Brolly. Journal of Social Sciences | ISSN (print) 2516-869X; ISSN (online) 2516-8703 | eSupplement - November 2023 - Brolly+ | Hegel and the Sciences of Spirit (Geisteswissenschaften) | *This eSupplement reproduces: Hegel and the Sciences of Spirit (Geisteswissenschaften) | Madalin Onu | © 2023 London Academic Publishing | ISBN 978-1-9996138-6-0 (eBook) | First published © 2018 London Academic Publishing | ISBN 978-1-9996138-0-8 (Print).

In the context of increasingly numerous cultural and political contradictory debates, humanities are facing the difficult responsibility of removing the veil of ambiguity and doubt. However, they cannot fulfil this task without first undertaking a rigorous return upon themselves, their own fundaments, methods and targeted objects. This book investigates the influence of G.W.F. Hegel on these sciences during their long and controversial process of transformation and consolidation. For this purpose, the author developed, on Gadamer’s suggestions, a dialectical-hermeneutical method able to (...) overcome the insufficiencies of both historical and systematic approaches and to properly take into account the significant references to authors of the Modern Age and the Contemporary Era. In his attempt to advance a speculative model for the present-day social and political sciences, the author brings a new light on some renowned topics including agency in history (Napoleon – Weltgeist or Weltseele on horseback?), the inner structure of the interpreter (Gadamer between Hegel and Heidegger) and the critical concept of alienation (an overthrow or continuity of absolute idealism?), among others. (shrink)

Herder, the German humanist from the end of the 18th century, a representative of Weimar classicism and of the Sturm und Drang movement, man of letters, philosopher of history, defender of popular cultures, advocate of the uniqueness and importance of every civilization. The ways in which one may summarize his legacy extend even further. The present paper will focus on the philosophy of history. We will prove that his writings reveal a complex and solid theory of barbarianism, topical for 21st (...) century Europe. First of all, we aim to clarify the multiple meanings of this concept, identifying both the historical data and the theoretical principles behind it. In this way, the grounds on which Herder executed a radical overthrow of the Enlightenment conception upon the barbarian will be revealed. Subsequently should derive the relativity of the “civilization–barbarism” opposition, as well as the anticipation of Hegel’s idea that history necessarily continues through the barbarian. Finally, we aim to provide reasonably founded answers to the questions generated by this thesis: 1. What are the qualities that confer on the barbarian the possibility of creating history? – in other words, what turns him from supporting actor into a collective agent able to change the course of history? 2. Is there a law of history that decides whether some barbarians are doomed to perish, while others build empires? (shrink)