It is widely known that Hegel is a proponent and defender of the market economy. But why exactly does Hegel think that the market economy is superior to other economic systems? In this paper, I argue that Hegel's answer to this question has not been sufficiently understood. Commentators, or so I want to claim, have only identified one part of Hegel's argument—but have left out the most original and surprising dimension of his view: namely, Hegel's conviction that we should embrace the market economy for its educational impact. Indeed, Hegel thinks that the market, by creating a sphere of life apart from traditional norms and expectations, teaches us something about ourselves, about others, and about the world we inhabit together—something that we could not learn anywhere else, but that we inevitably need to live well as individuals.

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In this paper, I argue that Kant’s philosophy of history underwent a significant change be- tween his 1784 Idea for a Universal History and his 1790 Third Critique. My proposal is that in between these two texts Kant decisively revised his conception of the sources of historical, i. e. cultural and political, progress: In 1784, he conceived of historical progress as primarily accomplished through social antagonism among human beings, whereas beginning in 1790, he elevates ethical cooperation into a second, significant source of progress. Between 1784 and the 1790s, in other words, Kant re-conceived the collaboration between moral agents as a driving force of history and of the progressing cultivation of humankind. In this paper I offer evidence for this change and suggest reasons why it might have occurred.

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