Friedrich Hegel

Born: 1770 | Died: 1831

Philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart in southern Germany. His career as a university teacher started in 1801 when he lectured in Jena. He was called to the University of Heidelberg in 1816 and later was granted a professorship in Berlin.

Hegel was highly influential in German philosophical thinking. He is credited with developing a dialectic system, the Hegelian dialectic, named after himself, which is a process of arriving at the truth by stating a thesis, developing an antithesis, and combining and resolving them into a coherent synthesis. An example of this process would be that the idea of being is fundamental, but it evokes an antithesis, not being. However, being and not being are not mutually exclusive, because they produce the synthesis, becoming. The synthesis of becoming, in turn, is also the beginning of a new thesis and the process starts again. In this way, history progresses and a world soul evolves.

Among his best known works are Phenomenology of the Spirit, in which he describes the movement of spirit as dialectic; Science of Logic; and Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences.

The influence of his works can be found in subsequent philosophies - in Kierkegaard’s extentialism, in the Marxists, and many others. Hegel died during a cholera epidemic in Berlin.

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