A novel reading of Hegel that presents a historically founded account of his justification that philosophy has a history

Drawing on the work of major philosophers in 18th and 19th-century German idealism, Thomas Raysmith critically examines G. W. F. Hegel’s justification that philosophy has a history. Contrary to Kant’s claims, Hegel not only considered philosophy as a discipline with its own history, but also elaborated a ‘logical structure’ associated with the fundamental nature of thought itself, permitting a history of philosophy. Calling this structure ‘the structure of exemplarity’, Raysmith presents it as a dynamic reciprocity between universality, particularity and singularity. He provides a historical reconstruction of the shifting understanding of the fundamental nature of human thought from Kant, through J. G. Fichte and F. W. J. Schelling, to Hegel’s mature logic. He offers a systematic analysis based on close, critical readings of Hegel’s work, specifically his Science of Logic. Offering a compelling and novel reading of Hegel’s thought, Hegel and the Problem of the History of Philosophy is a groundbreaking work for students and scholars of German idealism and the history of philosophy more broadly.