Hegel GeorgWilhelm Friedrich

Hegel GeorgWilhelm Friedrich

(1770-1831) influential German idealist and post-Kantian philosopher. His major works include Phenomenology ofMind (1807), Philosophy ofHistory (1817) and Philosophy of Right (1821). He believed that the social world was essentially composed of ideas, manifested in the idea of the ‘world (or ‘absolute’) spirit’ (Geist). These ideas were to be discovered by a contemplative process of the mind ‘alienating’ itself from itself The spirit is illustrated in history by the dialectical movement of ideas through time – a thesis combines with an antithesis to produce a higher synthesis (see DIALECTIC). This historical pattern unfolds with individuals (Napoleon is often cited) as mere pawns in its development. Hegel assumed that it would end with an eternal historical final synthesis and he appears to have believed that the Prussian state constituted such an ending. Despite his frequent evaluation as a philosopher of the right wing, his critique of alienating commercialism crucially influenced the young MARX who claimed to have rescued Hegel's thought from IDEALISM by placing the dialectic on its feet in the material world. See also IDEALISM.