Hegelianism
Encyclopedia
Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel
's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational
alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of transcendental idealism
.
is, we take that concept where we first find it—the unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feel the need of repressing any thought, feeling, or tendency to act. Next, we find that the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint, or, as he considers it, the tyranny, of civilization and law. Finally, in the citizen under the rule of law, we find the third stage of development, namely liberty in a higher and a fuller sense than how the savage possessed it—the liberty to do, say, and think many things beyond the power of the savage. In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at least the sublation
, of the first. The third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form. The three stages are, therefore, styled:
These three stages are found succeeding one another throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logic
al process up to the most complicated concrete activity of organized mind in the succession of states or the production of systems of philosophy.
supposed it was. It is essentially dynamic, because it tends by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was nothing more certain than that being equaled being, or, in other words, that being is identical with itself, that everything is what it is. Hegel does not deny this; but, he adds, it is equally certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing, and that both are united in the concept becoming. For instance, the truth about this table, for Aristotle, is that it is a table. For Hegel, the equally important truth is that it was a tree, and it "will be" ashes. The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree became a table and will become ashes. Thus, becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. It is also the highest expression of thought because then only do we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing when we know what it was, what it is, and what it will be-in a word, when we know the history of its development.
In the same way as "being" and "nothing" develop into the higher concept becoming, so, farther on in the scale of development, life and mind appear as the third terms of the process and in turn are developed into higher forms of themselves. (It is interesting here to note that Aristotle saw "being" as superior to "becoming", because anything which is still becoming something else is imperfect. Hence, God, for Aristotle, is perfect because He never changes, but is eternally complete.) But one cannot help asking what is it that develops or is developed? Its name, Hegel answers, is different in each stage. In the lowest form it is "being", higher up it is "life", and in still higher form it is "mind". The only thing always present is the process (das Werden). We may, however, call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist) or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God.
; and (3) in and for itself, as mind; this is the subject of the philosophy of mind
(Geistesphilosophie).
s. But the loss of unity is only apparent, because in reality the idea has merely concealed its unity. Studied philosophically, nature reveals itself as so many successful attempts of the idea to emerge out of the state of otherness and present itself to us as a better, fuller, richer idea, namely, spirit, or mind. Mind is, therefore, the goal of nature. It is also the truth of nature. For whatever is in nature is realized in a higher form in the mind which emerges from nature.
, and its development must consist in breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it in it otherness by nature and human institutions.
s, and its blind impulse
s, is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessity—the opposite of freedom—in order to attain a fuller realization of itself in the freedom of the citizen. This yoke of necessity is first met with in the recognition of the rights of others, next in morality
, and finally in social morality, of which the primal institution is the family
. Aggregates of families form civil society, which, however, is but an imperfect form of organization compared with the State. The State is the perfect social embodiment of the idea, and stands in this stage of development for God Himself. The State, studied in itself, furnishes for our consideration constitution
al law. In relation to other States it develops international law; and in its general course through historical vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel calls the "Dialectics of History".
Hegel teaches that the constitution is the collective spirit of the nation and that the government and the written constitution is the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which the tyrant
or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation.
War
, Hegel suggests, can never be ruled out, as one can never know when or if one will occur, an example being the Napoleonic overrunning of Europe and putting down of Royalist systems. Of course war in Hegel's day and for much of history involved mainly combatants unlike today where civilians form the majority of casualties. War represents a crisis in the development of the idea which is embodied in the different States, and out of this crisis usually the State which holds the more advanced spirit wins out though it may also suffer a lost, lick its wounds yet still win in the spiritual sense, as happened for example when the northerners sacked Rome, its form of legality and religion all "won" out in spite of the losses on the battlefield.
A peaceful revolution is also possible according to Hegel when the changes required to solve the crisis are ascertained by thoughtful insight and when this insight spreads throughout the body politic:
The "ground" of historical development is, therefore, rational; since the State, if it is not in contradiction, is the embodiment of reason as spirit. Many, at first considered to be, contingent events of history can become, in reality or in necessity, stages in the logical unfolding of the sovereign reason which gets embodied in an advanced State. Such a "necessary contingency" when expressed in passions, impulse, interest, character, personality, get used by the "cunning of reason", which, in retrospect, was to its own purpose. We are, therefore, to understand historical happenings as the stern, reluctant working of reason towards the full realization of itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we must interpret history in rational terms, and throw the succession of events into logical categories and this interpretation is, for Hegel, a mere inference from actual history. Thus, the widest view of history reveals three most important stages of development: Oriental imperial
(the stage of oneness, of suppression of freedom), Greek social democracy
(the stage of expansion, in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy
), and Christian constitutional monarchy
(which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government).
, religion
, and philosophy subjects itself to itself alone. In art, mind has the intuitive contemplation of itself as realized in the art material, and the development of the arts has been conditioned by the ever-increasing "docility" with which the art material lends itself to the actualization of mind or the idea. In religion, mind feels the superiority of itself to the particularizing limitations of finite things. Here, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments, Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite, Greek religion
, which gave undue importance to the finite, and Christianity
, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason. Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of all development."
especially Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry. The application of his notion of development to Biblical
criticism and to historical investigation is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit and purpose of contemporary theology with the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century. In science, too, and in literature, the substitution of the category of becoming for the category of being is a very patent fact, and is due to the influence of Hegel's method. In political economy
and political science
the effect of Hegel's collectivistic conception of the State supplanted to a large extent the individualistic conception which was handed down from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth.
" and the "Left Hegelians
" (the latter also referred to as the "Young Hegelians").
The Rightists developed his philosophy along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian theology. They included Karl Friedrich Göschel, Johann Philipp Gabler
, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz
, and Johann Eduard Erdmann
.
The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel's system and developed schools of materialism
, socialism
, rationalism
, and pantheism
. They included Ludwig Feuerbach, Richter
, Karl Marx
, Bruno Bauer
, and David Strauss
. Max Stirner
socialized with the left Hegelians but built his own philosophical system largely opposing that of these thinkers.
In Britain
, Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by, and largely overlapped the British Idealist school of James Hutchison Stirling
, Thomas Hill Green
, William Wallace
, John Caird, Edward Caird
, Richard Lewis Nettleship
, J. M. E. McTaggart
, and Baillie
. British interest in Hegel was largely driven by political thought.
In Denmark
, Hegelianism was represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg
and Hans Lassen Martensen
from the 1820s to the 1850s.
Hegelianism in North America
was represented by Thomas Watson
and William T. Harris, as well as the St. Louis Hegelians
. In its most recent form it seems to take its inspiration from Thomas Hill Green
, and whatever influence it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic tendency.
In Poland
, Hegelianism was represented by Karol Libelt, August Cieszkowski and Józef Kremer
.
Benedetto Croce
and Étienne Vacherot
were the leading Hegelians towards the end of the nineteenth century in Italy
and France
, respectively. Among Catholic
philosophers who were influenced by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes
and Anton Günther
.
Hegelianism also inspired Giovanni Gentile
's philosophy of actual idealism
and Fascism
, the concept that people are motivated by ideas and that social change is brought by the leaders.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational
Rationality
In philosophy, rationality is the exercise of reason. It is the manner in which people derive conclusions when considering things deliberately. It also refers to the conformity of one's beliefs with one's reasons for belief, or with one's actions with one's reasons for action...
alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the eighteenth century. Kant's doctrine maintains that human experience of things is similar to the way they appear to us — implying a fundamentally subject-based component, rather than being an activity that...
.
Method
Hegel's method in philosophy consists of the triadic development (Entwicklung) in each concept and each thing. Thus, he hopes, philosophy will not contradict experience, but will give data of experience to the philosophical, which is the ultimately true explanation. If, for instance, we wish to know what libertyLiberty
Liberty is a moral and political principle, or Right, that identifies the condition in which human beings are able to govern themselves, to behave according to their own free will, and take responsibility for their actions...
is, we take that concept where we first find it—the unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feel the need of repressing any thought, feeling, or tendency to act. Next, we find that the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint, or, as he considers it, the tyranny, of civilization and law. Finally, in the citizen under the rule of law, we find the third stage of development, namely liberty in a higher and a fuller sense than how the savage possessed it—the liberty to do, say, and think many things beyond the power of the savage. In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at least the sublation
Sublation
Sublation may refer to:*Sublation, a translation of the German term aufheben*Ritual purification, the purification or exaltation of matter by its negation or redirection...
, of the first. The third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form. The three stages are, therefore, styled:
- in itself (An-sich)
- out of itself (Anderssein)
- in and for itself (An-und-für-sich).
These three stages are found succeeding one another throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
al process up to the most complicated concrete activity of organized mind in the succession of states or the production of systems of philosophy.
Doctrine of development
In logic - which, according to Hegel, is really metaphysic - we have to deal with the process of development applied to reality in its most abstract form. According to Hegel, in logic, we deal in concepts robbed of their empirical content: in logic we are discussing the process in vacuo, so to speak. Thus, at the very beginning of Hegel's study of reality, he finds the logical concept of being. Now, being is not a static concept according to Hegel, as AristotleAristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
supposed it was. It is essentially dynamic, because it tends by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was nothing more certain than that being equaled being, or, in other words, that being is identical with itself, that everything is what it is. Hegel does not deny this; but, he adds, it is equally certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing, and that both are united in the concept becoming. For instance, the truth about this table, for Aristotle, is that it is a table. For Hegel, the equally important truth is that it was a tree, and it "will be" ashes. The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree became a table and will become ashes. Thus, becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. It is also the highest expression of thought because then only do we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing when we know what it was, what it is, and what it will be-in a word, when we know the history of its development.
In the same way as "being" and "nothing" develop into the higher concept becoming, so, farther on in the scale of development, life and mind appear as the third terms of the process and in turn are developed into higher forms of themselves. (It is interesting here to note that Aristotle saw "being" as superior to "becoming", because anything which is still becoming something else is imperfect. Hence, God, for Aristotle, is perfect because He never changes, but is eternally complete.) But one cannot help asking what is it that develops or is developed? Its name, Hegel answers, is different in each stage. In the lowest form it is "being", higher up it is "life", and in still higher form it is "mind". The only thing always present is the process (das Werden). We may, however, call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist) or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God.
Division of philosophy
The first and most wide-reaching consideration of the process of spirit, God, or the idea, reveals to us the truth that the idea must be studied (1) in itself; this is the subject of logic or metaphysics; (2) out of itself, in nature; this is the subject of the philosophy of natureNature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
; and (3) in and for itself, as mind; this is the subject of the philosophy of mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
(Geistesphilosophie).
Philosophy of nature
Passing over the rather abstract considerations by which Hegel shows in his "Logik" the process of the idea-in-itself through being to becoming, and finally through essence to notion, we take up the study of the development of the idea at the point where it enters into otherness in nature. In nature the idea has lost itself, because it has lost its unity and is splintered, as it were, into a thousand fragmentFragment
Fragment may refer to:* A small part/portion broken off something; debris* Fragment , all the data necessary to generate a pixel in the frame buffer* Sentence fragment, a sentence not containing a subject or a predicate...
s. But the loss of unity is only apparent, because in reality the idea has merely concealed its unity. Studied philosophically, nature reveals itself as so many successful attempts of the idea to emerge out of the state of otherness and present itself to us as a better, fuller, richer idea, namely, spirit, or mind. Mind is, therefore, the goal of nature. It is also the truth of nature. For whatever is in nature is realized in a higher form in the mind which emerges from nature.
Philosophy of mind
The philosophy of mind begins with the consideration of the individual, or subjective, mind. It is soon perceived, however, that individual, or subjective, mind is only the first stage, the in-itself stage, of mind. The next stage is objective mind, or mind objectified in law, morality, and the State. This is mind in the condition of out-of-itself. There follows the condition of absolute mind, the state in which mind rises above all the limitations of nature and instituitions, and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and philosophy. For the essence of mind is freedomFree will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, and its development must consist in breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it in it otherness by nature and human institutions.
Philosophy of history
Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory of history, and his account of absolute mind are the most interesting portions of his philosophy and the most easily understood. The State, he says, is mind objectified. The individual mind, which, on account of its passions, its prejudicePrejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
s, and its blind impulse
Impulse (psychology)
An impulse is a wish or urge, particularly a sudden one. It can be considered as a normal and fundamental part of human thought processes, but also one that can become problematic, as in a condition like obsessive-compulsive disorder....
s, is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessity—the opposite of freedom—in order to attain a fuller realization of itself in the freedom of the citizen. This yoke of necessity is first met with in the recognition of the rights of others, next in morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
, and finally in social morality, of which the primal institution is the family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
. Aggregates of families form civil society, which, however, is but an imperfect form of organization compared with the State. The State is the perfect social embodiment of the idea, and stands in this stage of development for God Himself. The State, studied in itself, furnishes for our consideration constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
al law. In relation to other States it develops international law; and in its general course through historical vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel calls the "Dialectics of History".
Hegel teaches that the constitution is the collective spirit of the nation and that the government and the written constitution is the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which the tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation.
War
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, Hegel suggests, can never be ruled out, as one can never know when or if one will occur, an example being the Napoleonic overrunning of Europe and putting down of Royalist systems. Of course war in Hegel's day and for much of history involved mainly combatants unlike today where civilians form the majority of casualties. War represents a crisis in the development of the idea which is embodied in the different States, and out of this crisis usually the State which holds the more advanced spirit wins out though it may also suffer a lost, lick its wounds yet still win in the spiritual sense, as happened for example when the northerners sacked Rome, its form of legality and religion all "won" out in spite of the losses on the battlefield.
A peaceful revolution is also possible according to Hegel when the changes required to solve the crisis are ascertained by thoughtful insight and when this insight spreads throughout the body politic:
The "ground" of historical development is, therefore, rational; since the State, if it is not in contradiction, is the embodiment of reason as spirit. Many, at first considered to be, contingent events of history can become, in reality or in necessity, stages in the logical unfolding of the sovereign reason which gets embodied in an advanced State. Such a "necessary contingency" when expressed in passions, impulse, interest, character, personality, get used by the "cunning of reason", which, in retrospect, was to its own purpose. We are, therefore, to understand historical happenings as the stern, reluctant working of reason towards the full realization of itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we must interpret history in rational terms, and throw the succession of events into logical categories and this interpretation is, for Hegel, a mere inference from actual history. Thus, the widest view of history reveals three most important stages of development: Oriental imperial
Imperial
Imperial is a term that is used to describe something that relates to an empire, emperor, or the concept of imperialism.Imperial may also refer to:-In the United States:* Imperial, California* Imperial, Missouri* Imperial, Nebraska...
(the stage of oneness, of suppression of freedom), Greek social democracy
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
(the stage of expansion, in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy
Demagogy
Demagogy or demagoguery is a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public—typically via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda, and often using nationalist, populist or religious themes...
), and Christian constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
(which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government).
Philosophy of absolute mind
Even in the State, mind is limited by subjection to other minds. There remains the final step in the process of the acquisition of freedom, namely, that by which absolute mind in artArt
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, and philosophy subjects itself to itself alone. In art, mind has the intuitive contemplation of itself as realized in the art material, and the development of the arts has been conditioned by the ever-increasing "docility" with which the art material lends itself to the actualization of mind or the idea. In religion, mind feels the superiority of itself to the particularizing limitations of finite things. Here, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments, Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite, Greek religion
Greek religion
Greek religion can refer to several things, including*Ancient Greek religion**Greek hero cult**Eleusinian Mysteries**Hellenistic religion**Platonic idealism*Greek Orthodox Church*Religion in Greece*Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism...
, which gave undue importance to the finite, and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason. Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of all development."
Influence of Hegel
The far reaching influence of Hegel is due in a measure to the undoubted vastness of the scheme of philosophical synthesis which he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy which undertook to organize under the single formula of triadic development every department of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the philosophy of history, has a great deal of attractiveness to those who are metaphysically inclined. But Hegel's influence is due in a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances. His philosophy is the highest expression of that spirit of collectivism which characterized the nineteenth century. In theologyTheology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
especially Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry. The application of his notion of development to Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
criticism and to historical investigation is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit and purpose of contemporary theology with the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century. In science, too, and in literature, the substitution of the category of becoming for the category of being is a very patent fact, and is due to the influence of Hegel's method. In political economy
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
the effect of Hegel's collectivistic conception of the State supplanted to a large extent the individualistic conception which was handed down from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth.
The Hegelian schools
Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are generally divided into the "Right HegeliansRight Hegelians
The Right Hegelians, Old Hegelians, or the Hegelian Right, were those followers of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the early 19th century who took his philosophy in a politically and religiously conservative direction...
" and the "Left Hegelians
Young Hegelians
The Young Hegelians, or Left Hegelians, were a group of Prussian intellectuals who in the decade or so after the death of Hegel in 1831, wrote and responded to his ambiguous legacy...
" (the latter also referred to as the "Young Hegelians").
The Rightists developed his philosophy along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian theology. They included Karl Friedrich Göschel, Johann Philipp Gabler
Johann Philipp Gabler
Johann Philipp Gabler was a German Protestant Christian theologian of the school of Johann Jakob Griesbach and Johann Gottfried Eichhorn....
, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz
Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz
Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz was a German philosopher and pedagog.-Life:Born at Magdeburg, he read philosophy at Berlin, Halle and Königsberg, devoting himself mainly to the doctrines of Hegel and Schleiermacher...
, and Johann Eduard Erdmann
Johann Eduard Erdmann
Johann Eduard Erdmann was a German philosophical writer....
.
The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel's system and developed schools of materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
, and pantheism
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
. They included Ludwig Feuerbach, Richter
Richter
Richter can refer to:* the Richter magnitude scale, a scale measuring the strength of earthquakes.* Richter , an electro-rock band from Buenos Aires, Argentina.-Richter as a surname:...
, Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, Bruno Bauer
Bruno Bauer
Bruno Bauer was a German philosopher and historian. As a student of GWF Hegel, Bauer was a radical Rationalist in philosophy, politics and Biblical criticism...
, and David Strauss
David Strauss
David Friedrich Strauss was a German theologian and writer. He scandalized Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus," whose divine nature he denied...
. Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
socialized with the left Hegelians but built his own philosophical system largely opposing that of these thinkers.
In Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
, Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by, and largely overlapped the British Idealist school of James Hutchison Stirling
James Hutchison Stirling
James Hutchison Stirling , philosopher, born in Glasgow, and educated there and at Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, which he practised until the death of his father in 1851, after which he devoted himself to philosophy....
, Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G.W.F. Hegel...
, William Wallace
William Wallace (Scottish philosopher)
William Wallace was a Scottish philosopher.He was born at Cupar in Fife, the son of master-builder James Wallace and Jane Kellock. He was educated at St Andrews University and Balliol College, Oxford, where he went as an exhibitioner in 1864...
, John Caird, Edward Caird
Edward Caird
Edward Caird FRSE was a Scottish philosopher and younger brother of the theologian John Caird.He was the son of engineer John Caird, the proprietor of Caird & Company,...
, Richard Lewis Nettleship
Richard Lewis Nettleship
Richard Lewis Nettleship , English philosopher, youngest brother of Henry Nettleship, was educated at Uppingham and Balliol College, Oxford, where he held a scholarship....
, J. M. E. McTaggart
J. M. E. McTaggart
John McTaggart was an idealist metaphysician. For most of his life McTaggart was a fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an exponent of the philosophy of Hegel and among the most notable of the British idealists.-Personal life:J. M. E. McTaggart was born in 1866...
, and Baillie
Baillie
A baillie or bailie is a civic officer in the local government of Scotland. The position arose in the burghs, where baillies formerly held a post similar to that of an alderman or magistrate...
. British interest in Hegel was largely driven by political thought.
In Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, Hegelianism was represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg
Johan Ludvig Heiberg (poet)
Johan Ludvig Heiberg , Danish poet and critic, son of the political writer Peter Andreas Heiberg , and of the novelist, afterwards the Baroness Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, was born in Copenhagen....
and Hans Lassen Martensen
Hans Lassen Martensen
Hans Lassen Martensen was a Danish bishop and academic.- Early life :Martensen was born in a middle-class Lutheran family in Flensburg, Duchy of Schleswig , as their only son. At that time Schleswig was a duchy between Holstein and Denmark...
from the 1820s to the 1850s.
Hegelianism in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
was represented by Thomas Watson
Thomas Watson
-Bishops:*Thomas Watson *Thomas Watson , English clergyman-Writers:*Thomas Watson , English poet and translator*Thomas Watson -Bishops:*Thomas Watson (bishop of Lincoln) (1515–1584)*Thomas Watson (bishop of St David's) (1637–1717), English clergyman-Writers:*Thomas Watson (poet) (c. 1557–1592),...
and William T. Harris, as well as the St. Louis Hegelians
St. Louis Hegelians
The St. Louis Hegelians were a group of thinkers based in St. Louis, Missouri who flourished in the 1860s. They were influenced by German Idealism and Hegelianism...
. In its most recent form it seems to take its inspiration from Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green
Thomas Hill Green was an English philosopher, political radical and temperance reformer, and a member of the British idealism movement. Like all the British idealists, Green was influenced by the metaphysical historicism of G.W.F. Hegel...
, and whatever influence it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic tendency.
In Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Hegelianism was represented by Karol Libelt, August Cieszkowski and Józef Kremer
Józef Kremer
Józef Kremer , was a Polish historian of art, a philosopher, an aesthetician and a psychologist.-Life:He studied at Kraków, Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris....
.
Benedetto Croce
Benedetto Croce
Benedetto Croce was an Italian idealist philosopher, and occasionally also politician. He wrote on numerous topics, including philosophy, history, methodology of history writing and aesthetics, and was a prominent liberal, although he opposed laissez-faire free trade...
and Étienne Vacherot
Étienne Vacherot
Étienne Vacherot was a French philosophical writer.-Life:He was born of peasant parentage at Torcenay, near Langres in the Haute-Marne département of France....
were the leading Hegelians towards the end of the nineteenth century in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, respectively. Among Catholic
Catholic
The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...
philosophers who were influenced by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes
Georg Hermes
Georg Hermes , German Roman Catholic theologian, was born at Dreierwalde, in Westphalia, and was educated at the gymnasium and university of Münster, in both of which institutions he afterwards taught....
and Anton Günther
Anton Günther
Anton Günther was an Austrian Roman Catholic philosopher whose work was condemned by the church as heretical tritheism.-Biography:...
.
Hegelianism also inspired Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
's philosophy of actual idealism
Actual Idealism
Actual Idealism was a form of idealism, developed by Giovanni Gentile, that grew into a 'grounded' idealism, contrasting the Transcendental Idealism of Immanuel Kant, and the Absolute idealism of G. W. F. Hegel...
and Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, the concept that people are motivated by ideas and that social change is brought by the leaders.