Spiritual View of History (Progressive View of History)
During the Renaissance, theological views of history gradually faded away, and in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a new kind of view of history appeared. According to this new view, it was the human being, rather than God’s providence, that drove history. This view held that history was progressing in a linear fashion, and necessarily, according to the progress of the human spirit. This view of history is called the “spiritual view of history,” or the “progressive view of history.”
Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) recognized God’s providence in history, but he considered that the secular world was formed by human beings, and asserted that history should not be explained only by God’s will alone. In his understanding of history, God was relegated to the background, and human beings were brought to the fore. 13
Voltaire (1694-1778) excluded God’s power working upon history. He asserted that history is driven not by God but rather by those people with higher education, those who had mastered science, namely, enlightened people.
Marquis de Condorcet (1743-94) asserted that, if human reason were awakened, history would progress with harmony between science and ethics.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) said that the purpose of history is to develop all noble human capacities in an international society consisting of a league of nations. He advocated seeing a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view.
The romanticist philosopher J. G. Herder (1744-1803) asserted that the development of human nature is the goal of history.
Hegel (1770-1831) understood history as the process of the “self-realization of the spirit,” or the “self-realization of the Idea.” According to his view, reason rules the world, and world history progresses rationally. The reason that rules the world is called the “world spirit.” He held that reason manipulates human beings, and called this the “trick by reason.” Hegel’s view of history is called a “spiritual view of history,” or the “idealistic view of history.”
He believed that a rational state, where the Idea of freedom would be realized, was to come into being in Prussia; in reality, however, that did not take place. Instead, anti-rational social problems such as exploitation and human alienation became even more serious. Thus, Marx’s historical materialism appeared in part as a revolt against Hegel’s philosophy of history.