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Daniel James @schlawinerkreis.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

1/ I'm excited to share that Franz Knappik’s and my Cambridge Element on Hegel and Colonialism is finally out – open access below! We trace how Hegel defends European colonial rule, including transatlantic slavery, and how that defence runs through his entire philosophical system. Thread below ⬇️

cambridge.org

Hegel and Colonialism

Cambridge Core - Classical Philosophy - Hegel and Colonialism

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John Mariolas @sweetchilly.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

So, Hegel was pro-slavery, pro-colonialism and you are still reading him?

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Dr Zara Bain @zaranosaur.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

congratulations! this looks to be such an important volume

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Daniel James @schlawinerkreis.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

2/ Our central claim: Across his system, Hegel builds an account of colonialism as racial domination, linking world history, freedom, property, and statehood. It’s grounded in the four-stages theory and what he calls the absolute right of the Idea, vindicating colonialism in the name of liberty.

A colour lithograph published as a supplement to The Graphic for the Indian and Colonial Exhibition (24 July 1886), showing the British Empire in pink and centred on Greenwich. Britannia sits enthroned above the globe, framed by banners reading Freedom, Fraternity, and Federation. Around the border, allegorical figures represent the empire’s peoples: Indigenous hunters and labourers at the margins, traders, soldiers, and settlers nearer the imperial core. Insets list trade, population, and area statistics, fusing allegory with empirical data. Animals and crops – elephants and tigers for India, kangaroos and sheep for Australia – mark each region by its resources and stage of economic life (Driver 2010).

Crane’s composition depicts a hierarchy of civilisation. Britannia embodies imperial authority, while her subjects appear as differentiated types of labour and culture. The blend of commercial data and moral imagery turns empire into a story of progress, where freedom, property, and self-government are equated with discipline and productivity. The bent “Asian porter” and Atlas labelled Human Labour expose the burden that sustains this freedom (Driver 2010).

The map’s spatial order mirrors the stadial logic of Scottish four-stages anthropology that also shapes Hegel’s philosophy of world history. Hunters, pastoralists, agriculturalists, and commercial peoples occupy successive ranks in a teleology culminating in Europe as bearer of universal freedom. The banners of Freedom and Federation vindicate colonial domination, echoing Hegel’s historical theodicy in which the “absolute right of the Idea” is realised through European expansion (Driver 2010).

Reference

Felix Driver, “In Search of the Imperial Map: Walter Crane and the Image of Empire,” History Workshop Journal 69 (2010): 146–157.

A black-and-white engraving depicting Hegel lecturing at the University of Berlin. He stands before rows of students, gesturing with one hand while holding a manuscript in the other. His face is animated, suggesting the intensity of oral exposition. The students below him sit closely packed, taking notes or gazing upward toward the lectern, where the philosopher appears framed by a dark wooden pulpit and a high window that lets in a diffuse light.

The scene evokes, amongst others, Hegel’s lectures on the Philosophy of History in the winter term of 1822–1823, when he proclaimed that Europe represents the culmination of world history. In these lectures, Hegel argued that the principle of freedom had been fully realised in modern Christian Europe and that what lay outside it was “intrinsically overcome.” “For Europeans,” he declared, “the world is round” – the globe itself already encompassed by Europe’s spiritual and political dominion.

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Kai Koddenbrock @kaikodden.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Dear Daniel, could I please invite you to present the book in Bielefeld in the coming months?

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Philosopher Jersey Flight @jerseyflight.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

This is some of the most rigorous scholarship I’ve ever seen. Absolutely impressive. Recently finishing Hegel’s Lectures on World History, it became clear that his system is suited to a Christian Nationalism. His teleology lays the grounds for authoritarianism.

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Colin Danby @cdanby.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

It's striking, 18th and 19th century, how closely the idea of one's own freedom is tied to ruling others. Which I suppose is rather Hegelian: how do I know I am free, because these people aren't. There's also the household as an internal micro-colony.

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nassb.bsky.social @nassb.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Thank for sharing and open-sourcing you work🥰🙏🏽

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