Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
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"Each consciousness pursues the death of the other" ("Insofern es Tun des Andern ist, geht also jeder auf den Tod des Andern") -- Hegel cited in the French edition of She Came to Stay via The Phenomenology of Spirit |
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, in the region of Württemberg in southwestern Germany.
Together with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Hegel is considered one of the representatives of German idealism. Hegel influenced writers of widely varying positions, including both his admirers (Bauer, Marx, Bradley, Sartre, Küng), and his detractors (Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger). Hegel made explicit, arguably for the first time, a relation between nature and freedom, immanence and transcendence, the finite and the infinite which unified these dualities intelligibly without eliminating either pole or reducing it to the other. His influential conceptions of speculative logic or "dialectic," "absolute idealism," "Spirit," the "Master/Slave" dialectic, "ethical life," and the importance of history, flow from this central accomplishment.
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Influence
There are views of Hegel's thought as a representation of the summit of early 19th century Germany's movement of philosophical idealism. It would come to have a profound impact on many future philosophical schools, including schools that opposed Hegel's specific dialectical idealism, such as Existentialism, the historical materialism of Karl Marx, historicism, and British Idealism.
Hegel's influence was immense both within philosophy and in the other sciences. Throughout the 19th century many chairs of philosophy around Europe were held by Hegelians, although Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels were all opposed to the most central themes of Hegel's philosophy. After less than a generation, Hegel's philosophy was suppressed and even banned by the Prussian right-wing, and was firmly rejected by the left-wing in multiple official writings.
After the period of Bruno Bauer, Hegel's influence did not make itself felt again until the philosophy of British Idealism and the 20th century Hegelian Neo-Marxism that began with Georg Lukács. The more recent movement of communitarianism has a strong Hegelian influence, although a Hegel specialist would argue that that influence is not strong enough, since communitarianism tends toward relativism, which Hegel's philosophy does not.
Works
Published during Hegel's lifetime
- Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie, 1801
The Difference Between Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Philosophy, tr. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf, 1977
Phenomenology of Mind, tr. J. B. Baillie, 1910; 2nd ed. 1931 Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, tr. A. V. Miller, 1977
- Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812, 1813, 1816
Science of Logic, tr. W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers, 2 vols., 1929; tr. A. V. Miller, 1969
- Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, 1817; 2nd ed. 1827; 3rd ed. 1830 (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences)
(Pt. I:) The Logic of Hegel, tr. William Wallace, 1874, 2nd ed. 1892; tr. T. F. Geraets, W. A. Suchting and H. S. Harris, 1991 (Pt. II:) Hegel's Philosophy of Nature, tr. A. V. Miller, 1970 (Pt. III:) Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, tr. William Wallace, 1894; rev. by A. V. Miller, 1971
Elements of the Philosophy of Right, tr. T. M. Knox, 1942; tr. H. B. Bisnet, ed. Allen W. Wood, 1991
Published posthumously
- Lectures on Aesthetics
- Lectures on the Philosophy of History (also translated as Lectures on the Philosophy of World History) 1837
- Lectures on Philosophy of Religion
- Lectures on the History of Philosophy
See also