If you’ve never heard of Hegel, the video above gives you a good introduction. To put it as simply as possible, Hegel is best known as philosopher of history, and he believed that history progresses when opposing forces come into conflict, and that conflict results in a “synthesis” of those opposing forces. In the previous page we noted that Hegel was at the battle of Jena in 1806, when Napoleon defeated the Prussians. Even though he was Prussian, Hegel did not consider this defeat a tragedy, in the grand sweep of history. The forces of Napoleonic France came into conflict with the Prussian monarchy, but the end result was not the destruction of Prussia, but a new, more liberal and just Prussian state that incorporated some of the positive aspects of revolutionary France, such as equality under the law, while maintaining what was best about Prussian culture and autonomy. In the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel introduced a similar concept that has been hugely influential in the history of philosophy, the “Master-Slave Dialectic.”

Some argue that the “Master-Slave (or Master-Servant) Dialectic” is just a metaphor for the development of self-consciousness. Yet historians have wondered whether the dramatic events in Haiti, particularly the slave rebellions that defeated an emperor in 1802-1804, had an impact on Hegel’s formulation of this dialectic. Susan Buck-Morss has made the argument that events in Haiti must have had a huge impact on Hegel, because Hegel was an avid reader of Minerva, a German journal of literature and history, at the time when he wrote The Phenomenoloy of Spirit, and Minerva extensively

covered events in Haiti. Many historians were skeptical of Buck-Morss’ argument, because Hegel never mentioned Haiti specifically in his writing. Of course, there is an obvious explanation for this: Hegel did not want to run afoul of either the Prussian, or Napoleonic censors (one could never be sure who would rule Central Europe in those years!), and did not want to be known as proponent of revolutionary violence. Still, I wanted to read the sources for myself, and recent technological innovations make doing so easier than ever! Click here to find out how!