Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), born in Stuttgart, was the culminating philosopher of German idealism. At the Tübingen seminary he roomed with the poet Hölderlin and the philosopher Schelling, and his thought was shaped by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

His Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and Science of Logic (1812–1816) unfold a dialectic in which consciousness advances through contradiction toward self-knowing spirit, or Geist — humanity coming to know itself through a historical process of rational development.

Appointed to the philosophy chair at Berlin, he taught there until his death in 1831. His followers then split into Right and Left camps, the latter shaping the young Karl Marx.