Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770 – 1831 German philosopher
The philosopher of dialectic and history, a giant of German idealism.
- Religion
- A Lutheran who recast Christianity in philosophical terms, treating God as absolute spirit unfolding through history.
- Affiliations
- Professor at the University of Berlin. No secret society.
Hegel saw reality and history as the unfolding of spirit through a dialectic of contradiction and resolution. His dense, sweeping system shaped later philosophy, both those who followed and those, like Marx, who turned it upside down. Ideas of historical progress owe much to him.
Connections
- influenced Immanuel Kant — Hegel built on and challenged Kant's idealism.
- influenced Karl Marx — He inverted Hegel's dialectic into a materialist theory of history.
- influenced Karl Marx — Marx adopted his dialectic while rejecting his idealism.