Prolegomena to Historiosophy

Introduction

Cieszkowski published the short book in Berlin in 1838. It accepts Hegel’s view of history as the development of spirit but criticises its conclusion: a philosophy that, like the owl of Minerva in the preface to the “Philosophy of Right”, only comprehends the past stops at the present. Cieszkowski divides history into antiquity, the age of immediate feeling and art; the Christian era up to Hegel, the age of thought and philosophy; and a future age of the deed, in which thought becomes free, conscious action. Philosophy must therefore become “historiosophy”, a knowledge of the whole of history including the future, and pass into practice. Its key term, the philosophy of the deed, was taken up by Moses Hess and the Young Hegelians and is often cited as an early formulation of the concept of praxis.

Connections

Builds on

• Elements of the Philosophy of Right1820 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel