Hegelianism

Hegelianism is the philosophical system founded by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, according to which the absolute, which he also calls "the Idea", unfolds in an evolving way in the forms of nature and spirit, and reaches its full realization in the rational consciousness of freedom.

The term refers both to Hegel's own work and to the current of thought that grew out of it. Hegel sought to overcome the dualisms that, in his view, dominated modern philosophy, such as the opposition between subject and object or between reason and experience. To do so he built a system that runs from abstract logic to the philosophy of history, passing through the philosophy of right, aesthetics, religion and the philosophy of absolute spirit. His so-called dialectical method examines concepts according to their own internal criteria, exposes their contradictions, and resolves them into a higher unity that both preserves and supersedes what came before.

In the philosophy of history, Hegel held that the development of peoples follows a rational process in which freedom gradually expands. The state represented for him the highest realization of objective spirit, and individual passions and interests, though they might seem accidental, ultimately served the unfolding of reason. He distinguished three broad stages: the Oriental monarchy, where only one was free; Greek democracy, where freedom was lost to unstable demagoguery; and the Christian constitutional monarchy, which restored freedom within a stable order.

Hegel's influence was immense and soon divided his followers into a Right, closer to Christian doctrine, and a Left, which stressed materialism, socialism and the critique of religion. Among the latter were Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, who adapted the dialectical method to their own analyses. In the twentieth century his thought resurfaced in French Hegelianism, critical theory and existentialism. Today scholars still debate whether his system claimed a closed truth or whether his method can still help us understand the historical world.