Hegel's philosophy of history and politics belong together, and form the sphere of what he calls ‘objective spirit’. In the system, this comes after subjective and before absolute spirit. Just as we saw that the underlying rational necessity expresses itself in the general structures of the natural world, so it expresses itself even more in the phenomena of the human world. These phenomena, in so far as they have to do with the existence of individual consciousness, are the matter of the sphere of subjective spirit, and in the Encyclopaedia this recapitulates and takes over some of the ground covered in the PhG. But beyond this realm is the whole domain of the public, social, political reality in history which must now be reclaimed for the Concept.

This domain is discussed in the Encyclopaedia §§468–535, and also in the famous cycle of lectures on the philosophy of history, published after Hegel's death from his notes. Chapter VI of the PhG is a summary version of the philosophy of history. Finally, it includes Hegel's work of 1821, the Philosophy of Right, which is taken as the major mature statement of his political philosophy. Certain works of the early 1800s are also useful here, and will be referred to below from time to time.

Hegel's philosophy of history and politics has to be seen in three related frameworks.