Hegel. L histoire du monde et la conquête des mers

This article aims to discuss how Hegel dealt with the seas in his work. It explains that the young Hegel stressed the dangerous aspects of the seas by discussing the biblical Flood, but in his mature thought, in the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, he considered the conquest of the seas as a fundamental impulse for world history and for progress toward freedom. This conquest did not mean that Hegel justified mastery and domination over nature. On the contrary, he thought that the relation to the seas was a model for a new and harmonious alliance between men and their environment.