The History of Civilizations Is the History of Reason and Rationality - Essay Example

? As Hegel maintains, the history of civilization is unquestionably a history where reason and rationality permeate humankind. It will be shown that Hegel maintains that the progress of reason, can be understood alongside the elimination of superstitious beliefs and further, with the elimination of hierarchical societies where some individuals are subjugated by others. In his own era of the Enlightenment, the church was being challenged, the aristocracy was becoming dissolved and greater progress was being made toward a more egalitarian society. While it can be said that greater reason permeates humankind, it will also be argued that there are limits and consequences to this progress. Using Horkheimer and Adorno, it will be argued that human nature cannot be completely subjected, and second, that the elimination of superstition has also brought about the subjugation of nature in general. Therefore, there is a progress of reason, but some important limitations too so it cannot be maintained to have completely permeated humankind. For Hegel, history is the succession of stages of consciousness, and these stages of consciousness culminate in a notion which might be said to be a universality of reason or a notion reflecting wide-scale enlightenment.[Hegel, 1952: 216]. To realize universal reason, is to understand history, and to have therefore, self-understanding. Hegel addresses the nature of history at the end of the Philosophy of Right. Concerning these stages, Hegel identifies ‘four’ main periods. These are the ‘Oriental realm’, ‘the Greek Realm’, ‘the Roman realm’, and finally the ‘Germanic realm’ [Hegel, 1995: 220-223]. Of the first realm, he states that they are both indicative of "natural” and ‘patriarchal’ communities. Further, he identifies these as forms of consciousness where pantheistic views of nature dominate all forms of explanations, and indeed, where history itself is poetry [Hegel, 1952: 222]. While the Greeks eliminate many of the limitations of the irrational that preceded them, they still had “slavery” which he suggests that as being a “compromise” of “freedom”. Slaves, for example, are like Oedipus before he discovered his own identity. In other words, if history is about memory or recollection, and it is about self consciousness or self awareness, then, in this regard we can understand how a society with slaves cannot be a society with universal reason. Slaves are denied the possibility of real self understanding, but by virtue of being enslaved. Reason is essential to freedom [Gallagher, 1997: 128]. The second last stage is the Roman realm which like the Greeks is a divided society. First, he argues that there is equality and private rights, however, the nature of the relations among individuals is both formal and abstract [Hegel, 1952: 221-2]. A division persists between the classes, however, the division in the Roman realm is between those who follow there intuition or senses (superstition), and those who use ‘reason’ and self-understanding as a guiding principle. [Hegel, 1952: 221]. In this sense, Rome had an educated elite, but an un-educated and “superstitious” majority. In the ‘Germanic realm’, reason is reconciled with irrationality. This occurs in a two-fold sense, according to Hegel. First, those who follow passion, belief, sensation or the ‘law of the heart’, become elevated toward the ‘head’, so to speak. Second, ‘reason’ which had been ‘abstracted’ from the senses becomes embodied in this world. There exists a mutual recognition in each others rational capacities, and this mutual recognition entails that ‘universality’ is no longer abstract, but rather, manifest in a community of rational individuals [Pinkard, 2002: 160]. For Horkheimer and Adorno, the progress of reason is also viewed as a product of the Enlightenment, however, the progress is viewed as a means of subjugation rather than emancipation. While the progress of history promises the emancipation of people through enlightenment and reason, the actual result is greater subjugation and authority [Adorno and Horkheimer: 4] Beginning with the thought of Francis Bacon, they maintain that the enlightenment ideal was essentially “patriarchal” [Adorno and Horkheimer: 4]. As with Hegel, they argue that the mind does overcome the problems of superstitious thinking, but ultimately results in 'power' and 'knowledge' becoming fused with one another. The rational inclination is a form of domination. In the Dialectic of Enlightenment, they provide an analogy of the progress of reason with the figure of Odysseus from the Greek epic poet, Homer [Adorno and Horkheimer: 37]. Odysseus' journey is portrayed as a continual struggle against nature, and one where he is largely victorious. History, can be seen as the progress toward the subjugation of nature, therefore. Likewise, it is a progress against mythical thinking. For example, when he rescues his men from the magical spell that turned them into pigs on the Island of Circe, they maintain that this is an act representative of overcoming mythical or irrational thinking through scientific rationality. This parallels Hegel's first stage of history with the Greek challenge to superstition and its eventual overcoming. For Adorno and Horkheimer's discussion of Odysseus, this suppression of nature and the irrational is viewed particularly in relation to his overcoming the call of the Sirens, or the attempt to do so. In this attempt they fail [Adorno and Horkheimer: 27], and this is viewed in a twentieth century context of psychoanalysis. That is, the theory that maintains that we are largely defenseless against the sexual desires that underlie our personality [Sherratt, 2002: 77]. What is important, is that Odysseus recognizes this dilemma. That is, while he is able to subjugate the nature around him, he is fundamentally unable to do this with the nature within himself. This is the fundamental conflict of reason and its progress for Adorno and Horkheimer. While the progress of reason can be said to triumph over nature, it is limited at entirely repressing human nature. The context in which they write this is important as they both witnessed the subjugation of people through the triumph of the Nazi's in Germany in the 1930's. Humans, it is argued, are still subject to their own base instincts and desires, and while reason can be an effective external force, it is largely limited as a force for controlling the more base side of human nature. The Nazi's effectively used an externalized reason to control and implement their barbaric policies, like Odysseus' control of external nature, however, their base instincts went well beyond reason and effectively controlled their behavior to points of extreme irrationalities. In conclusion, the history of civilization is the history of reason and rationality permeating humankind. The Enlightenment of Hegel's era, was a point in history where the universal rights of rational individuals were finally acknowledged. Further, it was a progress marked by the elimination of superstition as a means for explaining how nature worked. Since Hegel's era, and following the Holocaust of the Nazi's, it became difficult to see how this permeation of reason succeeded. Adorno and Horkheimer argue that while rationality eliminated superstition, it also led to the domination and subjugation of nature including others. Moreover, they point to some of the fundamental limitations of reason when it is up against the drives of the unconscious. While reason has permeated throughout humankind, it has done so with some important oppositions and with unpalatable consequences. Thus, in a post-holocaust era, it is difficult to see the universal permeation of reason through humankind. Bibliography: Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, Translated by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). Gallagher, Shaun. Hegel, History, and Interpretation (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997). Hegel, Georg. The Philosophy of Right. Trans. T. Knox (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952). Pinkard, Terry. Hegel: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Sherratt, Yvonne. Adorno's Positive Dialectic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Read More