Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770–1831), German philosopher of idealism. During his life he was famous for his professorial lectures at the University of Berlin, and he wrote on logic, ethics, history, religion and aesthetics. The main feature of Hegel's philosophy was the dialectical method by which an idea (thesis) was challenged by its opposite (antithesis), the two ultimately reconciled in a third idea (synthesis) that subsumed both. Hegel found this method both in the workings of the mind, as a logical procedure, and in the workings of the history of the world, which to Hegel was the process of the development and realization of the world spirit (Weltgeist). His chief works were Phenomenology of the Mind (1807) and Philosophy of Right (1821). Hegel had an immense influence on 19th- and 20th-century thought and history. Among his many important followers, Karl Marx developed the concept of dialectical materialism, explaining history without resorting to the fundamental idealism of Hegel.

See also: Idealism.