Hegel << HAY guhl >>, G. W. F. (1770-1831), was one of the most influential German philosophers. Hegel argued that in order to understand any aspect of human culture, we must retrace and understand its history.
Hegel’s emphasis on the importance of historical understanding has greatly promoted the development of the historical study of philosophy, art, religion, science, and politics. The historical approach to human culture inspired by Hegel eventually spread far beyond the borders of Germany.
Hegel’s dialectic.
Hegel developed a theory of history that became known as his dialectic. Hegel believed that all historical developments have three basic characteristics. First, they follow a course that is necessary—that is, they could not have happened in any other way. To understand a historical development in any area of human thought or activity, we must see why it necessarily happened as it did. Second, each historical development represents not only change but progress. Third, Hegel argued that one phase of any historical development tends to be confronted and replaced by its opposite. This opposite, in turn, tends to be replaced by a phase that is somehow a resolution of the two opposed phases. These three phases of a typical dialectical development have often been called thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But Hegel did not use those terms.
Hegel applied his dialectic to all areas of human life. For example, he argued that the attempt to achieve satisfaction through the external pursuit of power and property tends to be rejected in favor of the attempt to achieve an inner state of harmony and tranquility. This opposition between external activity and an inner nonactive state of mind can be resolved by having one’s external activity emerge from a harmonious inner state.
Hegel also argued, in a political example, that a period marked by the concentration of political power in one person tends to be followed by a period of widely distributed power. This opposition might be resolved by a period in which there is both some distribution and some concentration of power. Thus, an absolute monarchy might be replaced by an absolute democracy and, in turn, by a representative form of government.
Hegel’s writings.
In most of his writings, Hegel tried to demonstrate the presence of dialectical developments. In his first published book, Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), he dealt with the development of “forms of consciousness.” These forms of consciousness include a rich and bewildering variety of states of mind, views of the world, ethical positions, religious outlooks, types of physical activity, and forms of social organization. Hegel tried to demonstrate how they progressed in what he claimed was a necessary and historical sequence that moved through contradiction and resolution to ever greater levels of maturity.
In his second book, Science of Logic (1812-1816), Hegel tried to show the same sort of dialectic in the development of philosophical theories about reality. His Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817) contains his philosophic system in a condensed form. It has three sections: a shorter version of his book on logic, a “Philosophy of Nature,” and a “Philosophy of Spirit.” His last book, Philosophy of Right (1821), analyzes the dialectical development of social, ethical, and legal systems. After Hegel’s death, his students published his lectures on the philosophy of history, religion, and art and on the history of philosophy. They reconstructed the lectures mainly from their notes.
Life.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on Aug. 27, 1770, in Stuttgart. He attended the University of Tubingen, near Stuttgart. His university teaching career began in 1801 in Jena. He was professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1818 until his death on Nov. 14, 1831.
See also Marx, Karl (Marx’s ideas).
