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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), representative of classical German philosophy, objective idealist, founder of dialectical logic. His thought, like Kant’s, constitutes a peak in the history of German Idealism. Hegel’s life and time were shaped by the French Revolution which was reflected in his theories.

Hegel’s first philosophical text is devoted to elucidating the “Difference between the system of Fichte and Schelling”(1801). This early text is unusually important as an accurate indication of a number of characteristic doctrines Hegel later elaborated into his mature philosophy. Hegel here regards Kant’s critical philosophy as in principle correct but incomplete, requiring further development in order to complete Kant’s Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Hegel thought it was correct to suggest the need to provide a systematic statement for the critical philosophy, but wrong to attempt to found or ground it. Rejecting what is currently called epistemological foundationalism, Hegel maintains that philosophy has no ground. Similarly rejecting the traditional, deductive view of philosophy as linear, Hegel describes it as intrinsically circular. He situates the need for philosophy in a lack of conceptual unity, or perceived difference, suggesting that philosophy necessarily plays a synthetic role in unifying the contents of conscious experience.

Hegel is the author of only four books: “The Phenomenology of Spirit”, “The Logic”, “The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences” and “The Philosophy of right”.

In Hegel’s philosophical system, the teaching of morality and morals (Hegel insisted on the differentiation of these concepts), is dissolved in the general substance of his “Philosophy of Right”(1821). True, his philosophical system as a whole contains elements of moralizing (“ what is rational is actual”; coincidence of the process of the absolute spirit with the freedom gained by the spirit). A distinctive feature of Hegel’s ethics consists in that, instead of discussing abstract moral principles, he concentrated on those social forms in which the moral activity of man proceeds. This revealed his apologetic attitude towards the Prussian monarchy and corresponding underestimation of the specific character of morality. In place of moral virtue, Hegel puts “respectability” sanctioned by the existing society and state, while the idea of serving mankind as a whole (which in its abstract form is expressed in Kant’s categorical imperative), he replaces by definite and specific duties, in which he finds elements of the individual (family), the particular (corporation and estates in society), and the universal (state affairs), the latter playing a determining role. Thus Hegel’s ethics is a morality of duties towards family, society and state. In this connection, Hegel denies the significance of moral criticism of the existing status quo from the position of what must be, while freeing great personalities from the criteria of conventional human morality. Hegel leaves aside the subjective aspect of moral relations (problems of conscience and ideal) and the moral responsibility of the individual, as well as the correlation of individual and social (public) morals (in particular, the possibility of a conflict between them).

The word “right”, which here is used in legal sense, is normally taken to mean “the totality of rules governing the relations between members of the same society. In “The Philosophy of right” Hegel understands this term more broadly to include civil right, that aspect of the concept most closely linked to legal considerations, as well as morality, ethical life and, even, world history. In its most general sense, the Hegelian concept of right concerns free will and its realization. Here Hegel follows Aristotle, who thinks that all action aims at the good. It is not sufficient, however, to link the good within consciousness; it must also be realized through the transition from subjective desire to external existence so that the good takes shape not only within our minds but also and above all in our lives within the social context.

“The Philosophy of Right”, in which Hegel presents his ethical and political theory, is highly controversial. Since his death, many diverse interpretations of it have been offered. Some commentators see in it a sober and realistic analysis of moral and ethical values and a penetrating criticism of Kantian ethics. Others, particularly Marxists, consider its author to have become by the time he wrote it a reactionary pillar of the Prussian state of the day.

The literature on Hegel’s thought is enormous. Extensive study has been made of his four main books as well as of his lecture notes and writings unpublished during his lifetime. His influence on later philosophy, above all on Marx’s theory is immense. Hegel’s famous analysis of the relation of master and slave in the “Phenomenology” is the conceptual basis of Marx’s later analysis of capitalism, and his account of the System of Needs in “The Philosophy of Right” offers a similar basis for Marx’s view of economics. Hegel’s influence on classical American pragmatism is clearly decisive. Among many others with debts to Hegel, we can include Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty. It is well said that in different ways all the main contemporary philosophical movements can be traced back to Hegel.