intimidating to a modern ear. The state is the 00:25:44.119 --> 00:25:46.079 ethical idea. That sounds like it could justify 00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:48.920 anything. It does, but he doesn't mean the government 00:25:48.920 --> 00:25:51.980 bureaucracy or the DMV is God. He means that 00:25:51.980 --> 00:25:55.019 our institutions, the family, civil society, 00:25:55.299 --> 00:25:58.000 the courts, the Constitution, are the places 00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:00.319 where our freedom becomes real and concrete. 00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:03.279 You can't be free alone in the woods. You are 00:26:03.279 --> 00:26:05.720 only free when you have rights that are recognized 00:26:05.720 --> 00:26:08.240 and protected by others within a shared structure. 00:26:08.579 --> 00:26:12.349 So I is we, and we is I. My individual freedom 00:26:12.349 --> 00:26:14.569 depends on our shared social structure. That 00:26:14.569 --> 00:26:17.230 is the absolute core of it. He favored a constitutional 00:26:17.230 --> 00:26:20.089 monarchy, not an absolute one. He wanted a professional, 00:26:20.230 --> 00:26:22.769 merit -based civil service. He wanted the rule 00:26:22.769 --> 00:26:25.410 of law. He wasn't a Democrat in the modern sense. 00:26:25.569 --> 00:26:28.569 He was deeply suspicious of the mob. But he certainly 00:26:28.569 --> 00:26:31.289 wasn't a totalitarian. He wanted a state where 00:26:31.289 --> 00:26:33.529 the individual and the collective were in harmony. 00:26:33.730 --> 00:26:35.890 And this ties directly into his philosophy of 00:26:35.890 --> 00:26:38.309 history. He sees history as a story with a plot. 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:41.660 It's not just, as one historian said, one damn 00:26:41.660 --> 00:26:44.240 thing after another. No, for Hegel, history has 00:26:44.240 --> 00:26:46.519 a rational plot. And the plot is the progress 00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:48.500 of the consciousness of freedom. This is the 00:26:48.500 --> 00:26:51.559 famous three epochs theory. Yes. Hegel divides 00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:54.539 world history into three great stages based on 00:26:54.539 --> 00:26:57.980 a very simple question. Who is free? Okay, what's 00:26:57.980 --> 00:27:00.759 stage one? Stage one, the Oriental world. He's 00:27:00.759 --> 00:27:03.660 thinking of ancient China, Persia, Egypt. In 00:27:03.660 --> 00:27:06.819 the stage, Hegel says only one is free. the despot 00:27:06.819 --> 00:27:09.400 or the emperor. Everyone else is a subject or 00:27:09.400 --> 00:27:12.299 effectively a slave to that one person's will. 00:27:12.440 --> 00:27:16.119 OK, one is free. Then what? Stage two, the Greco 00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:19.440 -Roman world. Here, some are free. The citizens 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:22.000 of Athens or Rome have rights. They participate 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.420 in politics, but the entire society is built 00:27:24.420 --> 00:27:27.319 on the foundation of slavery. Freedom is a privilege 00:27:27.319 --> 00:27:29.940 for a select group. So we go from one to some. 00:27:30.059 --> 00:27:33.240 The final stage must be. Stage three, the Germanic 00:27:33.240 --> 00:27:35.549 Christian world. By Germanic, he means Northern 00:27:35.549 --> 00:27:37.829 European Protestantism, essentially. Yes, that's 00:27:37.829 --> 00:27:40.349 what he had in mind. In this final stage, the 00:27:40.349 --> 00:27:43.170 realization hits that all are free. He argues 00:27:43.170 --> 00:27:45.750 that Christianity introduces the radical metaphysical 00:27:45.750 --> 00:27:48.869 idea that every single individual soul has infinite 00:27:48.869 --> 00:27:51.549 value in the eyes of God. The modern world, for 00:27:51.549 --> 00:27:53.410 Hegel, is just the long, difficult political 00:27:53.410 --> 00:27:55.730 process of making that spiritual truth a reality 00:27:55.730 --> 00:27:59.710 on Earth. All are free. That's the end point. 00:28:00.170 --> 00:28:02.950 The goal of history. That is the endpoint of 00:28:02.950 --> 00:28:04.849 history's logic. And this is why he addresses 00:28:04.849 --> 00:28:08.009 slavery here. He argues that slavery was wrong 00:28:08.009 --> 00:28:10.650 in the absolute sense, but it occurred historically 00:28:10.650 --> 00:28:13.609 in that second stage. But in the modern rational 00:28:13.609 --> 00:28:16.150 state, it is an absolute contradiction. It's 00:28:16.150 --> 00:28:18.009 impossible because it violates the fundamental 00:28:18.009 --> 00:28:21.009 principle that all humans are free. Now we have 00:28:21.009 --> 00:28:24.309 to talk about the owl, the famous bird, in the 00:28:24.309 --> 00:28:26.430 preface to the philosophy of Wright. He writes, 00:28:26.549 --> 00:28:29.250 the owl of Minerva begins its flight. Only with 00:28:29.250 --> 00:28:31.950 the onset of dusk. What is he trying to tell 00:28:31.950 --> 00:28:34.710 us there? It's his beautiful, slightly sad statement 00:28:34.710 --> 00:28:37.609 on the limits of philosophy. Minerva is the Roman 00:28:37.609 --> 00:28:41.109 goddess of wisdom. Her symbol is the owl. Hegel 00:28:41.109 --> 00:28:43.109 is saying that wisdom only comes at the end of 00:28:43.109 --> 00:28:45.970 the day. So you can't truly understand an era 00:28:45.970 --> 00:28:47.670 while you're living in it. You can only understand 00:28:47.670 --> 00:28:51.059 it in hindsight. Exactly. Philosophy cannot predict 00:28:51.059 --> 00:28:53.660 the future. It cannot write prescriptions or 00:28:53.660 --> 00:28:55.599 issue instructions on how the world ought to 00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:58.279 be. It can only understand the world after a 00:28:58.279 --> 00:29:01.140 form of life has already played out. He says 00:29:01.140 --> 00:29:04.180 philosophy is its own time comprehended in thoughts. 00:29:04.539 --> 00:29:07.039 When the owl takes flight, the day is already 00:29:07.039 --> 00:29:10.279 over. A shape of life has grown old. That's kind 00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:12.769 of sad. It means we're always a step behind understanding 00:29:12.769 --> 00:29:15.690 our own lives. It is melancholic, but it's also, 00:29:15.829 --> 00:29:18.829 I think, very humble. He's saying, my job isn't 00:29:18.829 --> 00:29:20.890 to tell you what to do next. My job is to explain 00:29:20.890 --> 00:29:24.329 how we got here. So let's get to here. Berlin, 00:29:24.589 --> 00:29:28.480 1818. Hegel gets the chair of philosophy at the 00:29:28.480 --> 00:29:30.799 new and prestigious University of Berlin. He 00:29:30.799 --> 00:29:33.640 has made it. He is the philosophical rock star 00:29:33.640 --> 00:29:35.640 of Europe. It really is. He's the most famous 00:29:35.640 --> 00:29:37.319 philosopher in the world at this point. But again, 00:29:37.380 --> 00:29:38.940 the contrast between the idea of him and the 00:29:38.940 --> 00:29:40.960 reality is funny. We have many accounts of his 00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.019 lectures from his students, and by all reports, 00:29:43.099 --> 00:29:45.180 he was a terrible public speaker. Really? The 00:29:45.180 --> 00:29:47.059 guy drawing crowds from all over Europe was bad 00:29:47.059 --> 00:29:50.450 at it. Awful. He apparently stuttered. He had 00:29:50.450 --> 00:29:53.170 a strong Swabian accent. He shuffled his papers 00:29:53.170 --> 00:29:56.349 constantly. He would start these long, convoluted 00:29:56.349 --> 00:29:58.710 sentences, then pause and cough, and you'd forget 00:29:58.710 --> 00:30:00.430 the beginning before he ever got to the end. 00:30:00.529 --> 00:30:03.390 He looked exhausted and disheveled. So why were 00:30:03.390 --> 00:30:05.470 people flocking to his lectures? What was the 00:30:05.470 --> 00:30:08.390 appeal? Because they felt they were watching 00:30:08.390 --> 00:30:11.869 thinking happen in real time. It wasn't a performance. 00:30:11.970 --> 00:30:13.890 He wasn't just reading a polished script. He 00:30:13.890 --> 00:30:16.670 was wrestling with the concepts, struggling to 00:30:16.670 --> 00:30:18.470 find the right words right there in front of 00:30:18.470 --> 00:30:21.009 them. It was intense intellectual labor. And 00:30:21.009 --> 00:30:22.809 the students felt like they were witnessing the 00:30:22.809 --> 00:30:26.069 construction of this massive system brick by 00:30:26.069 --> 00:30:28.369 brick. And he finally had a stable life, right? 00:30:28.750 --> 00:30:30.869 In Berlin? Yes. For the first time, really. He 00:30:30.869 --> 00:30:33.069 was happily married to Marie. He had his two 00:30:33.069 --> 00:30:36.049 legitimate sons, Carl and Emanuel. And this is 00:30:36.049 --> 00:30:38.950 a poignant detail. His illegitimate son, Ludwig, 00:30:39.089 --> 00:30:41.109 actually came to live with them. Oh, this son 00:30:41.109 --> 00:30:43.809 from the landlady in Germany. Yes. Hegel brought 00:30:43.809 --> 00:30:45.829 him into the household. But it didn't end well. 00:30:46.150 --> 00:30:48.329 The sources suggest there was a lot of tension. 00:30:49.529 --> 00:30:52.089 Ludwig felt like the blast sheep, the servant 00:30:52.089 --> 00:30:54.730 in the family dynamic, constantly reminded of 00:30:54.730 --> 00:30:57.690 his status. That's rough. He eventually rebelled, 00:30:57.750 --> 00:31:00.309 ran away, joined the Dutch army as a mercenary, 00:31:00.609 --> 00:31:03.390 went to Batavia, which is modern -day Jakarta, 00:31:03.569 --> 00:31:07.009 and died of a fever. The saddest part is that 00:31:07.009 --> 00:31:09.509 Hegel never knew he died. The news didn't reach 00:31:09.509 --> 00:31:12.410 him in time. That is tragic. And Hegel's own 00:31:12.410 --> 00:31:16.029 end was sudden, too. Very sudden. 1831. A cholera 00:31:16.029 --> 00:31:18.589 epidemic was sweeping through Berlin. Hegel went 00:31:18.589 --> 00:31:20.990 to the countryside to avoid it, but he came back 00:31:20.990 --> 00:31:23.250 to the city too early for the start of the university 00:31:23.250 --> 00:31:26.470 semester. He fell ill. It happened very fast. 00:31:26.809 --> 00:31:30.769 November 14th, 1831. He died. The official cause 00:31:30.769 --> 00:31:33.289 was cholera. though modern diagnostics suggest 00:31:33.289 --> 00:31:35.150 it might have been a different gastrointestinal 00:31:35.150 --> 00:31:37.349 disease. But the rumor mill, of course, gave 00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:39.549 him some famous last words. Which were? There 00:31:39.549 --> 00:31:41.369 was only one man who ever understood me, and 00:31:41.369 --> 00:31:43.450 even he didn't understand me. I love that. Probably 00:31:43.450 --> 00:31:46.150 apocryphal, not true, but it fits the brand perfectly. 00:31:46.390 --> 00:31:49.549 It fits perfectly. He was buried next to Ficht, 00:31:49.650 --> 00:31:52.289 his great philosophical predecessor at Berlin. 00:31:52.609 --> 00:31:55.190 And almost immediately, the fighting started 00:31:55.190 --> 00:31:58.069 over his legacy. This is part eight, the split 00:31:58.069 --> 00:32:00.829 legacy. His followers divided into two gangs, 00:32:00.910 --> 00:32:04.210 basically. The right Hegelians and the left Hegelians. 00:32:04.309 --> 00:32:07.049 It was a war for the soul of the system. The 00:32:07.049 --> 00:32:09.829 right Hegelians were the conservatives, the establishment 00:32:09.829 --> 00:32:12.509 guys. They focused on Hegel's statement that 00:32:12.509 --> 00:32:15.809 the actual is rational. So they interpreted that 00:32:15.809 --> 00:32:19.009 as the current Prussian state is rational. Protestantism 00:32:19.009 --> 00:32:21.190 is rational. We're done. Mission accomplished. 00:32:21.529 --> 00:32:24.430 Exactly. They basically turned Hegel into a defender 00:32:24.430 --> 00:32:26.650 of the status quo. And for that reason, they 00:32:26.650 --> 00:32:29.150 were pretty quickly forgotten by history. But 00:32:29.150 --> 00:32:31.680 the left Hegelians. Yeah. They were the troublemakers. 00:32:31.740 --> 00:32:33.619 You young Hegelians. They were the radicals. 00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:35.980 They focused on the dialectical method, the engine 00:32:35.980 --> 00:32:38.299 of change, the idea that everything contains 00:32:38.299 --> 00:32:40.940 its own contradiction and must be negated. So 00:32:40.940 --> 00:32:42.839 they saw the method as a tool for revolution. 00:32:43.160 --> 00:32:46.359 A tool for criticism and revolution. They were 00:32:46.359 --> 00:32:49.240 atheists. They were Republicans. They looked 00:32:49.240 --> 00:32:51.519 at the Prussian state and said, this isn't rational 00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:54.200 yet. It's full of contradictions. We need to 00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.480 negate it and move to a higher stage. And the 00:32:56.480 --> 00:32:59.180 most famous one of them all. was Karl Marx. Marx 00:32:59.180 --> 00:33:01.480 famously said he found Hegel standing on his 00:33:01.480 --> 00:33:03.910 head and he turned him right side up. What does 00:33:03.910 --> 00:33:06.430 that mean? It means he took Hegel's powerful 00:33:06.430 --> 00:33:09.890 dialectical method, this logic of clashing opposites 00:33:09.890 --> 00:33:12.430 leading to change, but instead of applying it 00:33:12.430 --> 00:33:15.490 to conflicting ideas or spirit, Marx applied 00:33:15.490 --> 00:33:18.309 it to conflicting material conditions, to money, 00:33:18.430 --> 00:33:21.210 to labor, to social classes. So the master -servant 00:33:21.210 --> 00:33:24.009 dialectic becomes the class war between the bourgeoisie 00:33:24.009 --> 00:33:26.309 and the proletarian. Exactly. You simply do not 00:33:26.309 --> 00:33:28.769 get Marxism without Hegel. He provides the entire 00:33:28.769 --> 00:33:31.509 engine. But it's not just Marx. You also don't 00:33:31.509 --> 00:33:49.589 get existentialism. How so? Meaning he forgot 00:33:49.589 --> 00:33:52.039 the individual. He forgot what it's like to be 00:33:52.039 --> 00:33:55.480 a single, existing, anxious individual. Kierkegaard 00:33:55.480 --> 00:33:58.500 asked, what about me and my choices, my faith, 00:33:58.599 --> 00:34:01.460 my anxiety? It's like Hegel is the sun and everyone 00:34:01.460 --> 00:34:03.519 else is either orbiting him or trying to block 00:34:03.519 --> 00:34:05.960 out the light. Even American pragmatism, John 00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:08.219 Dewey and those guys owe a debt to him. Absolutely. 00:34:08.280 --> 00:34:10.679 The idea that knowledge is not static, that it's 00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:12.780 social, that we learn through experience and 00:34:12.780 --> 00:34:15.579 history, that reason itself has a history, that 00:34:15.579 --> 00:34:19.179 is all Hegel. So let's wrap this up. We started 00:34:19.179 --> 00:34:22.110 with the mission. To strip away the jargon, we've 00:34:22.110 --> 00:34:24.510 climbed the mountain. What is the view from the 00:34:24.510 --> 00:34:26.610 top? What is the ultimate takeaway from this 00:34:26.610 --> 00:34:29.170 whole incredible system? For me, the ultimate 00:34:29.170 --> 00:34:31.789 Hegelian ambition was to heal the splits in the 00:34:31.789 --> 00:34:34.530 modern world. He didn't like dualisms. He didn't 00:34:34.530 --> 00:34:36.789 like mind versus body, God versus nature, the 00:34:36.789 --> 00:34:39.130 individual versus the community, subject versus 00:34:39.130 --> 00:34:41.070 object. He wanted to show that they're all just 00:34:41.070 --> 00:34:43.429 different moments in one big developing rational 00:34:43.429 --> 00:34:46.769 whole. His famous line is, the true is the whole. 00:34:47.090 --> 00:34:50.090 You can't understand the part until you see how 00:34:50.090 --> 00:34:52.570 it fits into the entire developing system. You 00:34:52.570 --> 00:34:55.809 can't. And he suggests that we are fundamentally 00:34:55.809 --> 00:34:59.320 social creatures. We aren't just isolated atoms 00:34:59.320 --> 00:35:02.559 bouncing around. We only become selves when other 00:35:02.559 --> 00:35:05.099 people recognize us. That is a provocative thought 00:35:05.099 --> 00:35:07.320 I'd leave the listener with. In our modern world, 00:35:07.380 --> 00:35:10.199 we are so hyper -individualized. We curate our 00:35:10.199 --> 00:35:12.400 online profiles. We live in our social media 00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:14.820 bubbles. We think we define ourselves from the 00:35:14.820 --> 00:35:17.519 inside out. We do. But Hegel teaches us that 00:35:17.519 --> 00:35:21.539 I is we and we is I. You cannot be fully human 00:35:21.539 --> 00:35:24.199 alone. You need the recognition of others, and 00:35:24.199 --> 00:35:26.420 you need to participate in the ethical life of 00:35:26.420 --> 00:35:29.800 your community to be truly free. Have we forgotten 00:35:29.800 --> 00:35:32.460 that lesson? It's a question worth asking. We're 00:35:32.460 --> 00:35:35.079 all still struggling for recognition. Maybe the 00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:37.000 master -servant dialectic is happening in your 00:35:37.000 --> 00:35:38.760 Twitter replies right now. It almost certainly 00:35:38.760 --> 00:35:41.440 is. The struggle for recognition continues. It 00:35:41.440 --> 00:35:43.579 never stops. On that slightly terrifying note, 00:35:43.780 --> 00:35:46.059 we'll leave you to find your own synthesis in 00:35:46.059 --> 00:35:48.880 the chaos. Thanks for diving deep with us into 00:35:48.880 --> 00:35:50.380 the world spirit. See you next time.