Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Along with J. G. Fichte and F. W. J. von Schelling, Hegel (1770-1831) belongs to the period of “German idealism” in the decades following ImmanuelKant. The most systematic of the post-Kantian idealists, Hegel attempted, throughout his published writings as well as in his lectures, to elaborate a comprehensive and systematic ontology from a “logical” starting point. He is perhaps most well-known for his teleological account of history, an account which was later taken over by Marx and “inverted” into a materialist theory of an historical development culminating in communism. For most of the twentieth century, the “logical” side of Hegel's thought had been largely forgotten, but his political and social philosophy continued to find interest and support. However, since the 1970s, a degree of more general philosophical interest in Hegel's systematic thought has also been revived.

Well-known is his idea of the HegelianDialectic: that conflicting ideas (the thesis and its anti-thesis) are reconciled by the creation of something new from aspects of both (synthesis). This new idea then assumes the role of the new thesis, and so a new anti-thesis arises to challenge it, and the dialectic goes on.

CategoryPhilosophy