Hegelianism

(1) Life and Writings of Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stüttgart in 1770; died at Berlin in

1831. After studying theology at Tübingen he devoted himself successively to the

study of contemporary philosophy and to the cultivation of the Greek classics.

After about seven years spent as private tutor in various places, he began his

career as university professor in 1801. His first appointment was at Jena. After an

intermission of a year which he spent as newspaper editor at Bamberg, and a

short term as rector of a gymasium at Nuremberg , he was made professor of

philosophy at Heidelberg in 1816, whence he was transferred to the University of

Berlin in 1818. Hegel's principle works are his "Logic" (Wissenschaft der Logik,

1816), his "Phenomenology of Spirit" (Phanomenologie des Gesites, 1807), his

"Encyclopedia" (Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, 1817), and

his Philosophy of History (Vorlesungen uber die Philosophie der Geschichte,

1820). His works were collected and published by Rosenkranz in 19 vols.,

1832-42, second edition 1840-54.

(2) Aim of his Philosophy

Hegel's philosophy is an attempt to reduce to a more synthetic unity the system

of transcendantal idealism bequeathed to him by Kant, Fichte, and Schelling.

Kant had taught that, so far as our theoretical experience is concerned, there

exists nothing except the appearances of things and the unknown and

unknowable noumenal substrate of these appearances, the Ding-an-sich. Hegel

starts out by assuming that, if for Kant's destructive criticism of theoretical

experience we substitute an incessantly progressive and productive immanent

criticism, we shall find that the noumenal reality is not an unknowable substrate

of appearances, but an ever-active process, which in thought and in reality

constantly passes into its opposite in order to return to a higher and richer form

of itself. This process in its barest and most meagre form is being; in its fullest

and richest form it is spirit, absolute mind, the state, religion, philosophy. The

busines of philosophy is to trace this process through all its stages.

(3) His Method

Hegel's method in philosophy consists, therefore, in following out the triadic

development (Entwicklung) in each concept and in each thing. Thus, he hopes,

philosophy will not contradict experience, but will give to the data of experience

the philosophical, that is, the ultimately true, explanation. If, for instance, we

wish to know what liberty is, we take that concept where we first find it, in the

unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feeel 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. Thirdly, 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

that in which the savage possessed it, the liberty to do and to say and to think

many things which were beyond the power of the savage. In this triadic process

we remark that the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at

least the sublation, of the first. We remark also that 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); and

in and for itself (An-und-fur-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.

(4) Doctrine of Development

In logic---which really is a metaphysic---we have to deal with the process of

development applied to reality in its most abstract form. For in logic we deal in

concepts robbed of their empirical content: in logic we are discussing the

process in vacuo, so to speak. Thus, at the very beginning of our study of reality,

we find the logical concept of being. Now, being is not a static concept, 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 that that being=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

kowledge 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 are in turn are developed into higher forms of themselves. 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.

(5) 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).

(6) 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 out of 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.

(7) 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 objevtified in law, morality, and the State. This is mind in the

condition of out-of-itself. There follows the condition of asboslute mind, the state

in which mind rises above all the limitations of nature and instituitions, 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.

(8) Philosophy of History

Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory of history, and his account of absolute

mind are the most interesting portions of his philosophy and the most easily

understood. The Stae, 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 with in 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 is the embodiment of that spirit. Each

nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which

the tryrant or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation. War, he teaches, is an

indispensable means of political progress. It is a crisis in the development of the

idea which is embodied in the different States, and out of this crisis the better

State is certain to emerge victorious. The "ground" of historical development is,

therefore, rational; since the State is the embodiment of reason as spirit. All the

apparently contingent events of history are in reality stages in the logical

unfolding of the sovereign reason which is embodied in the State. Passions,

impulse, interest, character, personality---all these are either the expression of

reason or the instruments which reason moulds for its own use.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 purely rational terms, and throw the succession of

events into logical categories. Thus, the widest view of history reveals three most

important stages of development. Oriental monarchy (the stage of oneness, of

suppression of freedom), Greek democracy (the stage of expansion, in which

freedom was lost in unstable demagogy), and Christian constitutional monarchy

(which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government).

(9) 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 acquistion 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. Wahtever 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 uinion of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate goal of all

development.

(10) Hegelian School

Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are generally divided into the "Hegelian

Rightists" and the "Hegelian Leftists". The Rightists developed his philosophy

along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian teaching.

They are Goschel, Gabler, 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

are Feuerbach, Richter, Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and Strauss. In England,

Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by Stirling, Thomas

Hill Green, John Caird, Edward Caird, Nettleship, McTaggart, and Baillie. Of

these the most important is Thomas Hill Green. Hegelianism in America is

represented by Thomas Watson and William T. Harris. 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 Italy the Hegelian

movement has had manydistinguished adherents, the chief of whom at the

present time is Benedetto Croce, who as an exponent of Hegelianism occupies

in his own country the position occupied in France by Vicherot towards the end

of the nineteenth century. Among Catholic philosophers who were influenced by

Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes (q.v.), and Anton Gunther (q.v.).

Their doctrines, especially their rejection of the distinction between natural and

supernatural truth, were condemned by the Church.

(11) Influence of Hegel

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 ninetheenth century, and it is also

the most extended application of the principle of development which dominated

nineteenth-century thought in literature, science, and even in theology. In

theology especially Hegel revolutionized the methods opf 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. Whether these changes are for good or for ill remains

to be seen. Some of them have certainly wrought so much evil, especially in

theology, in our own day, that one can hardly dare to hope that they will in the

future be productive of much benefit to philosophy or to scientific method.

(12) Estimate of Hegel's Philosphy

The very vastness of the Hegelian plan doomed it to failure. "The rational alone is

real" was a favourite motto of Hegel. It means that all reality is capable of being

expressed in rational categories. This is a Gnosticism more detrimental to

Christian conceptions than the Agnosticism of Huxley and Spencer. It implies

that God, being a reality, must be capable of comprehension by the finite mind. It

impliess, moreover, as Hegel himself admits, that God is only in so far as He is

conceived under the category of Becoming; God is a process. It is by this

doctrine, which is at once so out of place in a great system of metaphysics and

so utterly repugnant to the Christian mind, that Hegel's philosophy is to be

judged. Hegel attempted the impossible. A complete synthesis of reality in terms

of reason is possible only to an infinite mind. Man, whose mental power is finite,

must be content with a partially complete synthesis of reality and learn in his

failure to attain completeness he should learn that God, Who evades his rational

synthesis and defies the limitations of his categories, is the object of faith as well

as of knowledge.

Notes

Hegel's Werke, ed. ROSENKRANZ (Berlin, 1832-42; 2nd ed., 1840-54); Hegel's Briefwechsel, ed.

K. HEGEL (19 vols., Berlin, 1887); translations of several of Hegel's works made by HARRIS in the

Journal of Speculative Philosophy (St. Louis, 1867-71); several treatises translated by WALLACE,

Logic of Hegel (Oxford, 1892); IDEM, Hegel's Philosophy of Mind (Oxford, 1894); and SIBREE,

Philosophy of History (London, 1860, 1884). The best English exposition of Hegel's philosophy is

CAIRD, Hegel in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics (Edinburgh and Philadelphia, 1896);

STIRLING, Secret of Hegel (2 vols., London, 1865) is difficult reading. Also consult FISCHER, Hegel

(Heidelberg, 1898-1901); Mind, especially the new series; SETH, Hegelianism and Personality (2nd

ed., London, 1893); MORRIS, Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History in Grigg's Classics

(Chicago, 1887); HIBBEN, Hegel's Logic (New York, 1892); TURNER, History of Philosophy (Boston,

1903), pp. 560-583.

William Turner

Transcribed by Geoffrey K. Mondello

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VII

Nihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org