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#10 Hegel: Who, When, and Most Importantly, Why?

Installment #1 in Final Report

Hegel. Possibly the most misunderstood, cryptic, and downright confusing philosopher there ever was. Scorned by many in the field for this very reason, attributing his complex texts to being superfluous and chocked with symbolism for the sake of it being there. The diction used in his writings are possibly the worst for a beginning philosopher to begin their journey with.

And yet despite of all this, Hegel remains as one of the greatest philosophers to arise out of Germany, inspired Karl Marx (for better or for worse), and is still talked about to his day. Why? This is my focus in this essay. To fully understand who Hegel was, who and what Hegel inspired, and what use are his ideas in today’s societies; i.e. does Hegel still offer meaningful information for today even if one must dive through seven-hundred layers of metaphors to attain it?

Our journey will begin with the question: Who was Hegel? He was born in what is now South-West Germany in 1770. His early years were fairly normal for a upper-middle class child at that time living in Stuttgart. He read constantly during his early, formative years and this love for reading is what, to me, truly began the philosophical ‘ball’ rolling in Hegel’s mind. Hegel’s ideas on metaphysics can be easily traced back to authors that were prominently Enlightenment Era, who he thoroughly enjoyed to read.

Life and philosophy were about to collide for Hegel when he would turn 18. In 1788, “…Hegel entered the Tübinger Stift (a Protestant seminary attached to the University of Tübingen), where he had as roommates the poet Friedrich Hölderlin and the philosopher-to-be Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.”1 (Wikipedia, 2017) This marked a new beginning for Hegel. With him now as roommates were a poet and a philosopher. And right around the corner? The French Revolution.

The French Revolution was quite possibly the most influential event in Georg W.F. Hegel’s life. Our budding philosopher got front-row tickets to the single largest political event in his lifetime and now he had the perfect duo to discuss it with. These three musketeers watched on earnestly. During this time of intense political upheaval, Hegel was beginning to work professionally. He was at first an in-house tutor to an aristocratic family. While his philosophical writings were still around five years away, Hegel wrote many religious essays, Hegel being a devout Christian throughout his life.

In 1801, Hegel began to work at the University of Jena, getting on with help from his friend Schelling.  There he began to formulate his first ‘real’ philosophical book: Phenomenology of Spirit. Finally, 1806 rolls around and Napoleon Bonaparte himself comes through Jena. While this event was not good for Hegel financially (as the city for pretty much shut down and nigh destroyed) it was the beginning of his marriage of philosophy and history.

This singular event formulated in Hegel’s mind a system of metaphysics, whose chief idea was this: All of history, past and future, is like an unraveling piece of fabric. One piece must unravel before the next. This eternal unfolding of events is reality trying to understand itself and reach a sense of enlightenment. We are bystanders, who by proxy, through extensive scrutiny of the past and ourselves can become enlightened as well. Sound confusing? Good. It should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5JGE3lhuNo : The School of Life's Hegel Video

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Wilhelm_Friedrich_Hegel : Source Used and General Information

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/index.htm : A collection of all of Hegel's writings. Non-Annotated so use at one's own risk