Hegel, writing in 1806, insisted that ‘own epoch is a time of birth and a transition to a new period’. But is his epoch our epoch? Or are we now in the ‘new period’ he refers to? And what in any case does it mean to speak of ‘our epoch’? How do we define what is ‘contemporary’?
In this talk I will consider what Hegel has to say or would say about these questions. In the process I hope to show why Hegel is still an essential philosopher for thinking about our place in historical time.