Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F.
Hegel which can be summed up by the dictum
that "the rational alone is real", which means
that all reality is capable of being expressed
in rational categories. His goal was to reduce
reality to a more synthetic unity within the
system of absolute idealism.
== Method ==
Hegel's method in philosophy consists of the
triadic development (Entwicklung) in each
concept and each thing. Thus, he hopes, philosophy
will not contradict experience, but experience
will give data to the philosophical, which
is the ultimately true explanation. If, for
instance, we wish to know what liberty is,
we take that concept where we first find it—the
unrestrained action of the savage, who does
not feel the need of repressing any thought,
feeling, or tendency to act.
Next, we find that the savage has given up
this freedom in exchange for its opposite,
the restraint, or, as he considers it, the
tyranny, of civilization and law. Finally,
in the citizen under the rule of law, we find
the third stage of development, namely liberty
in a higher and a fuller sense than how the
savage possessed it—the liberty to do, say,
and think many things beyond the power of
the savage.
In this triadic process, the second stage
is the direct opposite, the annihilation,
or at least the sublation, of the first. The
third stage is the first returned to itself
in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form.
The three stages are, therefore, styled:
in itself (An-sich)
out of itself (Anderssein)
in and for itself (An-und-für-sich).These
three stages are found succeeding one another
throughout the whole realm of thought and
being, from the most abstract logical process
up to the most complicated concrete activity
of organized mind in the succession of states
or the production of systems of philosophy.
== Doctrine of development ==
In logic – which, according to Hegel, is
really metaphysic – we have to deal with
the process of development applied to reality
in its most abstract form. According to Hegel,
in logic, we deal in concepts robbed of their
empirical content: in logic we are discussing
the process in a vacuum, so to speak. Thus,
at the very beginning of Hegel's study of
reality, he finds the logical concept of being.
Now, being is not a static concept according
to Hegel, as Aristotle supposed it was. It
is essentially dynamic, because it tends by
its very nature to pass over into nothing,
and then to return to itself in the higher
concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was
nothing more certain than that being equaled
being, or, in other words, that being is identical
with itself, that everything is what it is.
Hegel does not deny this; but, he adds, it
is equally certain that being tends to become
its opposite, nothing, and that both are united
in the concept becoming. For instance, the
truth about this table, for Aristotle, is
that it is a table.
For Hegel, the equally important truth is
that it was a tree, and it "will be" ashes.
The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree
became a table and will become ashes. Thus,
becoming, not being, is the highest expression
of reality. It is also the highest expression
of thought because then only do we attain
the fullest knowledge of a thing when we know
what it was, what it is, and what it will
be-in a word, when we know the history of
its development.
In the same way as "being" and "nothing" develop
into the higher concept becoming, so, farther
on in the scale of development, life and mind
appear as the third terms of the process and
in turn are developed into higher forms of
themselves. (Aristotle saw "being" as superior
to "becoming", because anything which is still
becoming something else is imperfect. Hence,
God, for Aristotle, is perfect because He
never changes, but is eternally complete.)
But one cannot help asking what is it that
develops or is developed?
Its name, Hegel answers, is different in each
stage. In the lowest form it is "being", higher
up it is "life", and in still higher form
it is "mind". The only thing always present
is the process (das Werden). We may, however,
call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist)
or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God,
because at least in the third term of every
triadic development the process is God.
== Categorization of philosophies ==
=== Division of philosophy ===
The first and most wide-reaching consideration
of the process of spirit, God, or the idea,
reveals to us the truth that the idea must
be studied (1) in itself; this is the subject
of logic or metaphysics; (2) out of itself,
in nature; this is the subject of the philosophy
of nature; and (3) in and for itself, as mind;
this is the subject of the philosophy of mind
(Geistesphilosophie).
=== Philosophy of nature ===
Passing over the rather abstract considerations
by which Hegel shows in his Logik the process
of the idea-in-itself through being to becoming,
and finally through essence to notion, we
take up the study of the development of the
idea at the point where it enters into otherness
in nature. In nature the idea has lost itself,
because it has lost its unity and is splintered,
as it were, into a thousand fragments. But
the loss of unity is only apparent, because
in reality the idea has merely concealed its
unity.
Studied philosophically, nature reveals itself
as so many successful attempts of the idea
to emerge from the state of otherness and
present itself to us as a better, fuller,
richer idea, namely, spirit, or mind. Mind
is, therefore, the goal of nature. It is also
the truth of nature. For whatever is in nature
is realized in a higher form in the mind which
emerges from nature.
=== Philosophy of mind ===
The philosophy of mind begins with the consideration
of the individual, or subjective, mind. It
is soon perceived, however, that individual,
or subjective, mind is only the first stage,
the in-itself stage, of mind. The next stage
is objective mind, or mind objectified in
law, morality, and the State. This is mind
in the condition of out-of-itself.
There follows the condition of absolute mind,
the state in which mind rises above all the
limitations of nature and institutions, and
is subjected to itself alone in art, religion,
and philosophy. For the essence of mind is
freedom, and its development must consist
in breaking away from the restrictions imposed
on it in it otherness by nature and human
institutions.
=== Philosophy of history ===
Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory
of history, and his account of absolute mind
are perhaps the most often-read portions of
his philosophy due to their accessibility.
The State, he says, is mind objectified. The
individual mind, which (on account of its
passions, its prejudices, and its blind impulses)
is only partly free, subjects itself to the
yoke of necessity—the opposite of freedom—in
order to attain a fuller realization of itself
in the freedom of the citizen.
This yoke of necessity is first met within
the recognition of the rights of others, next
in morality, and finally in social morality,
of which the primal institution is the family.
Aggregates of families form civil society,
which, however, is but an imperfect form of
organization compared with the State. The
State is the perfect social embodiment of
the idea, and stands in this stage of development
for God Himself.
The State, studied in itself, furnishes for
our consideration constitutional law. In relation
to other States it develops international
law; and in its general course through historical
vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel
calls the "Dialectics of History".
Hegel teaches that the constitution is the
collective spirit of the nation and that the
government and the written constitution is
the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation
has its own individual spirit, and the greatest
of crimes is the act by which the tyrant or
the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation.
War, Hegel suggests, can never be ruled out,
as one can never know when or if one will
occur, an example being the Napoleonic overrunning
of Europe and its abolition of traditional
Royalist systems. War represents a crisis
in the development of the idea which is embodied
in the different States, and out of this crisis
usually the State which holds the more advanced
spirit wins out, though it may also suffer
a loss, lick its wounds, yet still win in
the spiritual sense, as happened for example
when the northerners sacked Rome — Rome's
form of legality and its religion "won" out
in spite of the losses on the battlefield.
A peaceful revolution is also possible (according
to Hegel) when the changes required to solve
a crisis are ascertained by thoughtful insight
and when this insight spreads throughout the
body politic:
If a people [Volk] can no longer accept as
implicitly true what its constitution expresses
to it as the truth, if its consciousness or
Notion and its actuality are not at one, then
the people's spirit is torn asunder. Two things
may then occur. First, the people may either
by a supreme internal effort dash into fragments
this law which still claims authority, or
it may more quietly and slowly effect changes
on the yet operative law, which is, however,
no longer true morality, but which the mind
has already passed beyond. In the second place,
a people's intelligence and strength may not
suffice for this, and it may hold to the lower
law; or it may happen that another nation
has reached its higher constitution, thereby
rising in the scale, and the first gives up
its nationality and becomes subject to the
other. Therefore it is of essential importance
to know what the true constitution is; for
what is in opposition to it has no stability,
no truth, and passes away. It has a temporary
existence, but cannot hold its ground; it
has been accepted, but cannot secure permanent
acceptance; that it must be cast aside, lies
in the very nature of the constitution. This
insight can be reached through Philosophy
alone. Revolutions take place in a state without
the slightest violence when the insight becomes
universal; institutions, somehow or other,
crumble and disappear, each man agrees to
give up his right. A government must, however,
recognize that the time for this has come;
should it, on the contrary, knowing not the
truth, cling to temporary institutions, taking
what — though recognized — is unessential,
to be a bulwark guarding it from the essential
(and the essential is what is contained in
the Idea), that government will fall, along
with its institutions, before the force of
mind. The breaking up of its government breaks
up the nation itself; a new government arises,
— or it may be that the government and the
unessential retain the upper hand.
The "ground" of historical development is,
therefore, rational; since the State, if it
is not in contradiction, is the embodiment
of reason as spirit. Many, at first considered
to be contingent events of history, can become,
in reality or in necessity, stages in the
logical unfolding of the sovereign reason
which gets embodied in an advanced State.
Such a "necessary contingency" when expressed
in passions, impulse, interest, character,
personality, get used by the "cunning of reason",
which, in retrospect, was to its own purpose.
==== Stages of history ====
We are, therefore, to understand historical
happenings as the stern, reluctant working
of reason towards the full realization of
itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we
must interpret history in rational terms,
and throw the succession of events into logical
categories and this interpretation is, for
Hegel, a mere inference from actual history.
Thus the widest view of history reveals three
most important stages of development:
Oriental imperial (the stage of oneness, of
suppression of freedom)
Greek social democracy (the stage of expansion,
in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy)
Christian constitutional monarchy (which represents
the reintegration of freedom in constitutional
government)
=== Philosophy of absolute mind ===
Even in the State, mind is limited by subjection
to other minds. There remains the final step
in the process of the acquisition of freedom,
namely, that by which absolute mind in art,
religion, and philosophy subjects itself to
itself alone. In art, mind has the intuitive
contemplation of itself as realized in the
art material, and the development of the arts
has been conditioned by the ever-increasing
"docility" with which the art material lends
itself to the actualization of mind or the
idea.
In religion, mind feels the superiority of
itself to the particularizing limitations
of finite things. Here, as in the philosophy
of history, there are three great moments,
Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea
of the infinite, Greek religion, which gave
undue importance to the finite, and Christianity,
which represents the union of the infinite
and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind,
as philosophy, transcends the limitations
imposed on it even in religious feeling, and,
discarding representative intuition, attains
all truth under the form of reason.
Whatever truth there is in art and in religion
is contained in philosophy, in a higher form,
and free from all limitations. Philosophy
is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest
phase of the union of subjective and objective
mind, and the ultimate goal of all development."
== 
Influence ==
The far reaching influence of Hegel is due
in a measure to the undoubted vastness of
the scheme of philosophical synthesis which
he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy
which undertook to organize under the single
formula of triadic development every department
of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the
philosophy of history, has a great deal of
attractiveness to those who are metaphysically
inclined. But Hegel's influence is due in
a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances.
His philosophy is the highest expression of
that spirit of collectivism which characterized
the nineteenth century. In theology especially
Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry.
The application of his notion of development
to Biblical criticism and to historical investigation
is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit
and purpose of contemporary theology with
the spirit and purpose of the theological
literature of the first half of the nineteenth
century.In science, too, and in literature,
the substitution of the category of becoming
for the category of being is a very patent
fact, and is due to the influence of Hegel's
method. In political economy and political
science the effect of Hegel's collectivistic
conception of the State supplanted to a large
extent the individualistic conception which
was handed down from the eighteenth century
to the nineteenth century.
== Hegelian schools ==
Hegel's philosophy became known outside Germany
from the 1820s onwards, and Hegelian schools
developed in northern Europe, Italy, France,
Eastern Europe, America and Britain. These
schools are collectively known as post-Hegelian
philosophy, post-Hegelian idealism or simply
post-Hegelianism.
=== In Germany ===
Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are
generally divided into the "Right Hegelians"
and the "Left Hegelians" (the latter also
referred to as the "Young Hegelians").
The Rightists developed his philosophy along
lines which they considered to be in accordance
with Christian theology. They included Johann
Philipp Gabler, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz,
and Johann Eduard Erdmann.
The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian
tendencies of Hegel's system and developed
schools of materialism, socialism, rationalism,
and pantheism. They included Ludwig Feuerbach,
Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and David Strauss.
Max Stirner socialized with the left Hegelians
but built his own philosophical system largely
opposing that of these thinkers.
=== Other nations ===
In Britain, Hegelianism was represented during
the nineteenth century by, and largely overlapped
the British Idealist school of James Hutchison
Stirling, Thomas Hill Green, William Wallace,
John Caird, Edward Caird, Richard Lewis Nettleship,
F. H. Bradley, and J. M. E. McTaggart.
In Denmark, Hegelianism was represented by
Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Lassen Martensen
from the 1820s to the 1850s.
In mid-19th century Italy, Hegelianism was
represented by Bertrando Spaventa.
Hegelianism in North America was represented
by Friedrich August Rauch and William T. Harris,
as well as the St. Louis Hegelians. In its
most recent form it seems to take its inspiration
from Thomas Hill Green, and whatever influence
it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic
tendency.
In Poland, Hegelianism was represented by
Karol Libelt, August Cieszkowski and Józef
Kremer.
Benedetto Croce and Étienne Vacherot were
the leading Hegelians towards the end of the
nineteenth century in Italy and France, respectively.
Among Catholic philosophers who were influenced
by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes
and Anton Günther.
Hegelianism also inspired Giovanni Gentile's
philosophy of actual idealism and fascism,
the concept that people are motivated by ideas
and that social change is brought by the leaders.
Hegelianism spread to Imperial Russia through
St. Petersburg in the 1840s, and was – as
other intellectual waves were – considered
an absolute truth amongst the intelligentsia,
until the arrival of Darwinism in the 1860s.Slavoj
Žižek is considered to be a contemporary
post-Hegelian philosopher.
== See also ==
Dialectical phenomenology
Hegelian Marxism
Panlogism
== References ==
This article incorporates text from a publication
now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles,
ed. (1913). "article name needed". Catholic
Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton.
