Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
1770 — 1831
Biography
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was the pinnacle of German idealism, creator of an all-encompassing philosophical system.
His dialectical method (thesis — antithesis — synthesis) describes development through contradictions. The World Spirit (Absolute) comes to know itself through history, nature, and human thought.
'All that is real is rational, all that is rational is real' — Hegel's famous thesis. His philosophy of history influenced Marx and many other thinkers.
Key Ideas
- Dialectics (thesis-antithesis-synthesis)
- Absolute Spirit
- All that is real is rational
- Master and slave
- History as progress of freedom
Works
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Phenomenology of Spirit
(1807)
Consciousness's path to absolute knowledge
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Science of Logic
(1816)
Dialectical logic
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Philosophy of Right
(1820)
Political philosophy