Georg W.F Hegel

(1770 – 1831)

German philosopher, one of the most important and influential philosophers of the modern era. He built further on Kant’s philosophy, which culminated in his articulation of a new kind of idealist position. Hegel went even further than Kant and claimed that the mind doesn’t only structure reality, but that it actually creates it. That is, reality = mind or spirit (Geist) (= Idea). This view is called absolute idealism.

Hegel criticised Kant’s view as too static and ahistorical. Kant thought that the mind is structurally and functionally identical in all individuals, cultures and historical periods. But according to Hegel, even though the mind has a universal abstract structure, its content changes and evolves through time. To account for the dynamic and active nature of ideas and concepts, Hegel used a three- part dialectic method (Hegelian dialectic) through which ideas are developed.

The fundamental notion of Hegelian dialectic is that things and ideas have internal contradictions. His analysis shows that underneath any apparently simple idea or unity, lies an inherent negativity, which strives to be resolved (he uses the term ‘sublated’) into a higher-level form of the idea or a thing, that incorporates the contradiction. The analysis of an idea or concept follows the three- part method:

Idea in-itself (the positive – thesis)
Idea out-of-itself (the negative – antithesis)
Idea in-and-for-itself (the sublation of thesis and antithesis – synthesis)

For Hegel, thought and language function in a system of contrasts and everything in the world is in a process of synthesising the positive and the negative. For example, I am I, because I am not you, or anyone else. The table is a table because it is not a chair, or an apple, or water. So, every thought, word, and thing exists only as a part of a system of exclusions. A thing is what it is by not being its other, yet that ‘otherness’ is what defines it.

For example, Hegel begins his system with the most fundamental pair of concepts, upon which everything else is built – that is, everything and nothing (Being and Nothingness):

(1) Being is the beginning. It is Absolute Pure Thought. It is immediate, abstract and constitutes everything that is, by virtue of the fact that it is. Mathematically it is written as ‘I=I’, while philosophically/theologically, it is represented by the idea that ‘God (the Absolute) is the sum total of everything.

(2) Nothingness is the antithesis to Being (but at the same time it is equal to Being**). Being and Nothingness represent the absolute limitations of all thinking and reality.

(3) As Being and Nothingness pass and vanish into one another, Becoming emerges as a synthesis between the two. While Being and Nothing are both immediate and undeterminate (they have no content), the process of synthesis reveals that in thinking of everything and nothing, an active component emerges – something is becoming, which is no longer completely immediate and enables the first steps for determinancy)…

Hegel developed his system of science through three main expositions (or modes) of the Idea (= all reality):

– Logic (Science of Logic, 1812-16): The Idea in itself, pure and self-thinking thought outside of space and time.

—>Here, Hegel develops the idea that thought and being constitute a single and active unity. For Hegel, logic is not merely about reasoning or arguments, but is the rational, structural core of all reality and its dimensions. The Science of Logic includes analysis of Being, Nothingness,

Becoming, Existence, Reality, Essence, Reflection, Appearance, Reality, Concept, Object and Idea.

– Nature (Science of Nature, 1842): The Idea outside of itself, in space and time developing into Spirit

—> In the Logic, the idea has developed itself fully in a subjective sense, so Nature emerges as its opposite. Here, Hegel develops the Idea through objectivity and includes analysis of Mathematics, Physics and Organics (Geology, Biology)

– Spirit (Phenomenology of the Spirit, 1807): The Idea in and for itself, as it reemerged out of nature and returned to itself in self-conscious, rational life, or the human

—> Traces the evolution of the Idea as it develops through various stages towards Absolute Knowledge. The stages of its development include Consciousness, Sense Certainty, Perception, Force and Understanding, Self-consciousness, Reason, Spirit, Morality and Religion.

One of the most famous and important passages of the Phenomenology of Spirit is the master- slave dialectic, or more appropriately translated as Lordship and Bondage:

– The passage describes the meeting of two equal self-consciousnesses, as they engage in alife-and-death struggle trying to assert dominance over one another (they are each aiming forrecognition as a self-sufficient entity)

– One self-consciousness ends up winning due to some random, arbitrary factor. That self-consciousness becomes the master and the other becomes the slave.

– Because they are not equals anymore, they can’t mutually recognise each other

– The master forces the slave to produce all of the goods it will consume, and lives a life ofluxury. But in doing so the master becomes weak, complacent, and vegetative and depends onthe slave for recognition

– On the other hand, through his work for the master, the slave creates more and more, andstarts to see himself reflected in the products he created. He realises that the world around him was created by him, so he is no longer alienated from his own labour and achieves self- consciousness.

– So, the slave is actually in a superior position than the master, who is completely dependent on the products created by his slave (effectively enslaved by the labour of his slave)The master-slave dialectic was incredibly influential in the 20th century, particularly in Karl Marx’s conception of class struggle, as well as in 21st century philosophy of gender studies and colonial relations.