History of consciousness or philosophy of history in Hegel

What is it about?

Modern practical philosophy faces a dilemma: It must acknowledge the historical character of norms and institutions but at the same time try to justify “irreversible” basic rights and their guaranteeing institutions. Since the Phenomenology of Spirit Hegel develops a concept of the history of consciousness as an irreversible progress in the awareness of freedom. Especially in his Berlin writings he justifies an institutional order of private and public freedom. In this conception, however, the modern European state and society loses their “experimental” character because of the “final” justification in the Science of Logic. Thus the task to reconcile historical experience with the irreversibility of basic rights and institutions needs a new version of “history of consciousness”.

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