G. W. F. Hegel

I

Introduction

G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), German idealist philosopher, who became one of the most influential thinkers of the 19th century. Born in Stuttgart on August 27, 1770, the son of a revenue officer with the civil service, Hegel was brought up in an atmosphere of Protestant Pietism and became thoroughly acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics while studying at the Stuttgart Gymnasium (preparatory school). Encouraged by his father to become a clergyman, Hegel entered the seminary at the University of Tübingen in 1788 where he developed friendships with the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Having completed a course of study in philosophy and theology and having decided not to enter the ministry, Hegel became a private tutor in Berne, Switzerland, in 1793. In 1797 he assumed a similar position in Frankfurt. Two years later his father died, leaving a financial legacy that was sufficient to free him from tutoring.

In 1801 Hegel went to the University of Jena, where he studied, wrote, and eventually became a lecturer. In Jena he completed The Phenomenology of Spirit or Mind (1807; trans. 1910), now thought of as one of his most important works. He remained at Jena until October 1806, when the city was taken by the French and he was forced to flee. Having exhausted the legacy left him by his father, Hegel became editor of the Bamberger Zeitung in Bavaria. He disliked journalism, however, and moved to Nuremberg, where he served as headmaster of a gymnasium for eight years.

During the Nuremberg years Hegel met and married Marie von Tucher. Three children were born to the Hegels: a daughter, who died soon after birth, and two sons, Karl and Immanuel. Before his marriage, Hegel had fathered an illegitimate son, Ludwig, who eventually came to live with the Hegels. While at Nuremberg, Hegel published over a period of several years The Science of Logic (1812, 1813, 1816; trans. 1929). In 1816 he accepted a professorship in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. Soon after, he published in summary form a systematic statement of his entire philosophy entitled Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1817 rev. ed. 1827, 1830; trans. 1959). In 1818 Hegel was invited to teach at the University of Berlin, where he was to remain. He died in Berlin on November 14, 1831, during a cholera epidemic.

The last full-length work published by Hegel was The Philosophy of Right (1821; trans. 1896), although several sets of his lecture notes, supplemented by students’ notes, were published after his death. Published lectures include The Philosophy of Fine Art (1835-1838; trans. 1920), Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1833-1836; trans. 1892-1896), Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1832; trans. 1895), and Lectures on the Philosophy of History (1837; trans. 1858).

Strongly influenced by Greek ideas, Hegel also read the works of the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, the French writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the German philosophers Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Schelling. Although he often disagreed with these philosophers, their influence is evident in his writings. In particular, Hegel’s philosophy was deeply influenced by Kant’s. Although he dedicated himself to overcoming the various oppositions in Kant’s philosophy, especially that between the self and the unknowable “thing in itself”, he retained Kant’s approach of founding all knowledge in the nature of the self-conscious mind.

II

Philosophical Aims

Hegel’s aim was to set forth a philosophical system so comprehensive that it would encompass the ideas of his predecessors and create a conceptual framework in terms of which both the past and future could be understood philosophically. Such an aim would require nothing short of a full account of reality itself. Thus, Hegel conceived the subject matter of philosophy to be reality as a whole. This reality, or the total developmental process of everything that is, he referred to as the Absolute. According to Hegel, the task of philosophy is to chart the development of the Absolute. This involves first making clear the internal rational structure of the Absolute; second, demonstrating the manner in which the Absolute manifests itself in nature and human history; and, third, explicating the teleological nature of the Absolute, that is, showing the end or purpose towards which the Absolute is directed.

III

Dialectic

Concerning the rational structure of the Absolute, Hegel, following the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, argued that “what is rational is real and what is real is rational”. This must be understood in terms of Hegel’s further claim that the Absolute must ultimately be regarded as pure Thought, or Spirit, or Mind, in the process of self-development. The logic that governs this developmental process is dialectic. The dialectical method involves the notion that movement, or process, or progress, is the result of the conflict of opposites. Traditionally, this dimension of Hegel’s thought has been analysed in terms of the categories of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Although Hegel almost never used these terms, they are helpful in understanding his concept of the dialectic. The thesis, then, might be a concept that is part of the structure of the Absolute, or else it might be a historical form of consciousness. Such a concept or form of consciousness contains within itself incompleteness that gives rise to opposition, or an antithesis, a conflicting concept or form of consciousness. As a result of the conflict a third concept or form of consciousness arises, a synthesis, which overcomes the conflict by reconciling at a higher level the truth contained in both the thesis and antithesis. This synthesis becomes a new thesis that generates another antithesis, giving rise to a new synthesis, and in such a fashion the process of metaphysical or historical development is continually generated. Hegel thought that the Absolute itself (that is to say, the sum total of reality) develops in this dialectical fashion towards an ultimate end or goal.

For Hegel, therefore, reality is understood as the Absolute unfolding dialectically in a process of self-development. As the Absolute undergoes this development, it manifests itself both in nature and in human history. Nature is the Absolute objectifying itself in material form. Finite minds and human history are the process of the Absolute manifesting itself in that which is most kin to itself, namely, spirit or consciousness. In The Phenomenology of Sprit Hegel traced the stages of this manifestation in the various forms of consciousness from the simplest consciousness of objects, through self-consciousness, rational consciousness, and the various forms of ethical and religious consciousness, to “absolute knowledge”, the form of consciousness in which the subject recognizes itself as fundamentally identical with the Absolute.

IV

Self-Knowledge of the Absolute

The goal of the dialectical cosmic process can be most clearly understood at the level of reason. As finite reason progresses in understanding, the Absolute progresses towards full self-knowledge. Indeed, the Absolute comes to know itself through the human mind’s increased understanding of reality, or the Absolute. Hegel analysed this human progression in understanding in terms of three levels: art, religion, and philosophy. Art grasps the Absolute in material forms, interpreting the rational through the sensible forms of beauty. Art is conceptually superseded by religion, which grasps the Absolute by means of images and symbols. The highest religion for Hegel is Christianity, for in Christianity the truth that the Absolute manifests itself in the finite is symbolically reflected in the incarnation. Philosophy, however, is conceptually supreme, because it grasps the Absolute in terms of the concepts that in fact structure it. Once this has been achieved, the Absolute has arrived at full self-consciousness—in Hegel’s terms, at “Absolute Spirit”—and the cosmic drama reaches its end and goal. Only at this point did Hegel identify the Absolute with God. “God is God,” Hegel argued, “only in so far as he knows himself.”