With what must the philosophy of world history begin? On the racial basis of Hegel's eurocentrism

T he standard account of Hegel's position on the beginning of history faithfully records his claim that world history begins in Asia and ends in Europe. 1 Meanwhile, Africa is explicitly excluded from history altogether, 2 and one finds on closer inspection that many other parts of the world, including parts of Asia, have also been dismissed. The aim of this paper is to explore Hegel's account of the beginning of world history so as to show not only that Hegel's Eurocentrism is more complicated than is often recognized, but also that it is structured by Hegel's understanding of race. The role Hegel gives to a people or Volk has often attracted attention, especially on the part of his critics, but the role played by his notion of race in the context of his Philosophy of History has rarely been investigated. It is not difficult to criticize Hegel's Philosophy of History for its treatment of non-Western cultures, but such criticisms are liable to fall prey to anachronism when they lack what scientists call a control, which would show that Hegel had other options before him. In the case of Kant's Eurocentrism the control is provided by Herder, who criticized the former's advocacy of the idea of race and suspected the consequences for non-Europeans of the idea of a single development of history of the kind Kant proposed. For Hegel's dismissal of Indian philosophy one might appeal to a