Editing Philosophy of history (section)

=== Teleological approaches ===
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Early teleological approaches to history can be found in [[theodicies]], which attempted to reconcile the [[problem of evil]] with the existence of God—providing a global explanation of history with belief in a progressive directionality organized by a superior power, leading to an [[eschatological]] end, such as a [[Messianic Age]] or [[Apocalypse]]. However, this transcendent teleological approach can be thought as [[immanent]] to human history itself. [[Augustine of Hippo]], [[Thomas Aquinas]], [[Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet]], in his 1679 ''Discourse On Universal History'', and [[Gottfried Leibniz]], who coined the term, formulated such philosophical theodicies. Leibniz based his explanation on the [[principle of sufficient reason]], which states that anything that happens, does happen for a specific reason. Thus, if one adopts God's perspective, seemingly evil events in fact only take place in the larger [[divine plan]]. In this way theodicies explained the necessity of evil as a relative element that forms part of a larger plan of history. However, Leibniz's principles were not a gesture of [[fatalism]]. Confronted with the antique [[problem of future contingents]], Leibniz developed the theory of [[compossible worlds]], distinguishing two types of necessity, in response to the problem of [[determinism]].

[[G. W. F. Hegel]] may represent the epitome of teleological philosophy of history.<ref name=":0" /> Hegel's teleology was taken up by [[Francis Fukuyama]] in his ''[[The End of History and the Last Man]]''. Thinkers such as [[Nietzsche]], [[Michel Foucault]], [[Louis Althusser|Althusser]], or [[Deleuze]] deny any teleological sense to history, claiming that it is best characterized by discontinuities, ruptures, and various time-scales,{{citation needed|date=November 2019}} which the [[Annales School]] claimed to have demonstrated.

Schools of thought influenced by Hegel also see history as progressive, but they see progress as the outcome of a [[dialectic]] in which factors working in opposite directions are over time reconciled. History was best seen as directed by a {{lang|de|[[Zeitgeist]]}}, and traces of the {{lang|de|Zeitgeist}} could be seen by looking backward. Hegel believed that history was moving man toward [[civilization]], and some also claim he thought that the [[Prussia]]n state incarnated the ''[[end of history]]''. In his ''Lessons on the History of Philosophy'', he explains that each epochal philosophy is in a way the whole of philosophy; it is not a subdivision of the Whole but this Whole itself apprehended in a specific modality.