역사철학에 있어서 보편과 개별의 변증법에 관한 연구 - 헤겔의 역사철학과 이에 대한 아도르노의 비판을 중심으로 -

Abstract

The general tendency of thinkers in modern philosophy of history is towards the negation of historical metaphysics. Especially thinkers who deeply meditate on many terrible and awful historical events happened in the 20th century display this tendency much more strongly. They not only regard optimistic conclusions drew from history by Hegel and their helplessness in reality as the main target of criticism, but also point out they are the cause that Hegel’s universal metaphysics can rationalize every suffering and sacrifice of individuals in the history. Adorno is a typical philosopher who criticizes Hegel’s philosophy of history from that point of view. Hegel presents the universal world history which is based on the realization of the inevitable freedom and the self-perfection of the world Reason, and he calls it the Absolute Truth. But Adorno thinks that this conclusion of Hegel’s philosophy of history is not true and calls it the mere forced reconciliation based on the universal and absolute identity. Above all, he states that Hegel forms the world history as an instrument to make the individual be dissolved in the universal and thus this kind of logic makes a mistake when justifying individual’s sufferings and sacrifices based on the universal. This paper has the purpose of comparing Hegel’s dialectics of the universal and the individual with Adorno’s negative dialectics and then searching for the intentions of their philosophy of history. That means the author wants to compare the dialectics of two figures in philosophy of history: Hegel’s dialectics in which the individual is dissolved and transmitted by the universal, the world history is completed and the complete community is produced, and the other is Adorno’s dialectics in which the universal and the individual – from a strained relationship – achieve the harmony and the identity and non-identity accomplish the free dialectical relation. For this purpose, at first the author searches for Hegel’s philosophy of history which is composed of the dialectical relations between the notions of world reason and freedom, the necessity and the universal, and second, This paper investigates Adorno’s philosophy of history in which Adorno criticizes Hegel’s system and metaphysics of the philosophy of history, pointing out that his conclusions in this philosophy are false and mistakes and stating that his philosophy of history is the cause for the fact that in the 20th century subjects and individuals, under the influence of the historical universality, have suffered much oppression and sacrifice. Third, as the conclusion, This paper considers whether the universal history and the historical metaphysics – as a characteristic and tradition of the philosophy of history – still have validity despite all above criticism.