Philosophy › The 19th century
G. W. F. Hegel
1770–1831· Philosopher· Reality, mind & God
Well documentedSolid records, texts or physical evidence.
German philosopher who saw all reality as reason unfolding through history, each stage driven forward by its own contradictions.
See it on the Philosophy map →The idea
The idea: history is the story of Spirit (Geist), humanity's shared mind, coming to know itself and become free. Freedom grew, he said, from one person free (the ancient despot), to some (Greek and Roman citizens), to all. 'What is rational is actual, and what is actual is rational.' Building on Kant, Fichte and Schelling, he taught at Jena, Heidelberg and, from 1818 until his death, Berlin. Main objection: his prose is notoriously obscure, and Karl Popper said his system glorified state power.
Why it matters
Marx, Kierkegaard, existentialism and much modern thinking about history and society grew from adopting, inverting or attacking Hegel's system.
Legacy and sources
His published books, plus lecture courses on history, art, religion and philosophy that students' notes preserved and editors published after his death.
Still debated
Whether he was a conservative apologist for Prussia or a philosopher of freedom; his followers split into Right and Young (Left) Hegelians soon after 1831.
Inside this (2)
Connections (6)
▸Heraclitus: everything flows was hailed as a forerunner by G. W. F. HegelWell documented
The connection
Hegel saw in Heraclitus's flux and unity of opposites ('the road up and the road down are one and the same') the first statement of his own core idea: reality is becoming, driven by opposition. He declared, 'there is no proposition of Heraclitus which I have not adopted in my Logic.'
When and how
In Hegel's lectures on the history of philosophy, given in Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin between 1805 and 1830.
How we know
The remark appears in the published Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1833–36), edited from Hegel's notes and students' transcripts.
Debates and open questions
Whether Hegel read the roughly 130 surviving fragments fairly; many scholars think he bent the cryptic Heraclitus into a forerunner of his own system.
▸Critique of Pure Reason set off the German idealism of G. W. F. HegelWell documented
The connection
Kant left an unknowable 'thing in itself' beyond experience. Fichte dropped it, making the self the source of the world; Schelling and Hegel followed. Hegel argued that to draw a limit to knowledge you must already see past it, so reason can know reality as a whole, and he turned Kant's contradictions of reason into the engine of thought.
When and how
Jena, 1790s–1807, where Fichte, Schelling and Hegel all taught; Hegel's Faith and Knowledge (1802) attacked Kant directly.
How we know
Hegel's explicit criticisms of Kant in Faith and Knowledge, the Phenomenology and his lectures; he likened testing knowledge before knowing to refusing to enter water before learning to swim.
Debates and open questions
Whether German idealism completed Kant or misread him; Kant himself publicly disowned Fichte's version of his philosophy in 1799.
▸G. W. F. Hegel developed Hegel's dialectic and the Phenomenology of SpiritWell documented
The connection
Hegel worked out the dialectic in Jena, using it to trace consciousness through ever-richer stages in the Phenomenology of Spirit. He later applied it to pure concepts in the Science of Logic: being and nothing, opposed, resolve into becoming. Each stage's internal tension produces the next.
When and how
Jena, 1801–1807; he finished the Phenomenology as Napoleon's army took the city in October 1806, writing that he had seen the emperor, 'this world-soul.'
How we know
The Phenomenology (1807), the Science of Logic (1812–16) and his letters, including the 13 October 1806 letter to his friend Niethammer.
Debates and open questions
Whether the Phenomenology is an introduction to his system or its first part; Hegel himself changed his mind, and its plan seems to have shifted mid-writing.
▸G. W. F. Hegel had his dialectic turned "right side up" by Karl MarxWell documented
The connection
As a Berlin student, Marx joined the Young Hegelians, who used Hegel's ideas to criticize religion and the Prussian state. He kept Hegel's dialectic but rejected its idealism: 'With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.'
When and how
Berlin, 1836–41, five years after Hegel's death; Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right followed in 1843, the famous image in 1873.
How we know
Marx's 1837 letter to his father describing his conversion to Hegel, his 1843 critique, and the 1873 afterword to Capital calling himself 'the pupil of that mighty thinker.'
Debates and open questions
Whether Marx remained a Hegelian; Louis Althusser saw a sharp 'break' around 1845, while Georg Lukács and others find Hegel throughout his work.
▸G. W. F. Hegel was scorned by Arthur SchopenhauerWell documented
The connection
Schopenhauer thought Hegel betrayed Kant: reality was not reason unfolding through progress but blind, purposeless will. In 1820 he scheduled his Berlin lectures at the same hour as Hegel's; only a handful of students came, and he soon quit teaching. He spent decades calling Hegel a 'charlatan.'
When and how
University of Berlin, summer 1820; his attacks continued in prefaces and essays through the 1840s and 1850s.
How we know
University lecture catalogs record the clash; his published insults, in the 1840s ethics essays and Parerga (1851), are on the record.
Debates and open questions
How much the feud was envy, since Hegel dominated while Schopenhauer was ignored, and whether he ever seriously engaged Hegel's arguments.
▸G. W. F. Hegel was attacked by Søren KierkegaardWell documented
The connection
Copenhagen's leading intellectuals were Hegelians, and Kierkegaard rebelled. A system that explains everything, he argued, cannot help an individual decide how to live; life demands 'either/or,' not Hegel's both-and synthesis. He mocked a thinker who builds a vast palace of a system but lives in a shed beside it.
When and how
Copenhagen, 1841–1846, after he attended Schelling's anti-Hegel lectures in Berlin; the attack peaks in Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846).
How we know
His pseudonymous books, especially the Postscript, and his journals, which contain the palace-and-shed image.
Debates and open questions
His real target may have been Danish Hegelians like Hans Lassen Martensen; Jon Stewart (2003) argues he also borrowed heavily from Hegel himself.