G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831)

 

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and one of the central figures of German Idealism. He was born in Stuttgart in 1770 and studied theology at the University of Tübingen, where he became friends with the philosophers Friedrich Schelling and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin. He later taught at universities in Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin. From 1818 until his death in 1831, he held the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin. 

Hegel wrote about consciousness, freedom, history, society, politics, religion, art and knowledge. His philosophy is difficult because he did not treat these subjects as separate areas. He tried to show how they develop in relation to one another.

A central idea in Hegel is dialectic. Very broadly, he used this term to describe a process in which a way of thinking or a social arrangement contains tensions or contradictions that lead to its development into a different form. The new form does not simply erase what came before it. It can preserve aspects of the earlier stage while changing their meaning. Hegel therefore understood development as a movement in which contradictions are worked through rather than simply avoided. 

His book Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) follows different forms of consciousness as they develop toward a more adequate understanding of themselves and the world. One of its best-known discussions concerns the relationship between self-consciousness and recognition. A person does not develop a full sense of self in complete isolation. Recognition by another self-conscious person becomes part of the development of self-consciousness.

This concern with recognition later becomes important in Hegel's account of freedom. Freedom, for him, is not simply doing whatever one happens to want. A person can be formally free and still live within relationships and institutions that prevent freedom from becoming real. Hegel's political philosophy therefore asks how freedom can become part of the actual organisation of social life. 

His main work in political philosophy is Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821). Hegel begins with the concept of the free will and then follows its development through three broad stages: Abstract Right, Morality and Ethical Life. The movement is from an abstract conception of individual freedom toward forms of freedom realised through social relationships and institutions. 

For Hegel, freedom requires more than individual choice. It has to exist in a world of laws, customs and institutions. This is why he gives considerable attention to the family, civil society and the state. He calls their interconnected ethical order Sittlichkeit, usually translated as ethical life. These institutions provide the social setting in which individuals can develop and exercise freedom. 

Hegel's concept of civil society is especially important. It refers to the sphere between the family and the political state in which individuals pursue their particular interests through work, exchange and economic activity. Hegel recognised that modern markets connect people's activities: one person's work can satisfy the needs of many others. At the same time, he saw that market society can produce poverty, inequality and forms of dependence that cannot simply be ignored. 

His discussion of the state is therefore more complicated than the claim that the individual must simply submit to political authority. Hegel sees the state as a form of ethical and political association in which particular interests can be related to a more universal interest. At the same time, his account includes constitutional institutions, representation and the separation of governmental functions. Scholars continue to debate the precise political character of Hegel's state theory. 

Hegel also developed a distinctive philosophy of history. He viewed history as a process in which human beings gradually develop a greater awareness of freedom. Historical change is not simply a sequence of unrelated events. For Hegel, conflicts between existing forms of social and political life can generate new forms. His interpretation of history later had a major influence on Karl Marx, although Marx transformed Hegel's idealist approach into a materialist theory of social development. 

Another important concept is Geist, usually translated as Spirit or Mind. It does not simply mean an individual person's mind. In Hegel's system, Geist refers to the development of self-conscious human life through social practices, institutions, culture, art, religion and philosophy. His larger philosophical system examines logic, nature and spirit, with the philosophy of spirit including discussions of mind, society, history, art, religion and philosophy. 

Hegel's philosophy also asks how individual freedom and social belonging are connected. He does not think that a person becomes free by escaping every social relationship. Family, civil society, laws and political institutions can provide the conditions through which freedom becomes concrete. This is one reason his philosophy has been important to later debates about social freedom and the relationship between the individual and society. 

Hegel has been interpreted in very different ways. Some earlier commentators presented him as a defender of political conservatism, while other interpretations stress his support for constitutional institutions and his continuing admiration for the French Revolution. Contemporary scholarship generally treats his political thought as difficult to place within a simple conservative–progressive division. 

Main ideas associated with Hegel

Dialectic: Development through tensions and contradictions within forms of thought and social life.

Recognition: Self-consciousness develops through relations of recognition with others.

Freedom: Real freedom requires social and institutional conditions, not merely personal choice.

Ethical life (Sittlichkeit): Freedom becomes concrete through institutions such as the family, civil society and the state.

Civil society: The sphere of economic activity and particular interests situated between the family and the state.

History: Human history can be understood as a development in the human awareness and realisation of freedom.

Geist: The development of human self-consciousness through social, cultural, historical and philosophical life.

Major works

• Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
• Science of Logic (1812–1816)
• Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817; revised editions 1827, 1830)
• Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821)
• Lectures on the Philosophy of History
• Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion
• Lectures on Aesthetics

Hegel died in Berlin in 1831. His philosophy became an important reference point for later thinkers, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Søren Kierkegaard, Alexandre Kojève and the Frankfurt School. His work continues to be studied for its treatment of freedom, recognition, contradiction, history, society and the relationship between individuals and institutions