Lectures on the History of Philosophy

Introduction

Hegel lectured on the history of philosophy nine times, at Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin; after his death his student Michelet edited the lectures for publication. He was the first to treat the history of philosophy as itself philosophy: it is not a gallery of opinions or 'a heap of dead men's bones' but the development of one and the same reason in time; each system is a necessary stage of that development, and later systems contain and sublate the earlier ones. He begins with Thales and passes through Parmenides, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists, across the Middle Ages to Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Fichte and Schelling. His treatment of Greek philosophy is especially brilliant, and he also discusses Eastern philosophy, including Confucius and the Book of Changes. The book founded the history of philosophy as a discipline. The work is translated in several volumes.