Hegel is a redirect to this article. For other meanings, see Hegel (disambiguation).
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (* 27 August 1770 in Stuttgart; † 14 November 1831 in Berlin) was a German philosopher who is considered the most important representative of German idealism.
Hegel's philosophy claims to interpret the whole of reality in the diversity of its manifestations, including its historical development, in a coherent, systematic and definitive way. His philosophical work is one of the most influential works in the history of modern philosophy. It is divided into "Logic", "Philosophy of Nature" and "Philosophy of Mind", which includes, among other things, a philosophy of history. His thought also became the starting point for numerous other currents in the philosophy of science, sociology, history, theology, politics, jurisprudence and the theory of art; in many cases it also influenced other areas of culture and intellectual life.
After Hegel's death, there was a split among his followers into a "right-wing" and a "left-wing" grouping. The right-wing or Old Hegelians, such as Eduard Gans and Karl Rosenkranz, pursued a conservative interpretive approach in the sense of a "Prussian philosopher of the state", which Hegel had been declared to be during the Vormärz, while the left-wing or Young Hegelians, such as Ludwig Feuerbach or Karl Marx, derived and further developed a progressive socio-critical approach from Hegel's philosophy. Karl Marx in particular was influenced by Hegel's philosophy, which became known to him through Eduard Gans' lectures. Hegel's philosophy thus became one of the central starting points for Dialectical Materialism, which led to Scientific Socialism. Hegel also exerted a decisive influence on Søren Kierkegaard and existential philosophy, and later especially on Jean-Paul Sartre. Hegel's method of grasping the subject matter by bringing all of its views to bear allowed the most opposing representatives to invoke Hegel, and still do today.
