Hegel
Contemporary philosophyHegel was a German philosopher of the nineteenth century (1770-1831). He was born in Stuttgart and studied at the seminary in Tübingen, where he became friends with Hölderlin and Schelling. He worked as a tutor in Bern and Frankfurt before teaching at the University of Jena, where he wrote the Phenomenology of Spirit. Holding chairs at the Universities of Heidelberg and then Berlin, his fame grew with the publication of further works, including his Outlines of the Philosophy of Right.
Hegel's Works Summarised on This Site
Lectures on Aesthetics
Hegel here defines aesthetics as the science of the Beautiful, and particularly of the beautiful produced by Art, and distinguishes the three kinds of art, as so many moments of the Spirit.
The Phenomenology of Spirit
This work presents the successive figures that the mind takes in its self-development towards absolute knowledge: sensible certainty, perception, understanding... and the dialectical process that leads from one figure to another.
Bibliography
Here are the essential books if you want to gain a better understanding of this author's thought:
Frederick C. (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. Cambridge University Press.
Brandom, Robert B. (2019). A Spirit of Trust: A Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
Katerina Deligiorgi (ed.). Hegel: New Directions. McGill-Queen's University Press
Allegra de Laurentiis and Jeffrey Edwards (ed.). The Bloomsbury Companion to Hegel. Bloomsbury Academic.
Kenneth R. Westphal (ed.). The Blackwell Guide to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Wiley-Blackwell.
Recommended Videos
Conferences, symposia, radio broadcasts... here are 10 videos that will help you better understand Hegel's thought.
To choose your video from the list, click below on the drop-down menu icon at top right:
Biography: Life of Hegel
Youth
Hegel was born in Stuttgart, in southern Germany, in 1770. His father was a civil servant at the Court of Audit.
He studied at the Gymnasium in his home town. A brilliant pupil, he could recite Latin declensions from the age of five. One of his teachers gave him a book of Shakespeare when he was eight, and by the age of eleven he was already learning the rules of syllogism. He had a passion for Greek tragedies, astronomy and physics.
At eighteen, Hegel considered becoming a theologian and enrolled at the Seminary (Stift) in Tübingen, where he deepened his knowledge of philosophy, physics, mathematics...
In 1790 he obtained a Master's degree in philosophy and went on to enrol in the Faculty of Theology — though he showed little interest in the teaching he received, which was largely devoted to Christian dogma. The regimented life of the Stift also weighed on him.
As a result, he grew idle, preferring to talk and joke with two fellow students at the Seminary who were as yet unknown: Hölderlin and Schelling. One would become a poet, the other a philosopher, and both would leave their mark on their age, as Hegel himself would.
Fired by the distant echoes of the French Revolution, the three friends planted a Tree of Liberty, as was being done in Paris during those turbulent years.
Passionate about Greek antiquity and revolutionary ideas alike, they sang the Marseillaise and venerated Rousseau.
This seems to have been his first philosophical phase: inspired by the Aufklärung (the German Enlightenment), he believed in the virtues of Kantian moralism and embraced the ideas of Fichte.
The Tutor
Having completed his studies in Tübingen, Hegel abandoned his plans to become a theologian and took up work as a private tutor.
In 1793, he moved to Bern, Switzerland, where he took charge of the education of two children, remaining there for four years.
He made good use of this period, working his way through the extensive library of the Steiger family who employed him, and following the development of the ideas of Kant, Fichte and Schiller.
He turned his thoughts to religious philosophy and wrote his first works, including a Life of Jesus, of which a few posthumous fragments survive.
This is thought to mark the second phase of his intellectual journey: rejecting abstract Kantian moralism, and beyond it the Aufklärung, he came to believe that religion transcends these abstractions and contradictions. In doing so, he aligned himself with Schelling and Romanticism in their opposition to the Enlightenment.
He walked in the surrounding mountains, though he remained largely indifferent to the spectacle of nature, being far more interested in human activity and culture.
Growing weary of his isolation in Switzerland, he confided in Hölderlin, who sympathised and found him a new position as a tutor in Frankfurt.
In 1797, Hegel took up his new post. Hölderlin took up a similar post with another family in Frankfurt, and the bond between the two friends deepened.
He began writing articles on Christianity and economics.
In 1799, his father died, and the inheritance he received allowed him to leave his tutoring post and achieve financial independence. He went to Jena to teach as a private lecturer (Privatdozent) at the university, paid by his students rather than by the institution.
The Jena Professor
In a published work, he defended the thought of his friend Schelling against that of Fichte, which brought him to wider attention. As Schelling was a professor at the University of Jena, Hegel became his assistant, and the two shared lodgings.
This might be called his Schellingian period: a loyal disciple, he confined himself to defending his mentor's Naturphilosophie against its critics.
Gradually, however, he began to distance himself from his mentor's ideas.
The third moment of his philosophical journey then took shape: between abstract moralism and the indeterminate feeling of faith, a reconciliation had to be found. Truth lies in the synthesis of opposites — a synthesis that preserves the opposing terms while transcending them: the dialectic.
Having at last found his own philosophical footing, he set to work on the Phenomenology of Spirit.
He was appointed honorary professor, but soon ran into financial difficulties, having exhausted his inheritance and now having an illegitimate child to support.
These were the years of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon, whom Hegel admired, seized Jena in 1807, bringing university teaching to a halt.
To make ends meet, Hegel became editor of a newspaper in Bamberg, a town in southern Germany where he lived briefly. It was during this period that the Phenomenology of Spirit was published.
He began writing the Science of Logic and, tiring of journalism, accepted a teaching post at Nuremberg Grammar School.
The Rector of Nuremberg
For eight years, he served as rector of the Gymnasium in Nuremberg, where he faced considerable administrative difficulties. As the school catered for pupils aged between 8 and 20, he taught the older classes elements of his doctrine — in the form of an introduction that was nonetheless challenging for young minds.
During this period he published the three volumes of The Science of Logic.
He married, and the union produced two sons.
In 1816, he was offered a chair at the University of Heidelberg. The following year, he published the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences.
The Berlin Chair
Two years later, the University of Berlin sought a successor to Fichte, who had just died. Hegel was offered the professorship and accepted what was an unexpected and prestigious appointment, a post he would hold for thirteen years until his death.
This chair brought his thinking out of the relative obscurity in which it had remained. A wide audience of philosophers, jurists and theologians attended his lectures and discovered his works.
At a time when censorship of democratic ideas was tightening, Hegel published his Principles of the Philosophy of Law — a book which, unlike his earlier works, met with great public success.
The purpose of Hegel's lectures was to expound his philosophical system, as laid out in the Encyclopaedia, covering the philosophy of law, aesthetics, history, and more.
The university holidays gave him ample opportunity to travel across Europe, visiting Switzerland, the Netherlands, Vienna, Prague, and elsewhere. He met Goethe in Weimar.
The French philosopher Victor Cousin, a fervent admirer of Hegel's work, invited him to Paris.
Appointed rector of the University of Berlin in 1829, Hegel reached the pinnacle of his academic career. He was widely regarded as the greatest German philosopher of his time, and students came from across Europe to attend his lectures.
Hegel died in 1831 in Berlin during a cholera epidemic that swept through Europe that year. In accordance with his own wishes, he was buried alongside Fichte.
Several of Hegel's writings were published posthumously, including Lectures on Aesthetics.
This work is in fact a compilation of lectures on aesthetics that he delivered at the Universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, rather than a text written by Hegel himself.
Main Works
The Phenomenology of Spirit
Science of Logic
Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences
Outlines of the Philosophy of Right
Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Lectures on the History of Philosophy
Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art