Hegel excluded Africa entirely from world history
Evidence
Where Africans were concerned, Hegel (2001, p.109) suspended the category of universality of reason, saying, “[with reference to Africans], we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas – the category of universality”. Consequently, Hegel (2001, pp.110–111) characterized Africans as people whose “consciousness has not yet attained to the realization of any substantial objective existence – as for example, God or law”. This means that, for Hegel, Africans had not yet reached the level of consciousness necessary for knowing God. Part of the explanation for this was that, for Hegel (2001, p.111), Africans still “[exhibit] the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state”. As such, Hegel calls on his fellow Europeans to “lay aside all thought of reverence and morality” (2001, p.111) among Africans and to understand that religion among Africans was a form of “sorcery”, “fetishism” or “magic” (2001, pp.111–112). In short, for Hegel, Africans did not have reason, the engine of creativity, and for that reason it was impossible for them to know God or to have a culture, history or morality. — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 126 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Hegel declared Africans incapable of universalist consciousness and therefore naturally enslaved; Hegel denied Africans the universal category of reason and knowledge of God — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 126; African thought has no concept of history ending or reaching a climax
Related
- Hegel declared Africans incapable of universalist consciousness and therefore naturally enslaved (similarity 0.94)
- Hegel denied Africans the universal category of reason and knowledge of God (similarity 0.94)
- Hegel’s Philosophy of History denied Africans any harmonious humanity (similarity 0.85)
- Western Africanist scholarship inherited a Hegelian grid of interpretation that denied African rationality (similarity 0.85)
- Hegel’s philosophy constructed Africa as historyless to justify European conquest (similarity 0.85)
- Hegelian thought framed Africa as outside history to justify colonial supremacy. (similarity 0.82)
- Western scholarship’s Hegelian grid cast Africa as manufactured barbarism (similarity 0.82)
- Africa cannot claim pure history because the West shaped it (similarity 0.80)
- Tempels’ Kiluba-based reading of Africa grounds Dokman’s Bumuntu Paradigm against Hegel’s Eurocentric grid. (similarity 0.80)
- The Hamitic curse mythology legitimized racial hierarchy in European thought (similarity 0.79)
- African philosophy reduces to the relation between man, world and God (similarity 0.79)
- In African thinking the given world resists theorizing and debate (similarity 0.78)
- Tempels remained indebted to European thinkers like Hegel and Levy-Bruhl despite his goals (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Hegel denied Africans the universal category of reason and knowledge of God
#corroborates(0.85) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 126 - African thought has no concept of history ending or reaching a climax
#expands(0.60)