Abstract

Hegel’s famous statement in the preface of his Outlines of the Philosophy of Right, that “philosophy is its own time apprehended in thoughts,” has given occasion for several historist interpretations proposing that he renders his own theorising as historically conditioned and as a mere expression of his own age. The present paper aims to challenge these interpretations by providing an alternative reading of the phrase in question, focussing on what it meant for Hegel to look upon something ‘in its time’. Instead of implying some kind of historical relativism, I argue, it refers to an idealist perspective according to which every finite being has to be seen in its time, that is, as an eventually vanishing moment of the Concept. Therefore, to apprehend something in its time is to apprehend it in its Concept.