THE WORD PHILOSOPHY is given different meanings, dependent upon the context of its use. Karl Popper claimed that we are all philosophers in the sense that we all have a body of working principles and beliefs, more or less consistently and coherently held together, by which we live our lives. Here the word is used to refer to the exploration of the general principles of History and its study. What this meaning implies is a consideration of the assumptions that lie behind the study of History and/or that underlie history. In this sense the philosophy of History falls into two parts: the critical philosophy of History (the theme of the next chapter) and the speculative philosophy of History, which is the content of this chapter. Those who have contributed to the speculative philosophy of History, who look below the surface of events and changes, have sought to identify the purpose, or meaning, or the underlying pattern, of history.

Augustine, a convert to Christianity, Bishop of Hippo (North Africa) from 396, completed the 22 books of The City of God by 426. Writing within the contemporary tradition, in which the work of God was seen in history, Augustine wrote about Rome, its History and fall and the reasons for Rome’s defeat. From that beginning he traced the History of religious thought, pagan and Christian, the creation of the world and the place of Christ in history and, latterly, the nature of man and the purpose of life. What distinguishes his work, and makes it worthy of consideration today, is the book’s reflection of the scholarship and intellectual power of Augustine and the coherence and thoroughness of his account.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), best known for his massive contribution to epistemology (the theory of knowledge), approached history from the direction of moral philosophy and he made no pretence to be well informed of the details of History. He saw history made sense as a progression toward a better state of affairs. This progression is not evident if individual lives are considered, at which level history seems incoherent and chaotic, but a deeper purpose may be seen if the History of Man is viewed over centuries. This purpose is the consequence of the nature of Man and Man’s potentialities. Mankind wishes to act only for selfish needs, answerable only to the individual’s will, but this leads to separateness from others: on the other hand Man needs to live with others in order to express and develop inherent capacities. This wish for self fulfilment leads Man to develop the arts of life in society. Further, societies and states, because of conflicts between them, are drawn towards cohabiting in a confederation of nations and to an acceptance of an authority over all its members.

Herder’s philosophy of history is found in his Ideas for a Philosophical History of Mankind (1781), a huge work in which he outlines astronomy, geomorphology, plant and animal life and the special characteristics of the human species, as well as the influence of geography and climate on history. Herder saw history as the interplay of two kinds of forces: the external forces, represented by society, and internal forces, the spirit of the people in which societies are gathered. Herder’s philosophy emphasised, first, that events should not be seen as lawless but the result of circumstances in which they took place, including the internal forces. In that way Herder viewed History as he viewed natural science. Second, he claimed, history should be seen to have a purpose, and that purpose was to be found within Man’s potentialities, the attainment of humanity, which would be achieved when Man becomes truly human.

Hegel (1770-1831) became professor of History in Berlin in 1818 and his philosophy of history was summarised in Lectures on the Philosophy of History, published posthumously in 1837. In these lectures he described the pattern of history, which he saw as a manifestation of spirit which developed by an inner logic, the dialectic progression. In this, opposing demands (thesis and antithesis) are resolved by a compromise (synthesis).

Below the confusion of events, and central to history, was the idea of freedom and its increasing embodiment in institutions. In ancient societies only one, the despot, was free; in Greece and Rome some, the citizens, were free: but in the constitutional monarchies of Hegel’s day there was the institutional possibility of all being free.

Since the latter years of the nineteenth century the ideas of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) have had an immense influence on historical scholarship and his ideas command attention even after the collapse of the USSR, whose founders were profoundly influenced by Marx. Based on his interest in industrial History and politics, which he shared with his friend and collaborator Friedrich Engels, Marx developed a theory of History which was most fully worked out in German Ideology but which is in outline in Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published in 1848. No student can fail to be stimulated by this short work which runs to only 16 sides of A4.

Fundamental to Marx’s thought is his notion of dialectical materialism. By materialism Marx claimed that the means of production (economics) was the dominant influence in History, including its politics, society and culture, and the idea of the dialectic which Marx took from Hegel (page 68). There are, within any society, claimed Marx, both economic structures and political structures. The economic structures, the means of production, had been, in broad terms, the nomadic, the feudal and, latterly, the capitalist. Marx’s particular claim was that economic change provided the dynamic of history because the owners of the means of production gain command of the state and control of its laws and government. As the feudal means of production gives way to the capitalist (Marx wrote when some states were capitalist, others were not) and new owners of the means of production emerge, so the old class, the word used by Marx to describe those with a common relationship to the means of production, who had control of the state, would be displaced by the new class, the capitalist owners of the new means of production.

From this starting point, Marx predicted the future. Competition was at the centre of the capitalist means of production, said Marx. Competition would both drive the less successful businesses into bankruptcy but those who did not fail would have to reduce wages and harshen working conditions to succeed in the competitive environment. It was in this situation, said Marx, that the workers, in desperation, would revolt, take control of the state and reform the organisation of production and the ownership of property. It is less clear from Marx’s writings where Mankind would progress after ‘the revolution’, through the dialectic, thereafter.

Spengler (1880-1936), formerly a schoolmaster, published the two volumes of his The Decline of the West in 1918 and 1922 and immediately gained wide notoriety. Spengler saw the history of the world as eight discreet cultures which included the Egyptians, Indians and, more latterly, the Appollinian (Greece and Rome), Magian (mostly Islam) and the culture of the West - this latter culture spanned the last millennium. Cultures had a necessary pattern of growth, maturity and decay and each had a unique orientation which is expressed in all aspects of life, political, economic or cultural. Influenced by Nietzsche, Spengler claimed a culture declined to become mere civilisation in its phase of decay. In the case of the West, this stage would be characterised by the all-consuming world city, materialism, tyranny and warfare, and this, wrote Spengler, had begun. Spengler’s Decline may entertain through its boldness and dogmatism but gains little respect as a contribution to philosophy of history.