Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: biography of an idealist philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel marked a before and after within philosophical thought in Western Europe and also in 19th century Russia. An admirer of Plato, Descartes and Kant, German idealism acquired its maximum expression with him, and what is more interesting, there was a great advance in the theory of the evolution of consciousness.

If there is one thing that most of us know, it is that reading Hegel is not exactly easy. His best known book, Phenomenology of the spirit (1807), It is a sample of that intellectual legacy narrow, dense but determining within what we know as the historical dialectic.

Likewise, it should be noted that there are many who saw in his theses (such as the definition of the State) the bases of those more radical thoughts that served as inspiration for German nationalism. Hitler himself, for example, saw a certain justification in Hegelian philosophy when reading phrases like that ““Only the Germanic world, as the embodiment of true Christianity, represents authentic freedom.”

However, Hegel was much more than these types of statements. His thought was like that fuse that illuminated and generated an endless number of theoretical and philosophical reactions. He inspired Marxist materialism, laid the foundations for Søren Kierkegaard’s pre-existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche’s metaphysical concept and even Theodor W. Adorno’s negative dialectic.

Hegel was, in essence, that philosopher who invited us to think that there are no barriers between oneself and the world, that we are creators of our truth. He also introduced the concept of dialectic to explain to us that history and our own thinking is the result of continuous movement between solutions and contradictions…

Life of an academic admired by his students

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart on August 27, 1770. Coming from a Protestant family and of good position, he has always surrounded himself with the most advanced cultural environment of 19th century Germany. He became friends with figures of the time such as the philosopher Friedrich von Schelling and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin. Likewise, and from very early on, he was always an avid admirer of the works of Immanuel Kant and Schiller.

He studied philosophy and theology at the University of Tübingen. and after receiving an inheritance after the death of his father, he was able to dedicate himself fully and calmly to the academic world after presenting his thesis “Planetary Orbits”. It didn’t take him too long to obtain a position as a professor, thus also being able to delve deeper into a wide area of ​​knowledge such as mathematics, logic or law.

In 1807 he would publish Phenomenology of the Spirit where he delved into aspects such as the sense of consciousness, perception and knowledge. In this work he already emphasized the only thing that for Hegel was true, which was nothing other than reason. After the significance of this work, He was soon called by other universities to train students in Heidelberg or Berlin.

Friedrich Hegel, days of success and anger

His classes were famous throughout Europe. His students said that he was capable of giving a response and a deep meaning to almost anything. That his mind was that of a titan of knowledge and that Hegel must be like Plato himself in Ancient Greece.

His analyzes of the philosophy of law and the state system made multiple groups want to delve into his different approaches, theories and dissertations. The cultural elite and the political class of the time saw in him a reference from which to learn and to be inspired in some sense, as Karl Marx did in his day. However, he did not see the full impact of his work.

Friedrich Hegel died on November 14, 1831 of cholera. It would be his students who would be in charge of giving significance to the writings and annotations of all that knowledge in which he had delved: history, religion, aesthetics…

Hegel’s philosophy

Hegel was best known for introducing history into philosophy. Until that moment, philosophical discourses started from a void, from an entelechy in which to reach the meaning of truth without having the reference of social events.

So, Events such as the French Revolution were undoubtedly the ones that most marked Hegel’s speech. as well as that change in the mentality that reigned in Europe at the time. Concepts such as freedom finally acquired that decisive transcendence of Friedrich Hegel’s standard.

Let’s now look at the most relevant concepts of his philosophical legacy.

The idealism

When talking about Hegel, it is common to define him as the essence of German idealism.. However, what does this really mean? Idealism is a philosophical theory that defends the following:

Ideas are the most important thing and they can exist independently. What surrounds us would not exist if someone did not perceive them and was aware of them. For Hegel the world is beautiful, it is metaphysically perfect, because beauty itself symbolizes reason. .

Likewise, and within this framework, he often defended that happiness should not be the main goal of human beings. The most important thing is knowledge and reason.

The dialectic

Hegel defined reason as a dialectical process. One can affirm a fact and then deny it, to later overcome said contradiction. In this way, the dialectical movement had the following steps for him:

Thesis: affirmation of an idea. Antithesis: the denial of the thesis itself. Synthesis: overcoming the formulated contradiction.

Freedom

Hegel believed that authentic freedom had to start from a very specific framework: the State itself. It is from this scenario where the person themselves can feel fulfilled. Acquire, in turn, an authentic sense of dignity. That is to say, Human beings therefore need a legal framework to which they “submit.”

Furthermore, within this Hegelian scheme, It is through Christianity that the person has been able to acquire authentic freedom.. As we can well assume, these ideas later influenced other currents in different ways.

The logic

If we talk about philosophy, it is essential to delve deeper into the area of ​​logic. And within this It is mandatory to understand Hegel’s most famous thesis: contradiction. Thus, and according to this principle, a thing is itself and is not itself at the same time.

That is to say, we all change, because we all transform and go from one state to another reality as a result of our own vitality, of change… Life itself is a constant contradiction.

The aesthetics

Hegel made an interesting distinction between natural beauty and artistic beauty. The first refers to the most exquisite, because it is authentic, it is free and represents the natural spirit of things. The second, artistic beauty, is what the spirit itself creates and what in turn allows us to conduct aesthetic research to acquire knowledge.

Friedrich Hegel is today one of the most notable references in philosophy. He is admired by many and viewed with discomfort by others. Perhaps because of his concept of the state and German idealism or the Eurocentrism. There are also those who view him with a certain reluctance due to the complexity of his texts.

Nevertheless, His ideas marked a key moment in Europe. Nowadays, books like Phenomenology of the Spirit continue to be almost obligatory reading.

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