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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ( August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. He received his education at the Tübinger Stift (seminary of the Protestant Church in Württemberg), where he was friends with the future philosophers Friedrich Schelling and Friedrich Hölderlin. He became fascinated by the works of Spinoza, Kant, and Rousseau, and by the French RevolutionThe period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring. While France wo. Many consider Hegel's thought to represent the summit of 19th Century Germany's movement of philosophical idealismIn philosophy, Idealism is any theory positing the primacy of spirit, mind, or language over matter. It includes claiming that thought has some crucial role in making the world the way it is--that thought and the world are made for one another, or that th. It would come to have a profound impact on many future philosophical schools such as ExistentialismExistentialism is a philosophical movement characterized by an emphasis on individualism, individual freedom, and subjectivity. Existentialism emphasises the idea that existence precedes essence, i. that one must be alive in order to create meaning, and t, as well as the historical materialismIn Marxism and the study of history, historical materialism (or what Marx himself called "the materialist conception of history") is a method which accounts for the developments and changes in human history according to economic, technological, and more b of Karl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx ( May 5, 1818 March 14, 1883) was an influential German economist, philosopher, social and political theorist. Although Marx addressed many issues in his career as a journalist and philosopher, he is most famous for his analysis of hist.

1 Life and Work

Hegel attended the seminary at TübingenTubingen an old university city on the River Neckar in Baden-Wurttemberg in Germany, near Stuttgart, functions as the seat of the Administrative District of Tubingen, as well as of the county of Tubingen. In 2002 the city had 82,885 inhabitants, including with the epic poet Friedrich Hölderlin and the objective idealist Schelling. The three watched the unfolding of the French RevolutionThe period of the French Revolution in the history of France covers the years between 1789 and 1799, in which democrats and republicans overthrew the absolute monarchy and the Roman Catholic Church perforce underwent radical restructuring. While France wo and collaborated in a critique of the idealist philosophies of Immanuel Kant and his follower Fichte.

Hegel's first and most important major work is the Phenomenology of Spirit (or Phenomenology of Mind). During his life he also published the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the Science of Logic and the (Elements of the) Philosophy of Right. A number of other works on the philosophy of history, religion, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy were compiled from the lecture notes of his students and published posthumously.

Hegel's works have a reputation for their difficulty, and for the breadth of the topics they attempt to cover. Hegel introduced a system for understanding the history of philosophy and the world itself, often called a " dialectic": a progression in which each successive movement emerges as a solution to the contradictions inherent in the preceding movement. For example, the French Revolution for Hegel constitutes the introduction of real freedom into western societies for the first time in recorded history. But precisely because of its absolute novelty, it is also absolutely radical: on the one hand the upsurge of violence required to carry out the revolution cannot cease to be itself, while on the other, it has already consumed its opponent. The revolution therefore has nowhere to turn but on to its own result: the hard-won freedom is consumed by a brutal Reign of Terror. History, however, progresses by learning from its mistakes: only after and precisely because of this experience can one posit the existence of a constitutional state of free citizens, embodying both the (allegedly) benevolent organizing power of rational government and the revolutionary ideals of freedom and equality.

In the introduction to THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY (Translated by J. Sibree) Hegel says: "Philosophy shows that the Idea advances to an infinite antithesis; that, viz. between the Idea in its free, universal form - in which it exists for itself - and the contrasted form of abstract introversion, reflection on itself, which is formal existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom, such as belongs to Spirit only."

So, breaking it down, there are two forms of the universal idea and they are always and infinitely the antithesis of each other. One form is the general principle of it and the other form is its specific application to the actual events in history. He continues to say: "The universal Idea exists thus as the substantial totality of things on the one side, and as the abstract essence of free volition on the other side."

and: "This reflection of the mind on itself is individual self-consciousness - the polar opposite of the Idea in its general form, and therefore existing in absolute Limitation. This polar opposite is consequently limitation, particularization, for the universal absolute being; it is the side of its definite existence; the sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of the reverence paid to God. - To comprehend the absolute connection of this antithesis, is the profound task of metaphysics."

Therefore, Hegel is stating, albeit in difficult turns of phrase, that metaphysics should be concerned with grasping the mechanics of how the thesis and antithesis are connected in each individual case. To do so would involve comparing examples of events of history with their archetypal forms and trying to understand both the similarities and the differences between them.

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