The Completion of Hegel's Project - World Philosophy as Task
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Twentieth-century African philosophy has not only refuted Hegel’s Eurocentric prejudices—it has carried forward and radicalized his actual project. Hegel’s vision was a philosophy encompassing all shapes of spirit and leading to self-knowledge. This vision was blocked by his limited empirical knowledge and the prejudices of his time. African philosophy has broken through this blockage.[1]
Fanon showed that the master-slave dialectic must be thought more radically: where recognition is systematically denied, revolutionary rupture is necessary. Senghor demonstrated that cultural identity is dialectical: tradition and modernity, particularity and universality interpenetrate one another. Césaire proved that dialectics is an instrument of liberation: it exposes colonial contradictions and drives toward their overcoming.
The philosophy debate has shown that Africa is not “philosophy-less” but possesses diverse philosophical traditions. These traditions—from ancient Egyptian wisdom through Islamic philosophy to contemporary systems—are not “preliminary stages” of European philosophy but independent contributions to world thought.[2]
The irony is evident: it is precisely through the critique of Hegel that his project is realized. Dialectics, consistently applied, overcomes Eurocentrism. The Universal-Particular-Individual structure shows that all cultures are necessary particularizations of universal reason. Sublation does not mean the destruction of non-European traditions but their integration into a richer world philosophy.[3]
Hegel’s claim that Africa is “no part of the historical world” is not only empirically false—it is dialectically self-refuting. For the history of the twentieth century shows: without Africa, world history is incomplete. African liberation movements have transformed the global order. African philosophy has enriched world thought. Africa is not on the margin but an active participant in the philosophical discussion of the world.[4]
[1]: See in detail Chapter 8.7 of this volume. Fackenheim developed his “open dialectic” in To Mend the World: Foundations of Future Jewish Thought (1982); Yovel his critique in Dark Riddle: Hegel, Nietzsche and the Jews (1998). [2]: This misreading is still found among contemporary critics. See, for example, the discussion in Shlomo Avineri: Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (Cambridge 1972), pp. 238–240, who rejects this interpretation. [3]: Hegel: Science of Logic, Werke 5, pp. 113–114. The threefold meaning is developed explicitly in the remark on the concept of “sublation” [Aufheben]. [4]: Fackenheim: To Mend the World, pp. 89–91. He shows that Hegel does not claim an automatic reason in history but emphasizes human responsibility. [5]: Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Werke 7, p. 28 (Preface). [6]: Domenico Losurdo: Il revisionismo storico (1996), German: Die Gemeinschaft, der Tod, das Abendland. Heidegger und die Kriegsideologie (1995). More extensively in his later work Kampf um die Geschichte (2012). [7]: On Hegel’s cultural studies, see Reinhard Schulze: “Hegels Beschäftigung mit dem Orient,” in: Hegel-Jahrbuch 1995, pp. 147–166. [8]: For an overview of the sources used by Hegel, see Walter Jaeschke: “Hegels Philosophie der Religion und die Erforschung der Religionsgeschichte,” in: Hegel-Studien 28 (1993), pp. 233–251. [9]: Peter-Anton von Arnim: “Hegel contre le racisme. Invitation à lire Hegel dans ses textes” (2004), online: https://fr.hegel.net/f311112-contre_le_racisme.htm. This important text systematically demonstrates Hegel’s anti-racist positions. [10]: Hegel: Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences §393 addition, quoted after von Arnim, op. cit. [11]: Ibid. Hegel thus positions himself against the contemporary debate between monogenists and polygenists, which von Arnim contextualizes in detail. [12]: Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right §57 remark, Werke 7, p. 123. [13]: See in particular Hegel’s critique of colonialism in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Werke 12, pp. 113–114, where he calls colonial exploitation “unreasonable.” [14]: On the problem of colonial sources, see V.Y. Mudimbe: The Invention of Africa (1988), pp. 1–23, which shows how “Africa” was invented as an epistemological construct through colonial discourses. [15]: On the colonial appropriation of Hegel, see Sybille Eichstaedt: “Hegel und Afrika - Das dunkle Kapitel,” in: Hegel-Studien 32 (1997), pp. 17–44. [16]: Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Werke 12, p. 129. The context shows that Hegel is speaking of the state of historical research in his time, not of an essential property. [17]: On the critique of this hierarchical reading, see Robert Bernasconi: “Hegel at the Court of the Ashanti,” in Stuart Barnett (ed.): Hegel after Derrida (1998), pp. 41–63. [18]: See the detailed discussion in Chapter 8.7 of this volume as well as the systematic presentation in Volume 1, Chapter 27. [19]: Von Arnim, op. cit., demonstrates this especially through Hegel’s treatment of slavery, which he calls “absolute wrong” (Philosophy of Right §57). [20]: On the Universal-Particular-Individual structure, see the detailed presentation in Volume 1, Chapter 11: “The Concept as Living Self-Determination.” [21]: This interpretation corresponds to Hegel’s own presentation in the Encyclopedia §§163–165, where he shows that the universal is realized only through its particularizations. [22]: Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right, §§272–320. The various forms of the state are different realizations of the idea of the state. [23]: On the recognition of non-European philosophies, see Heinz Kimmerle: Philosophie in Afrika - afrikanische Philosophie (1991); Dismas Masolo: African Philosophy in Search of Identity (1994). [24]: Examples of such productive syntheses can be found in philosophers such as Kwame Gyekye, Kwasi Wiredu, Mogobe Ramose, and others who productively combine African and European philosophy. [25]: This self-application of dialectics to Eurocentrism appears programmatically in Enrique Dussel: Philosophy of Liberation (1985), which turns Hegel’s method against Hegel’s own Eurocentric application of it. [26]: Ibid., pp. 19–20. [27]: Césaire makes this distinction explicit in his later essay “Culture et colonisation” (1956), where he defends “universal dialectics.” [28]: On the dialectical structure of the Cahier, see A. James Arnold: Modernism and Negritude: The Poetry and Poetics of Aimé Césaire (1981). [29]: Césaire: Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (1947), p. 47. “My négritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day / my négritude is not a film of dead water on the dead eye of the earth / my négritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral.” [30]: On the Hegelian structure in Césaire, see Gregson Davis: Aimé Césaire (1997), ch. 6: “The Dialectics of Negritude.” [31]: On the debate, see D.A. Masolo: African Philosophy in Search of Identity (1994); Barry Hallen: A Short History of African Philosophy (2002). [32]: Placide Tempels: La Philosophie bantoue (1945). Critical of this: Paulin Hountondji: Sur la “philosophie africaine” (1977). [33]: Paulin Hountondji: African Philosophy: Myth and Reality (1983), p. 33. [34]: Tsenay Serequeberhan: The Hermeneutics of African Philosophy (1994). His uncritical reception of Heidegger is problematic. [35]: H. Odera Oruka: Sage Philosophy: Indigenous Thinkers and Modern Debate on African Philosophy (1990). [36]: On the productive appropriation of Hegel, see Olufemi Taiwo: “Exorcising Hegel’s Ghost: Africa’s Challenge to Philosophy,” in: African Studies Quarterly 1:4 (1998). [37]: Cheikh Anta Diop: Civilisation ou barbarie (1981), pp. 389–390. He even places Hegel within an “Afro-Egyptian” tradition. [38]: On the philosophical significance of Diop, see Théophile Obenga: Cheikh Anta Diop, Volney et le Sphinx (1996). [39]: V.Y. Mudimbe: The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (1988). [40]: Mudimbe: The Idea of Africa (1994), where he analyzes the dialectical appropriation. [41]: Kwasi Wiredu: Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy (1995). [42]: Mogobe B. Ramose: African Philosophy through Ubuntu (1999). [43]: This thesis is developed at length by Lucius Outlaw: On Race and Philosophy (1996), ch. 8: “Africa, African Americans, and Hegel.” [44]: On the diversity of African philosophy, see Kwame Anthony Appiah: In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (1992). [45]: This vision is developed programmatically by Heinz Kimmerle: Interkulturelle Philosophie zur Einführung (2002). [46]: On the necessity of intercultural philosophy, see Ram Adhar Mall: Intercultural Philosophy (2000). [47]: On African contributions to world philosophy, see Bruce B. Janz: Philosophy in an African Place (2009). [48]: On the global influence of African philosophy, see Achille Mbembe: Critique of Black Reason (2017). [49]: This vision is shared by thinkers as different as Kwame Anthony Appiah: Cosmopolitanism (2006) and Achille Mbembe: Out of the Dark Night (2021). [50]: Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Preface, Werke 7, p. 24.
See Daniel A. Bell: East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in Asia (2000) for a nuanced discussion. ↩︎
On the critique of romanticization see Meera Nanda: Prophets Facing Backward: Postmodern Critiques of Science and Hindu Nationalism (2003). ↩︎
This position is held by Tu Wei-ming: Confucian Thought: Selfhood as Creative Transformation (1985). ↩︎
On the diversity of world philosophy see Jay Garfield & William Edelglass (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (2011). ↩︎