Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

1770-1831

Idealist philosopher

Education and Career. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is often called the last great German Idealist philosopher; that is, his philosophy is based on the idea that underlying all historical experience is an abstract spirit transcending material forms. Born into an upper-middle-class Stuttgart family, Hegel began preparing for the Lutheran ministry at an early age. He studied theology at the University of Tubingen (1788-1793), where his friends included philosopher Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) and poet Friedrich Holderlin (1770-1843). During his student years, he became acquainted with and influenced by the writings of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). In time, however, Hegel became dissatisfied not only with Kant but with the field of theology, preferring instead to study not religion but the whole of reality. After leaving Tubingen, Hegel worked as a tutor in Bern and Frankfurt until 1799, when an inheritance from his father gave him the financial freedom to begin his academic career. He became an unsalaried lecturer (who was paid directly by his students) at the University of Jena, where he became a salaried associate professor of philosophy by 1805. In 1808 he became rector and philosophy professor at a secondary school in Nuremberg, where he remained until 1816, when he accepted the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. Two years later, he left Heidelberg to assume the chair of philosophy at the prestigious University of Berlin, where he taught until his death in 1831. Hegel’s major publications include Die Phanomenologie des Geistes (1807; Phenomenology of Spirit), Wissenschaft der Logik (1812-1816; The Science of Logic), Grundlinien der Philosophic des Rechts (1820; Philosophy of Right), and his posthumously published Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Religion (1832; Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion) and Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie (1833-1836; Lectures on the History of Philosophy).

Hegelian Thought. Hegel’s objective was to formulate a new way of thinking that would allow one to view the totality of reality, the human, the natural, and the divine. Like Kant, Hegel rejected the mechanistic, amoral universe of Enlightenment thinkers, insisting instead that a benevolent, impersonal God created the universe and controls it. Although Hegel was convinced that Christianity was the “absolute religion,” he insisted that the divine was revealed not only at the individual level through the Incarnation in Jesus Christ but also throughout the course of world history. Unlike Kant, who divided the world into what could be known through reason and what could not, Hegel insisted that human reason can understand reality and, moreover, that reason and reality were one. As Hegel asserted, “What is rational exists, and what exists is rational.” By this thinking, the events of history are not accidents; when properly understood, they are manifestations of the universal divine idea. While human conditions continuously change, Hegel believed, each change moves the world closer to the universal goal of history: the achievement of human freedom. Thus, history is the story of the progress of humanity toward true freedom.

The Dialectic Method. Hegel explained the ongoing, progressive path of history through his “law of the Dialectic.” According to Hegel, every age is governed by a dominant idea, which he labels the spirit or the “thesis” of the age. In time, this thesis is challenged by a new concept, its “antithesis,” which is incompatible with the “thesis.” To resolve the conflict between the “thesis” and the “antithesis,” a blending of opposites occurs, thereby producing a higher “synthesis,” which becomes the new dominant idea, or thesis, of the next age. History consists of the constant flow of ideas and their opposites, which when reconciled, reach purer forms. The new synthesis does not come without strife, but conflicts commonly regarded as tragedies do not demonstrate the triumph of evil. They are necessary steps forward toward the universal goal, human freedom. To Hegel, however, the highest form of freedom was not the absence of self-restraint, for the true ethical unit was not the isolated individual but the state in which the individual lives. Consequently, the movement of history is not toward individual freedom but toward the freedom of the community as a whole., Therefore, Hegel’s philosophy exalts the state because only through it can humankind find meaning and be truly free.

The Hegelian Legacy. Hegel’s assertions have attracted the attention of many social thinkers. Following his death, his adherents became divided into left-wing and right-wing factions. On the left, Karl Marx (1818-1883) modified Hegel’s theory of the dialectic to explain his views on the historical cycle of class wars and to argue for the historical movement of civilization from primitive communism, to slavery, to feudalism, to capitalism, and ultimately to advanced communism. Thinkers on the right expanded Hegel’s reverential ideas about the state to justify nationalistic notions of blind obedience to government authorities. Still others, including Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the founder of Existentialism, reacted to the popularity of Hegel’s system by condemning the arrogance of viewing human actions as the unfolding of God’s plan for humanity. Hegel’s provocative insights significantly shaped the direction of modern thought among not only philosophers but also historians, theologians, sociologists, and political theorists.