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Book No. – 4 (Political Science)
Book Name – Western Political Thought (Shefali Jha)
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1. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF FREEDOM
2. THE EMBODIMENT OF FREEDOM
3. CRITICAL RESPONSES TO HEGEL
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LANGUAGE
G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831): The Social Conditions for a Non-Contractual Theory of Freedom
Chapter – 11
Table of Contents
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a central figure in German Idealism, following Immanuel Kant, Fichte, and Schelling.
- German Idealism contrasts with British empiricists like Locke, Hume, and Mill, focusing on thoughts and ideas as the basis of human knowledge, rather than sense-impressions.
- Kant addressed the epistemological question of how humans know the world and linked it to moral and political philosophy.
- Hegel strengthened the connection between epistemology and moral/political concerns.
- Hegel was born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany, and studied philosophy and theology at Tubingen.
- After completing his studies in 1793, Hegel worked as a tutor in Switzerland and Frankfurt and wrote essays on religion and philosophy that were published posthumously as Early Theological Writings.
- In his early writings, Hegel favored Jesus’s teachings of love over Kant’s emphasis on reason but later focused on freedom as the most important attribute of human nature.
- At age 30, Hegel began teaching at the University of Jena and wrote his major work, Phenomenology of Spirit.
- Napoleon’s conquests influenced Hegel’s thinking, particularly as he was writing Phenomenology of Spirit during Napoleon’s march into Jena.
- The Enlightenment and Romanticism influenced Hegel’s intellectual development, with connections to figures like Goethe, Holderlin, and the Schlegel brothers.
- After Napoleon captured Jena and closed the university, Hegel worked as a newspaper editor in Bamberg and later as headmaster of a high school in Nuremberg.
- In 1816, Hegel moved to the University of Heidelberg, and by 1818, he became the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he taught until his death in 1831.
- By the time of Hegel’s death, his philosophy had dominated European philosophy departments.
- Many of Hegel’s works were published as lecture notes, including Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Lectures on Aesthetics, and Lectures on the History of Philosophy.
- After publishing Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel also wrote Science of Logic (in three volumes), Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and Philosophy of Right (1821).
- Hegel’s works have been interpreted in various ways:
- Right Hegelians saw him as a conservative, defending the status quo.
- Left Hegelians (e.g., Feuerbach, Marx) found radical implications in Hegel’s philosophy.
- Recent interpretations also view Hegel as a liberal thinker, though this is contested by those seeking a non-communist radical alternative to liberalism.