Abstract

The use of "development" is ubiquitous in everyday language, and theories regarding it can be found in the social sciences and humanities. Although much work has been done to examine the meaning of development and its history, little attention has been paid to Hegel's role as the philosophical anchor for the modern life of "development". By revisiting Hegel's "Philosophy of History" and analyzing some of the most influential thinkers in modern theories of human development--spanning economic, social, cognitive and moral--the author argues that these theories are far from escaping the Hegelian logic of "Development". Furthermore, he warns of the potential violence necessarily assumed in such theories, and that revolutionizing the philosophical framework upon which developmental theories rest would be a worthwhile endeavor.