When Hitchens Dabbles in Hegel

"Christopher Hitchens, in his review of “Nocturnes,” by Kazuo Ishiguro (Oct. 4), misconstrues the passage he cites from Hegel about the owl of Minerva flying only with the falling of the dusk. He takes this to mean that an era cannot be judged “until it has entered its closing phase.” Hegel’s claim, however, bestows no special importance on a closing phase; it refers instead to the end of an era, which is confirmed as such by the appearance of philosophical critique and appraisal that involves making explicit the ideas and beliefs that drove that era but could not be fully articulated until it was over. Consider Hegel’s passage: “When philosophy paints its gray in gray, then has a form of life grown old. Philosophy cannot rejuvenate it, but only under­stand it. The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk.” He illustrated his point by the passage from the Enlightenment to the era of Romanticism; the assumptions, virtues and limitations of the Age of Reason could be made clear by its Romantic critics only after it came to an end. There is no endorsement of the magic of the twilight or the evening in Hegel’s image of the owl. In fact, one can take the figure quite literally — the dusk comes only after the sun has set.
JOHN E. SMITH"