HEGEL AND PATHOLOGIZED MODERNITY, OR THE END OF SPIRIT IN THE ANTHROPOCENE

This article has two broad concerns, both of which are pursued primarily with reference to Hegel's philosophy of history. First, it examines whether Hegel can help explain the difficulty we have in modernity in responding to climate change and ecological crisis. It argues that Hegel provides a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inHistory and theory :Studies in the philosophy of history Vol. 57; no. 3; pp. 371 - 389
Main Author LUMSDEN, SIMON
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Wiley Periodicals, Inc 01.09.2018
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Subjects
Anthropocene
Bodily integrity
Climate change
Crises
Hegel
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831)
History
Modernism
Modernity
nature
Philosophy of history
Postcolonialism
second nature
self‐determination
Sovereignty
Sustainable development
Worldview
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This article has two broad concerns, both of which are pursued primarily with reference to Hegel's philosophy of history. First, it examines whether Hegel can help explain the difficulty we have in modernity in responding to climate change and ecological crisis. It argues that Hegel provides a useful analysis of this problem, since the model of selfdetermination that he appeals to is comprehensively embedded in embodied forms of culture. This helps explain why even a self-correcting worldview like modernity is obdurate in the face of this crisis. Second, Hegel claims that the defining attribute of spirit is its capacity for self-production. Modernity is characterized by the emerging and widespread knowledge that spirit is self-producing. Modernity develops institutions that facilitate and provide an objective reality for spirit's self-production and its freedom. This aspect of the article examines whether the distinctive capacity of spirit for self-determination, which is realized in modernity, is subject to the same atrophying conditions by which Hegel says all other historical shapes of spirit are characterized. It asks if the present ecological crisis, something that is directly attributable to spirit itself, represents the limits of self-producing spirit. The article concludes by examining the difficult position of those countries that cannot be considered to be responsible for the emergence of the Anthropocene but whose actions in the present will amplify its impact.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:0018-2656
1468-2303
DOI:10.1111/hith.12070