Die Geschichtsphilosophie des deutschen Idealismus

Philosophy of history is a comparatively young discipline. Beginning with the Enlightenment the historical is viewed as a philosophic topic. Through German Idealism it is emphatically placed at the centre of attention. The idealistic perspective on history was important for further development. The author presents the integral components of Kant’s, Fichte’s, Schelling’s and Hegel’s philosophy of history. He explains Kant’s regulative idea on advancement (regulative Fortschrittsidee), Fichte’s model of the development of reason in five main eras, Schelling’s three steps in the absolute, speculative and revelation and Hegel’s historical conception of a comprehensive Weltgeist. The most important opposing positions to an idealistic philosophy of history are described in the final chapter – reaching from new Kantianism, hermeneutics and science theory to the recent narratological approaches.