HEGELIANISM

the collection of philosophical movements that developed out of the thought of the 19th-century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. Certain philosophical movements derived a number of important doctrines from Hegel. The most influential of these doctrines included the claim that all previous philosophical speculation had failed to give a clear view of reality, since it lacked the key Hegelian insight that reality can only be understood as a totality ("the truth is the whole"), and that the attempt to understand the apparently individual and unconnected phenomena of nature, history, and human life through separate categories of thought is utterly mistaken. For Hegel, there is a unifying metaphysical process underlying the apparent diversity of the world, which he called the dialectic. This process is essentially the necessary emergence of higher and more adequate entities out of a conflict between their less developed and less adequate anticipations. This process can be seen to be operating both at the most abstract levels of thought as well as at the level of simple phenomena. So, for example, at the most abstract level of thought, pure "being" (the thesis in this particular dialectical progression), because it is pure indeterminacy, can be seen to imply its opposite, "nothingness" (the antithesis). However, the truth about these concepts must contain both being and nothingness. This truth is the interaction or movement between being and nothingness which is "becoming" (the synthesis). At a less abstract level history can be seen as a passage from primitive tribal life with all its inadequacies to the more adequate, fully rational state. For Hegel and the Hegelian tradition, the truth about reality, with such concepts as being and the nature of tribal life, could not be grasped if these phenomena were studied in isolation from other concepts and social phenomena. This dialectical process culminates in the self-understanding of the "absolute," which is, according to most interpreters of Hegel, the totality of everything which exists. Because of the necessarily progressive nature of this fundamental dialectical process, Hegel believed that the "real is rational." Hegel applied this system in detail to religion, politics, logic, aesthetics, history, and ethics, producing one of the most comprehensive philosophical systems ever devised. Inevitably, Hegel's followers-who built on such a diverse, complex, and ambiguous intellectual base-did not long remain in agreement as to what Hegel actually meant or should have meant. In Germany itself, not long after Hegel's death in 1831, two competing schools of Hegelianism emerged. On one side there were the Right, or Old Hegelians, conservative and Christian. They followed the later Hegel in interpreting the dialectical process as culminating in the Prussian state and interpreted the absolute as equivalent to traditional Protestant conceptions of God. This school of thought produced no major figures and after enjoying the support of the Prussian state went into rapid decline. It was fully eclipsed by the 1860s. But there was also a rival school of Hegelianism known as the Left, or Young Hegelians. They interpreted the Hegelian dialectic in a revolutionary and atheistic sense, arguing that existing reality, including the prevailing political and religious order, was inadequate and needed to be made more rational. Moreover, they believed that, according to Hegel's own views, such change was necessarily entailed by the dynamic logic of the dialectic. The great metaphysical process of the dialectic, they scornfully asserted, did not simply culminate in the 19th century, the Prussian state, and Lutheran religion. Initially, much of the radicalism of this version of Hegelianism was directed at theology. David Strauss's book Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, 2 vol. (1835-36; The Life of Jesus, Critically Examined), one of the most influential works of the century, attempted to reinterpret Christ's mission as a parable of the Hegelian truth that being is the unification of the divine nature and the human. Strauss's contemporary, Ludwig Feuerbach, went even further and argued in Das Wesen des Christentums (1841; The Essence of Christianity) that humanity could now see that religion was merely the projection of its own divinity and that humanity itself was the new religion. At the philosophical and political level radical Hegelians began to diverge. Such Hegelians as Max Stirner interpreted the Hegelian dialectic in a psychologistic sense as supporting the view that self-consciousness was the highest manifestation of reality. They moved increasingly toward an anarchistic, aristocratic individualism. Other radical Hegelians, such as Karl Marx, sought to locate the Hegelian dialectic not primarily in the psychological realm, nor in the realm of abstract thought, but rather in the material conditions of historical evolution. In this analysis, the notion of the inadequacy of certain entities leading to the realization of more adequate ones was interpreted specifically as the evolution of primitive economic systems and class societies toward more sophisticated ones. This dialectical process culminated, not in the triumph of some nebulous absolute, but in the revolutionary transition to a classless society. Although in the 19th century Hegelianism continued to exert a powerful influence on the intellectual life of Germany in history and aesthetics, it declined as a philosophical movement. In the same period various forms of Neo-Hegelianism emerged in Italy, Britain, and the United States. In the English-speaking nations in particular, Hegelianism offered an attractive alternative to prevailing empiricist and utilitarian philosophies. Adaptations of Hegelianism seem to allow for subtle metaphysical reconciliations between, for example, the freedom of the individual and the claims of the state, or of the conflict between science and religion. Such compromises had not been possible in the simpler, pragmatic philosophies that had until then dominated British and American thought. Both in English-speaking lands and in Italy the Hegelian argument that reality, truth, and fulfillment were only possible through the comprehension of certain totalities of thought, experience, and social forms had a special appeal. A number of thinkers in this neo-Hegelian mold emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including F.H. Bradley and J.E. McTaggart in Britain, Josiah Royce in the United States, and Benedetto Croce in Italy. The later reemergence of positivist, empiricist modes of thought in English-speaking countries rendered Hegelianism less intellectually respectable. It was only the gradual discovery by such men as the French historian Jean Hyppolite of the influence Hegel had had on the young Marx and Marxist concepts and the growing awareness of Hegel's importance in the transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Age that led to a widespread revival of interest in Hegel and Hegelianism. Many of Hegel's ideas are reemerging in works on political philosophy and aesthetics. Nevertheless, no version of Hegelianism succeeds in giving a clear and philosophically convincing account of many of the ideas at the heart of his system, in particular the dialectical process as a key to the true nature of reality. In this sense Hegelianism has not endured as an intellectually viable philosophical system. the collection of philosophical movements that developed out of the thought of the 19th-century German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. The term is here so construed as to exclude Hegel himself and to include, therefore, only the ensuing Hegelian movements. As such, its thought is focussed upon history and logic, a history in which it sees, in various perspectives, that "the rational is the real" and a logic in which it sees that "the truth is the Whole." Additional reading Critical works Works presenting a critical consideration of Hegelianism viewed as a whole are few. See, however: Stephan D. Crites, "Hegelianism," in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 3, pp. 451-459 (1967, reissued 1972); Mario Rossi, Da Hegel a Marx, 2 vol. (1970); and Ren Serreau, Hegel et l'hglianisme, 4th ed. (1971). Historical works John E. Toews, Hegelianism: The Path Toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805-1841 (1980); Johann E. Erdmann, Die Deutsche Philosophie seit Hegels Tode (1963); Willy Moog, Hegel und die Hegelsche Schule (1930, reissued 1973); Karl Lwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Thought, 1964; originally published in German, 1941); and two anthologies, on the Left and Right, respectively: Karl Lwith (ed.), Die Hegelsche Linke (1962); and Hermann Lbbe (ed.), Die Hegelsche Rechte (1962). Hegelianism in various countries (Germany): Heinrich Levy, Die Hegel-Renaissance in der deutschen Philosophie (1927). (Italy): Mario Rossi (ed.), Sviluppi dello Hegelismo in Italia (1957); Benedetto Croce, Saggio sullo Hegel, 5th ed. (1967). (Slavic countries): Contributions of authors from Russia, Poland, the Balkans, and Czechoslovakia are presented in Hegel bei den Slaven, 2nd ed., ed. by Dmitrij Tschizewskij (1961); see also Boris Jakowenko, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Hegelianismus in Russland (1934). (England): Hira-Lal Haldar, Neo-Hegelianism (1927). (United States): Loyd D. Easton, "Hegelianism in Nineteenth-Century Ohio," Journal of the History of Ideas, 23:355-378 (1962), for the Cincinnati school; Henry A. Pochmann, German Culture in America: Philosophical and Literary Influences 1600-1900, pp. 257-294 (1957, reprinted 1978), for the St. Louis school. See also William H. Goetzmann and Dickson Pratt (eds.), The American Hegelians: An Intellectual Episode in the History of Western America (1973). Other works Auguste Cornu, Karl Marx et Friedrich Engels, 2 vol. (1955-58), is rich in materials and citations from the Hallische and Deutsche Jahrbcher. See also Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory, 2nd ed. (1954); and Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx (1936, reissued 1950 and 1962).