When we are studying Hegel's answer to any question, or his solution to any problem, we must always look first at the systematic context in which the problem is raised, or the question asked. Hegel's “philosophy of world-history” comes as the climactic stage of the development of “objective spirit”; and it provides the transition to the spheres of “absolute spirit”. The philosophical comprehension of political history provides the ultimate context for our political theory; and then it leads us on to the sphere in which we are directly aware of “the Absolute”. Our political science comes to an end, when we recognize that “the world's history is the world's court of judgment”. But that “court of judgment” has jurisdiction only over the objective forms of political and social organization. The judgment of history is not the “Last Judgment” for everything and everyone. There are modes of experience which emerge and develop in history, but which are recognized as transhistorical; and when “philosophy”, as the historical quest for wisdom, reaches its goal, we can see and say why Greek art has an enduring significance for us, even though the Greek religion (which their art expressed in its highest form) has passed over into history just as completely and irrevocably as the “city-state”. Our political thought and action exists in the context of a religious ideal that will not allow us to divide the human community into “us” and “them”, the freemen and the slaves, the civilized and the barbarians. But only the arrival of philosophical “wisdom” has enabled us to see and say what is “absolute” about our religion (just as it is we, and not the Greeks themselves, who have the “absolute” consciousness of Greek art).

In what follows Hegel's philosophy of history as the zenith in historical thinking will be considered from three perspectives.

• I I will begin by discussing the two major reactions among Hegel's nineteenth century successors to the problem of historical finality.

• II Then I will go back to Hegel himself in order the analyze the speculative claims of his system with regard to historical time.

• III And finally, I will clarify the role played by those formal structures in historical reflexion which continue to fuel the controversy over what Hegel meant by the end of history.

The apparent implication of Hegel's conception of philosophical history, that the future must be foreclosed or that history must come to an end, has long been a source of difficulty both for Hegelians themselves and for commentators on Hegel's philosophy. The suggestion that the truth of history can be understood only when reason has actualised itself in the state seems to carry an implication, that there is no further work either for reason or philosophy to do, which is hard to accept given the obvious fact that the present world hardly seems beyond the possibility of rational improvement. It is not my intention in this paper to engage in any direct discussion of previous interpretations. Instead I shall address the substantial problem itself by trying to explain certain requirements of Hegel's philosophy of history and then to develop and examine their consequences for the concept of an end of history.

I shall begin by examining some initial reasons why it might be thought that Hegel is committed to the notion of an end of history. A convenient way of doing this is by noting very briefly some features of the philosophical route which leads him to the idea of philosophical history in the Introduction to his Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. As is well known, he begins by identifying a number of different kinds of history, the distinguishing feature of each of which is the historian's viewpoint. Thus the first, original history, is history as written by those who are involved in it and who share the spirit of its time. It is really a kind of contemporary history in which, since the historian shares the spirit of his time, he writes from that viewpoint. But because he writes from within it, he cannot be conscious of his viewpoint and cannot, therefore, transcend it in the sense of understanding it as part of a larger whole. Next come the four forms of reflective history, ie. universal history, pragmatic history, critical history and specialised history, in which each kind of historian tries to transcend the viewpoint of his time in an attempt to view history reflectively. But, for a series of different reasons, each is unsuccessful.

Recently our particular end of history has been characterized as the coming of age of a post-communist, liberal nation-state system and global political economy. On this interpretation of history and international relations, the philosophy of world history is no longer needed, since the meaning of history, its goal and end, are already known. In essence, we have arrived at the Kantian regulative ideal of perpetual peace, not in the form of a world state, but of an international order in which commerce can take over the role of war and deterrence in ensuring progress. In this paper, I will be arguing for a different understanding of the end of history, one which recalls the philosopher's attention to world history as the realm of the self-relation of spirit most in need of philosophical comprehension. In order to do this, I will be examining the differences between Kant's treatment of history and war in the critical philosophy, and Hegel's speculative transformation of that treatment in his own work. It will be argued that in Kant's work a posited end of history serves to undermine the philosophical comprehension of history, by removing that comprehension from history. Whereas in Hegel's work the experienced end of history opens up the understanding of history by acknowledging the philosopher's identity with his time. The paper falls into three sections. In the first part I will present a reading of Kant's philosophy of history and war, and try to illustrate its consequences for attempts to theorise and moralise about world history in the present. In the second part I will demonstrate how Hegel's philosophy of history and war differs from Kant's, giving us an alternative starting point for our contemporary comprehension of the end of history. Finally, I will comment on a recent Hegelian reading of world history by Hayo Krombach, Hegelian Reflections on the Idea of Nuclear War.

The object of this paper is threefold. First, the purpose is to look closely at the connection between the intellectual enterprises of political philosophy and the philosophy of history. Secondly, the purpose is to outline and criticize the connection as seen by Kant and Hegel. Thirdly, the purpose is to draw some preliminary conclusions about the advantages and disadvantages of underpinning a political philosophy with a view of history. In drawing these conclusions I should like to explore my belief that although it may be possible to undertake the philosophy of history with little direct regard for political philosophy contrariwise it would be mistaken, if not foolish, to present a political philosophy without taking into account problems raised by the philosophy of history.

You will indulge me if I begin with a commonplace. The term “history” is an ambiguous expression which can be taken either in the sense of res gestae or in the sense of rerum gestarum memoria. According to the former meaning, it refers to the phenomenon itself, the past course of human events, whereas, according to the latter meaning, it denotes the representation of this phenomenon.

German allows Hegel to mark the difference in terms of the relation between Geschichte and Historie. He also speaks of “objective” and “subjective” history in this connection. Yet by suppressing the brute opacity of language in favour of its teleological function, he is able to turn a blind eye to history's semiotic double game, the free play between literal and figural meaning within the linguistic sign. Hegel thus propounds the view that identity and difference at the level of the signifier are ultimately recuperated as expressive moments or alienations of the signified, the pure idea of History on its circular journey to itself. Linguistic signs are capable of meaning, according to Hegel, precisely because of their dialectical structure. The proliferation of meaning in language through the play of words is not random and anarchic but guided systematically by the invisible hand of spirit.