Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Evangelist of the absolute. (1770--1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Evangelist of the absolute. (1770--1831)

There soon creeps into the misconception of already knowing before you know. ---- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel’s first published book was about the difference between Fichte’s philosophy and Schelling’s, and his own philosophy can be seen as being to some extent a conflation of these two.

Like Schelling, Hegel saw the reality as an organic unity, and one that was not in a stable condition but in an ongoing process of development.

Also like Schelling, he saw the ultimate goal of this development as being the achievement of the self-recognition and self-understanding.

However, he did not, as Schelling did, identify the whole process with nature.

The most influential works are:

The Phenomenology of Mind (1806)

The Science of Logic (1812)

The Philosophy of History (1818)

The philosophy of Right (1821)