Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Died
 Relevant Work

## Biography

* Born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany
* Entered a Protestant seminary attached to the University of Tubingen in 1788.
* From 1793 - 1801 worked as a private tutor.
* In 1801 took an unsalaried position in the philosophy department at the University of Jena.
* Moved to Bamburg in 1807 after Napoleon's attack on Jena, and took work as a newspaper editor.
* His first major book, *Phänomenologie des Geistes* (*Phenomelology of Mind/Spirit*) was published the same year.
* 1808-1816, appointed headmaster of a gymnasium in Nuremberg.
* While in Nuremberg, he wrote his enormous three-volume **Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften** [1817 (**Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences**)].
* In 1811, Hegel married Marie Helena Susanna von Tucher (1791–1855)
* Moved to Heidelberg in 1816 to take a post at the university there.
* In 1818 accepts the chair in philosophy at the University of Berlin.
* Appointed Rector (equivalent of a President at a US institution) in 1829 for a one year term.
* Decorated with the Order of the Red Eagle in 1831 by Frederick William III.
* Dies in late 1831 during an cholera outbreak in Berlin.

## From *Phenomenology of Mind*

### **Background and Historical Context**

As a student in Tübingen, Hegel studied philosophy and theology during which he became friends with romantic poets Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843) and Friedrich von Schelling (1775–1854). His friendships would inform Hegel’s view of German philosophy that pervaded in the first half of the century. While under the influence of Hölderlin and Schelling, Hegel’s interest turned to the issues arising from Immanuel Kant’s critical philosophy.

Hegel’s *The Phenomenology of the Spirit* (or *The Phenomenology of Mind*) was published in 1807, shortly after Napoleon engaged in Prussian troops in the Battle of Jena.

### **Key Words and Terms**

* **Self-Conscious:** Conscious of one's own acts or states as belonging to or originating in oneself : aware of oneself as an individual. Intensely aware of oneself: conscious.
* **Entente:** An international understanding providing for a common course of action.
* **Master**: One having authority over another. In historical contexts : the owner of a slave.
* **Bondsman**:One who assumes the responsibility of a bond: a slave, serf.

### **Key Quotations**

* Self-Consciousness exists in itself and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness; that is to say, it *is* only by acknowledged or "recognized".
* Self-consciousness has before it another self-consciousness; it has come outside itself.
* Self-consciousness has before it another self-consciousness; it has come outside itself. First it has lost its own self, since it finds itself as an *other* being; secondly, it has thereby sublated that other, for it does not regard the other as essentially real, but sees its own self in the other.
* Each self-consciousness sees the other do the same as itself; each itself does what it demands on the part of the other, and for that reason does what it does, only so far as the other does the same. Action from one side only would be useless, because what is to happen can only be brought about by means of both.

## References

1. ↑ Buchanan, I. (2018). Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. In *A Dictionary of*
Critical Theory*. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 31 Aug. 2020, from. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198794790.001.0001/acref-9780198794790-e-315.*

and
“Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.” *Wikipedia*, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 August 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg\_Wilhelm\_Friedrich\_Hegel.
2. ↑ [2] Redding, Paul, "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/hegel/