For Hegel (1770-1831) the human spirit is immersed in the world – it has no home elsewhere – and emerges historically through dialectical struggle which, he argues, culminates in political freedom, and is expressed progressively through the creation of art, religion and philosophy.
His tragic image of history as a ‘slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples has been sacrificed’ is compensated perhaps by the transformative processes of history and the anticipation that some ultimate purpose can be discerned in the historical unfolding of philosophy itself. This purpose can be identified in the development over time and in diverse epochs and civilisations of human autonomy and self-knowledge.