page_title: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
section_title: Heidelberg and Berlin (1816–1831)
hierarchical_section_title: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel / Life / Career years / Heidelberg and Berlin (1816–1831)
caption_attribution_description: Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) mit Studenten. Lithographie.
context_page_description: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and an important figure in German idealism. He achieved recognition in his day and—while primarily influential in the continental tradition of philosophy—has become increasingly influential in the analytic tradition as well.
  Hegel's principal achievement was his development of a distinctive articulation of idealism, sometimes termed absolute idealism, in which the dualisms of, for instance, mind and nature and subject and object are overcome. His philosophy of spirit conceptually integrates psychology, the state, history, art, religion and philosophy. His master–slave dialectic has been influential, especially in 20th-century France. Of special importance is his concept of spirit as the historical manifestation of the logical concept – and the "sublation" – of seemingly contradictory or opposing factors: examples include the apparent opposition between necessity and freedom and between immanence and transcendence. Hegel has been seen in the twentieth century as the originator of the thesis, antithesis, synthesis triad, but as an explicit phrase it originated with Johann Gottlieb Fichte.
context_section_description: Having received offers of a post from the Universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg, Hegel chose Heidelberg, where he moved in 1816. Soon after, his illegitimate son Ludwig Fischer (now ten years old) joined the Hegel household in April 1817, having spent time in an orphanage after the death of his mother Christiana Burkhardt.
  In 1817, Hegel published The Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline as a summary of his philosophy for students attending his lectures at Heidelberg.
  In 1818, Hegel accepted the renewed offer of the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, which had remained vacant since Johann Gottlieb Fichte's death in 1814. Here, Hegel published his Philosophy of Right (1821). Hegel devoted himself primarily to delivering lectures; his lectures on aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy were published posthumously from students' notes. His fame spread and his lectures attracted students from all over Germany and beyond.
  In 1819–1827, he made two trips to Weimar, where he met Goethe, and to Brussels, the Northern Netherlands, Leipzig, Vienna, Prague, and Paris.
  Hegel was appointed University Rector of the University in October 1829, but his term ended in September 1830. Hegel was deeply disturbed by the riots for reform in Berlin in that year. In 1831, Frederick William III decorated him with the Order of the Red Eagle, 3rd Class for his service to the Prussian state. In August 1831, a cholera epidemic reached Berlin and Hegel left the city, taking up lodgings in Kreuzberg. Now in a weak state of health, Hegel seldom went out. As the new semester began in October, Hegel returned to Berlin in the mistaken belief that the epidemic had largely subsided. By November 14, Hegel was dead. The physicians pronounced the cause of death as cholera, but it is likely he died from another gastrointestinal disease. His last words are said to have been, "There was only one man who ever understood me, and even he didn't understand me." He was buried on November 16. In accordance with his wishes, Hegel was buried in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery next to Fichte and Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Solger.
  Hegel's illegitimate son, Ludwig Fischer, had died shortly before while serving with the Dutch army in Batavia and the news of his death never reached his father. Early the following year, Hegel's sister Christiane committed suicide by drowning. Hegel's remaining two sons—Karl, who became a historian; and Immanuel, who followed a theological path—lived long and safeguarded their father's manuscripts and letters, and produced editions of his works.
caption: Hegel with his Berlin students
  Sketch by Franz Kugler
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