Hegel years. Georg Hegel: the absolute idea and the world mind

“Everything that is real is reasonable, everything that is reasonable is real.”
G. Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is one of the founders of German classical philosophy and the philosophy of romanticism. He believed that the entire universe is a manifestation of the world mind.

The whole world is philosophy

Georg Hegel, one of the greatest German philosophers

Some researchers called Hegel “the philosopher of philosophers” because he is the only representative of this science for whom philosophy was everything: cause, effect, object of study, and tool. Other thinkers used philosophy as a means to understand reality, but Hegel considered the whole world to be pure thinking, that is, philosophy.

The main idea of Hegel's philosophy is that everything in the world is reasonable. The universe, the philosopher believed, is arranged harmoniously and extremely purposefully, everything in it is in its place and fulfills its purpose. In this regard, Hegel asks the question: could inanimate and unreasonable nature, that is, matter, itself create such a perfect system? His answer: no, she couldn’t. This means that we can and should assume that there is some higher mind that created the entire harmonious universe.

The entire physical world, Hegel argued, is a manifestation of another reality, a spiritual one. She is the highest and ideal, and she creates the material universe. Similar idealistic ideas existed before Hegel: Plato called ultimate reality“the world of ideas”, Hindu philosophy - Brahman. Hegel called the spiritual world the Absolute Idea and the World Mind and correlated this concept with God.

Until his death, the philosopher remained a believer. When he was on his deathbed, one of his friends asked him what he thought about God. Hegel pointed to the Bible lying at the head of the bed and said: “I don’t need to invent anything, all the wisdom of God is here.”

“Truth is born by heresy, but dies by prejudice” (G. Hegel)

Development of the absolute idea

Developing the idea of the existence of the Absolute Idea, Hegel came to the conclusion that it is in everything and goes through three stages in its development. The first stage is finding the Absolute Idea in itself, in an unmanifested state, in the ideal sphere. The philosopher called this ideal sphere logic. He does not use this word in the generally accepted meaning; Hegel’s logic is not a science, but a primary reality.

With the onset of the second stage, the Absolute idea goes beyond logic and is embodied in physical world, creating it. Thus, it turns out that the material world is not something independent, but just a manifestation of the Absolute Idea. Hegel called nature “frozen spirit.” What does this definition mean? To better understand Hegel's idea of reality, we can use an analogy with an artist. When in front of him is Blank sheet, he already knows what should be depicted on it. What will be on a piece of paper is first in his mind. But he can, with the help of pencils and paints, make the contents of his consciousness material. The Absolute Idea works in the same way. She manifests what is inherent in her in material reality, creating this entire world.

At the third stage, the Absolute Idea returns again to the realm of the ideal - to human consciousness, where it continues to exist. Here it takes on specific forms, becoming either scientific knowledge or art. Thus, the three stages of self-development of the Absolute Idea form a triad: thesis turns into antithesis, and synthesis completes everything.

“No man can be a hero to his lackey. Not because the hero is not a hero, but because the lackey is only a lackey” (G. Hegel)

History of the World Spirit

“Half-hearted philosophy separates you from God,” Hegel said, “but true philosophy leads to God.” The philosophy of the Absolute Idea was closely related to the understanding of Divine existence. Hegel believed that God is not somewhere outside the world and space, but inside existence, in every particle of it. The absolute idea, which gives birth to the whole world from itself and returns to itself again, is God. God is the world spirit, which reveals itself again and again in different forms and realizes itself through the human mind.

The philosopher called himself a “biographer of the world spirit.” All human history is the history of the manifested spirit, the study of which is the subject of philosophy. But philosophy cannot foresee how the spirit will manifest itself in the future; it only records what has already happened, while the future is hidden from it.

Hegel was not only a scientist, but also a teacher, and, according to eyewitnesses, his manner of lecturing was unique. His lessons were a kind of philosophical laboratory, where the birth of truth took place right before the eyes of his listeners. He asked the students questions that worried him at that moment, and together with them he walked the path from misunderstanding and doubt to affirmation and confidence. It was difficult to take his lectures, but the results were impressive: all of Hegel’s students became great lovers of philosophy.

“When a person commits this or that moral act, then he is not yet virtuous; he is virtuous only if this method of behavior is a permanent feature of his character” (G. Hegel)

Born in Stuttgart (Duchy of Württemberg) on August 27, 1770. His father, Georg Ludwig Hegel, Secretary of the Treasury, was a descendant of a Protestant family expelled from Austria during the Counter-Reformation. After graduating from high school in his hometown, Hegel studied at the theological department of the University of Tübingen in 1788–1793, took courses in philosophy and theology and defended his master's thesis. At the same time, Friedrich von Schelling, who was five years younger than Hegel, and Friedrich Hölderlin, whose poetry had a profound influence on German literature. Friendships with Schelling and Hölderlin played a significant role in Hegel's mental development. While studying philosophy at the university, he paid special attention to the works of Immanuel Kant, which were widely discussed at that time, as well as to the poetic and aesthetic works of F. Schiller. In 1793–1796 Hegel served as a home teacher in a Swiss family in Bern, and in 1797–1800 in Frankfurt am Main. All these years he studied theology and political thought, and in 1800 he made the first sketch of a future philosophical system (“Fragment of a System”).

After the death of his father in 1799, Hegel received a small inheritance, which, coupled with his own savings, allowed him to give up teaching and enter the field of academic activity. He first presented his theses to the University of Jena (Preliminary theses of a dissertation on the orbits of the planets), and then the dissertation itself, Planetary orbits (De orbitis planetarum), and in 1801 received permission to lecture. In 1801–1805 Hegel was a privatdozent, and in 1805–1807 an extraordinary professor on a very modest salary. The Jena lectures covered a wide range of topics: logic and metaphysics, natural law and pure mathematics. Although they didn't use great success, the years in Jena were one of the happiest periods in the life of the philosopher. Together with Schelling, who taught at the same university, he published the Critical Journal of Philosophy (Kritisches Journal der Philosophie), in which they were not only editors, but also authors. During the same period, Hegel prepared the first of his major works, Phenomenology of Spirit (Ph nomenologie des Geistes, 1807), after the publication of which relations with Schelling were severed. In this work, Hegel gives the first outline of his philosophical system. It represents the progressive procession of consciousness from the immediate sensory certainty of sensation through perception to the knowledge of rational reality, which alone leads us to absolute knowledge. In this sense, only the mind is real.

Without waiting for the publication of Phenomenology, Hegel left Jena, not wanting to stay in the city captured by the French. He left his position at the university, finding himself in difficult personal and financial circumstances. For some time, Hegel edited the “Bamberg Newspaper” (“Bamberger Zeitung”), but less than two years later he abandoned the “newspaper hard labor” and in 1808 received the position of rector of the classical gymnasium in Nuremberg. The eight years Hegel spent in Nuremberg gave him a wealth of experience in teaching, leadership and dealing with people. At the gymnasium he taught philosophy of law, ethics, logic, phenomenology of the spirit and a survey course philosophical sciences; he also had to teach classes in literature, Greek, Latin, mathematics and the history of religion. In 1811 he married Maria von Tucher, whose family belonged to the Bavarian nobility. This relatively calm period of Hegel's life contributed to the emergence of his most important works. The first part of Hegel’s system, The Science of Logic (Die Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812–1816), was published in Nuremberg.

In 1816 Hegel resumed his university career, receiving an invitation to Heidelberg to take the place previously occupied by his Jena rival Jacob Friese. At the University of Heidelberg he taught for four semesters; From the lectures given, the textbook Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (Enzyklop die der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, first edition 1817) was compiled, apparently the best introduction to his philosophy. In 1818, Hegel was invited to the University of Berlin to take the place once occupied by the famous I.G. Fichte. The invitation was initiated by the Prussian Minister of Religious Affairs (in charge of religion, health and education) with the hope of pacifying, with the help of Hegelian philosophy, the dangerous spirit of rebellion that was fermenting among the students.

Hegel's first lectures in Berlin remained almost unnoticed, but gradually the courses began to attract an ever-larger audience. Students not only from various regions of Germany, but also from Poland, Greece, Scandinavia and others European countries rushed to Berlin. Hegel's philosophy of law and government increasingly became the official philosophy of the Prussian state, and entire generations of educators, officials and statesmen borrowed their views on the state and society from Hegel's teaching, which became a real force in intellectual and political life Germany. The philosopher was at the pinnacle of success when he died suddenly on November 14, 1831, apparently from cholera, which was raging in Berlin in those days.

Hegel's last published work was Philosophy of Right (Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse), published in Berlin in 1820 (titled 1821). Soon after Hegel's death, some of his friends and students began to prepare a complete edition of his works, which was published in 1832–1845. It included not only works published during the philosopher's lifetime, but also lectures prepared on the basis of extensive, rather intricate manuscripts, as well as student notes. As a result, famous lectures on the philosophy of history were published, as well as on the philosophy of religion, aesthetics and the history of philosophy. A new edition of Hegel's works, partly including new materials, began after the First World War under the leadership of Georg Lasson as part of the Philosophical Library and was continued after the latter's death by J. Hoffmeister. The old edition was re-edited by G. Glockner and published in 20 volumes; it was supplemented by a monograph on Hegel and three volumes of Glockner's Hegel Lexikon. Since 1958, after the founding of the “Hegel Archive” in Bonn, the “Hegel Commission” was created within the framework of the “German Research Society”, which took over the general editorship of the new historical-critical collection of works. From 1968 to 1994, the work of the Archive was led by O. Pöggeler.

Philosophy.

Hegel's philosophy is generally considered to be the high point in the development of the German school of philosophical thought called "speculative idealism." Its main representatives are Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. The school began with the “critical idealism” of Immanuel Kant, but moved away from him, abandoning Kant’s critical position in relation to metaphysics and returning to the belief in the possibility of metaphysical knowledge, or knowledge of the universal and absolute.

Hegel's philosophical system is sometimes called "panlogism" (from the Greek pan - all, and logos - mind). It starts from the idea that reality is amenable to rational knowledge because the Universe itself is rational. The preface to the Philosophy of Law contains the famous formulation of this principle: “What is reasonable is valid; and what is real is reasonable.” (There are other formulations by Hegel himself: “What is reasonable will become real; and what is real will become reasonable”; “Everything that is reasonable is inevitable.”) The last essence of the world, or absolute reality, is reason. Reason manifests itself in the world; reality is nothing other than the manifestation of the mind. Since this is so, and since being and mind (or concept) are ultimately identical, it is possible not only to apply our concepts to reality, but also to learn about the structure of reality through the study of concepts. Consequently, logic, or the science of concepts, is identical to metaphysics, or the science of reality and its essence. Every concept, thought through to its end, necessarily leads to its opposite. So, reality “turns” into its opposite. Thesis leads to antithesis. But this is not all, since the denial of antithesis leads to reconciliation at a new level of thesis and antithesis, i.e. to synthesis. In synthesis, the opposition between thesis and antithesis is resolved or abolished, but the synthesis, in turn, contains an opposing principle, which leads to its negation. Thus, we have before us a never-ending change from thesis to antithesis, and then to synthesis. This method of thinking, which Hegel calls the dialectical method (from the Greek word "dialectics", arguing), applies to reality itself.

All reality passes through three stages: being in itself, being for itself and being in and for itself. “Being in itself” is the stage at which reality remains in possibility, but is not completed. It is different from other being, but develops the negation of the last still limited stage of existence, forming “being in itself and for itself.” When applied to the mind or spirit, this theory suggests that the spirit evolves through three stages. In the beginning, the spirit is the spirit in itself. Spreading in space and time, the spirit turns into its “other being”, i.e. into nature. Nature, in turn, develops consciousness and thereby forms its own negation. At this third stage, however, there is not a simple negation, but a reconciliation of the previous stages to a greater extent. high level. Consciousness constitutes the spirit “in itself and for itself.” In consciousness, thus, the spirit is reborn. But then consciousness passes through three different stages: the stage of the subjective spirit, the stage of the objective spirit and, finally, the highest stage of the absolute spirit.

According to the same principle, philosophy is divided: logic is the science of the “in itself” of the spirit; philosophy of nature - the science of the “for oneself” of the spirit; and the philosophy of spirit itself. The latter is also divided into three parts. The first part is the philosophy of the subjective spirit, including anthropology, phenomenology and psychology. The second part is the philosophy of objective spirit (by objective spirit Hegel means reason considered in its action in the world). Expressions of the objective spirit are morality (ethical behavior as applied to the individual) and ethics (manifested in ethical institutions such as the family, society and state). This second part consists respectively of ethics, philosophy of law and philosophy of history. Art, religion and philosophy as highest achievements minds belong to the realm of the absolute spirit. Therefore, the third part, the philosophy of the absolute spirit, includes the philosophy of art, the philosophy of religion and the history of philosophy. Thus, the triadic principle (thesis - antithesis - synthesis) is carried through the entire Hegelian system, playing a significant role not only as a way of thinking, but also as a reflection of the rhythm inherent in reality.

The most significant areas of Hegel's philosophy were ethics, theory of state and philosophy of history. The culmination of Hegelian ethics is the state. For Hegel, the state is the reality of the moral idea. In a state system, the divine grows into the real. The state is the world that the spirit has created for itself; a living spirit, a divine idea embodied on Earth. However, this only applies to ideal state. In historical reality, there are good (reasonable) states and bad states. The states known to us from history are only transitory moments in the general idea of the spirit.

The highest goal of the philosophy of history is to demonstrate the origin and development of the state in the course of history. For Hegel, history, like all reality, is the kingdom of reason: in history everything happens according to reason. " The World History there is a world court." The World Spirit (Weltgeist) acts in the realm of history through its chosen instruments - individuals and peoples. The heroes of history cannot be judged by ordinary standards. In addition, the World Spirit itself sometimes seems unjust and cruel, bringing death and destruction. Individuals believe that they are pursuing their own goals, but in reality they are carrying out the intentions of the World Spirit. The “cunning of the world mind” is that it uses human interests and passions to achieve its own goals.

Historical peoples are carriers of the world spirit. Every nation, like an individual, experiences periods of youth, maturity and dying. For a while she dominates the fate of the world, and then her mission ends. Then she leaves the stage to make way for another, younger nation. However, history is an evolutionary process. The ultimate goal of evolution is to achieve true freedom. “World history is progress in the consciousness of freedom.” The main task of the philosophy of history is to understand this progress in its necessity.

According to Hegel, freedom is the fundamental principle of the spirit. However, freedom is possible only within the framework of the state. It is in the state that a person gains his dignity as an independent person. For in the state, says Hegel, adhering to the Rousseauian concept of the true state, it is the universal that rules (i.e., the law), and the individual, by his free will, submits himself to its rule. However, the state is undergoing a remarkable evolution as far as freedom consciousness is concerned. In the Ancient East, only one person was free, and humanity only knew that one person was free. It was an era of despotism, and this one man was a despot. In reality, it was abstract freedom, freedom in itself, rather even arbitrariness, rather than freedom. The Greek and Roman world, the youth and maturity of mankind, knew that some people are free, but not man as such. Accordingly, freedom was closely connected with the existence of slaves and could only be an accidental, short-lived and limited phenomenon. And only with the spread of Christianity did humanity learn true freedom. Prepared the path to this knowledge Greek philosophy; humanity began to realize that man as such is free - all people. The differences and shortcomings inherent in individuals do not affect the essence of man; freedom is part of the very concept of “man”.

The French Revolution, which Hegel hailed as a “wonderful sunrise,” was another step on the path to freedom. However, in the later period of his activity, Hegel objected to the republican form of government and even to democracy. The ideals of liberalism, according to which all individuals should participate in government, began to seem unjustified: in his opinion, they led to unfounded subjectivism and individualism. A much more perfect form of government began to seem to Hegel a constitutional monarchy, wherein the last word remained with the sovereign.

Philosophy, according to Hegel, deals only with what is, and not with what should be. Just as every person is “the son of his time,” “philosophy is also time comprehended in thought. It is just as absurd to assume that any philosophy can go beyond the boundaries of its contemporary world, as it is absurd to assume that an individual is able to leap over his own era.” Therefore, Hegel in the Philosophy of Law limits himself to the task of understanding the state as a rational substance. However, viewing the Prussian state and the restoration period as a model of rational analysis, he was increasingly inclined to idealize the Prussian monarchy. What Hegel said about the state as a whole (the state is the divine will as a present spirit, unfolding into the actual image and organization of the world), apparently applied to this specific state. This also corresponded to his conviction that the last of the three stages of historical development had already been reached: the stage of old age, but not in the sense of decrepitude, but in the sense of wisdom and perfection.

Hegel's philosophical concept contains fatalistic and even tragic motives. Philosophy cannot teach the world how it should be. For this it comes too late, when reality has completed the process of formation and has reached completion. “When philosophy begins to paint with its gray paint on gray, then a certain form of life has become old, but it cannot be rejuvenated by gray on gray, it can only be understood; Minerva's owl begins its flight only at dusk."

The content of the article

HEGEL, GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH(Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich) (1770–1831), German philosopher, was born in Stuttgart (Duchy of Württemberg) on August 27, 1770. His father, Georg Ludwig Hegel, Secretary of the Treasury, was a descendant of a Protestant family expelled from Austria during the Counter-Reformation. After graduating from high school in his hometown, Hegel studied at the theological department of the University of Tübingen in 1788–1793, took courses in philosophy and theology and defended his master's thesis. At the same time, Friedrich von Schelling, who was five years younger than Hegel, and Friedrich Hölderlin, whose poetry had a profound influence on German literature, studied in Tübingen. Friendships with Schelling and Hölderlin played a significant role in Hegel's mental development. While studying philosophy at the university, he paid special attention to the works of Immanuel Kant, which were widely discussed at that time, as well as the poetic and aesthetic works of F. Schiller. In 1793–1796 Hegel served as a home teacher in a Swiss family in Bern, and in 1797–1800 in Frankfurt am Main. All these years he studied theology and political thought, and in 1800 he made the first sketch of a future philosophical system (“Fragment of a System”).

After the death of his father in 1799, Hegel received a small inheritance, which, coupled with his own savings, allowed him to give up teaching and enter the field of academic activity. He first presented his theses to the University of Jena ( Preliminary theses of the dissertation on the orbits of the planets), and then the dissertation itself Planetary orbits (De orbitis planetarum) and in 1801 received permission to lecture. In 1801–1805 Hegel was a privatdozent, and in 1805–1807 an extraordinary professor on a very modest salary. The Jena lectures covered a wide range of topics: logic and metaphysics, natural law and pure mathematics. Although they were not very successful, the years in Jena were one of the happiest periods in the life of the philosopher. Together with Schelling, who taught at the same university, he published the Critical Journal of Philosophy (Kritisches Journal der Philosophie), in which they were not only editors, but also authors. During the same period, Hegel prepared the first of his major works, Phenomenology of spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes, 1807), after the publication of which relations with Schelling were severed. In this work, Hegel gives the first outline of his philosophical system. It represents the progressive procession of consciousness from the immediate sensory certainty of sensation through perception to the knowledge of rational reality, which alone leads us to absolute knowledge. In this sense, only the mind is real.

Without waiting for publication Phenomenologies, Hegel left Jena, not wanting to stay in the city captured by the French. He left his position at the university, finding himself in difficult personal and financial circumstances. For some time, Hegel edited the Bamberger Zeitung, but less than two years later he abandoned the “newspaper hard labor” and in 1808 received the position of rector of the classical gymnasium in Nuremberg. The eight years Hegel spent in Nuremberg gave him a wealth of experience in teaching, leadership and dealing with people. At the gymnasium he taught philosophy of law, ethics, logic, phenomenology of the spirit and a survey course of philosophical sciences; he also had to teach classes in literature, Greek, Latin, mathematics and the history of religion. In 1811 he married Maria von Tucher, whose family belonged to the Bavarian nobility. This relatively quiet period of Hegel's life contributed to the appearance of his most important works. The first part of the Hegelian system was published in Nuremberg - Science of Logic (Die Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812–1816).

In 1816, Hegel resumed his university career, receiving an invitation to Heidelberg to take the place previously occupied by his Jena rival Jacob Friese. At the University of Heidelberg he taught for four semesters; a textbook was compiled from the lectures given Encyclopedia of Philosophical sciences (Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, first edition 1817), is probably the best introduction to his philosophy. In 1818, Hegel was invited to the University of Berlin to take the place once occupied by the famous I. G. Fichte. The invitation was initiated by the Prussian Minister of Religious Affairs (in charge of religion, health and education) with the hope of pacifying, with the help of Hegelian philosophy, the dangerous spirit of rebellion that was fermenting among the students.

Hegel's first lectures in Berlin remained almost unnoticed, but gradually the courses began to attract an ever-larger audience. Students not only from various regions of Germany, but also from Poland, Greece, Scandinavia and other European countries flocked to Berlin. Hegel's philosophy of law and government increasingly became the official philosophy of the Prussian state, and entire generations of educators, officials and statesmen borrowed their views on the state and society from Hegel's teachings, which became a real force in the intellectual and political life of Germany. The philosopher was at the pinnacle of success when he died suddenly on November 14, 1831, apparently from cholera, which was raging in Berlin in those days.

Hegel's last published work was Philosophy of law (Grundliniender Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse), published in Berlin in 1820 (titled 1821). Soon after Hegel's death, some of his friends and students began to prepare a complete edition of his works, which was published in 1832–1845. It included not only works published during the philosopher's lifetime, but also lectures prepared on the basis of extensive, rather intricate manuscripts, as well as student notes. As a result, famous lectures on the philosophy of history were published, as well as on the philosophy of religion, aesthetics and the history of philosophy. A new edition of Hegel's works, partly including new materials, began after the First World War under the leadership of Georg Lasson as part of the Philosophical Library and was continued after the latter's death by J. Hoffmeister. The old edition was re-edited by G. Glockner and published in 20 volumes; it was supplemented by a monograph on Hegel and three volumes Dictionary of Hegel (Hegel Lexikon) Glockner. Since 1958, after the founding of the “Hegel Archive” in Bonn, the “Hegel Commission” was created within the framework of the “German Research Society”, which took over the general editorship of the new historical-critical collection of works. From 1968 to 1994, the work of the Archive was led by O. Pöggeler.

Philosophy.

Hegel's philosophical system is sometimes called "panlogism" (from the Greek pan - all, and logos - mind). It starts from the idea that reality is amenable to rational knowledge because the Universe itself is rational. In the preface to Philosophy of law contains the famous formulation of this principle: “What is reasonable is valid; and what is real is reasonable.” (There are other formulations by Hegel himself: “What is reasonable will become real; and what is real will become reasonable”; “Everything that is reasonable is inevitable.”) The last essence of the world, or absolute reality, is reason. Reason manifests itself in the world; reality is nothing other than the manifestation of the mind. Since this is so, and since being and mind (or concept) are ultimately identical, it is possible not only to apply our concepts to reality, but also to learn about the structure of reality through the study of concepts. Consequently, logic, or the science of concepts, is identical to metaphysics, or the science of reality and its essence. Every concept, thought through to its end, necessarily leads to its opposite. So, reality “turns” into its opposite. Thesis leads to antithesis. But this is not all, since the denial of antithesis leads to reconciliation at a new level of thesis and antithesis, i.e. to synthesis. In synthesis, the opposition between thesis and antithesis is resolved or abolished, but the synthesis, in turn, contains an opposing principle, which leads to its negation. Thus, we have before us a never-ending change from thesis to antithesis, and then to synthesis. This method of thinking, which Hegel calls the dialectical method (from the Greek word "dialectics", arguing), applies to reality itself.

All reality passes through three stages: being in itself, being for itself and being in and for itself. “Being in itself” is the stage at which reality remains in possibility, but is not completed. It is different from other being, but develops the negation of the last still limited stage of existence, forming “being in itself and for itself.” When applied to the mind or spirit, this theory suggests that the spirit evolves through three stages. In the beginning, the spirit is the spirit in itself. Spreading in space and time, the spirit turns into its “other being”, i.e. into nature. Nature, in turn, develops consciousness and thereby forms its own negation. At this third stage, however, there is not a simple negation, but a reconciliation of the previous stages at a higher level. Consciousness constitutes the spirit “in itself and for itself.” In consciousness, thus, the spirit is reborn. But then consciousness passes through three different stages: the stage of the subjective spirit, the stage of the objective spirit and, finally, the highest stage of the absolute spirit.

According to the same principle, philosophy is divided: logic is the science of the “in itself” of the spirit; philosophy of nature - the science of the “for oneself” of the spirit; and the philosophy of spirit itself. The latter is also divided into three parts. The first part is the philosophy of the subjective spirit, including anthropology, phenomenology and psychology. The second part is the philosophy of objective spirit (by objective spirit Hegel means reason considered in its action in the world). Expressions of the objective spirit are morality (ethical behavior as applied to the individual) and ethics (manifested in ethical institutions such as the family, society and state). This second part consists respectively of ethics, philosophy of law and philosophy of history. Art, religion and philosophy, as the highest achievements of the mind, belong to the realm of the absolute spirit. Therefore, the third part, the philosophy of the absolute spirit, includes the philosophy of art, the philosophy of religion and the history of philosophy. Thus, the triadic principle (thesis - antithesis - synthesis) is carried through the entire Hegelian system, playing a significant role not only as a way of thinking, but also as a reflection of the rhythm inherent in reality.

The most significant areas of Hegel's philosophy were ethics, theory of state and philosophy of history. The culmination of Hegelian ethics is the state. For Hegel, the state is the reality of the moral idea. In a state system, the divine grows into the real. The state is the world that the spirit has created for itself; a living spirit, a divine idea embodied on Earth. However, this applies only to an ideal state. In historical reality, there are good (reasonable) states and bad states. The states known to us from history are only transitory moments in the general idea of the spirit.

The highest goal of the philosophy of history is to demonstrate the origin and development of the state in the course of history. For Hegel, history, like all reality, is the kingdom of reason: in history everything happens according to reason. “World history is a world court.” The World Spirit (Weltgeist) acts in the realm of history through its chosen instruments - individuals and peoples. The heroes of history cannot be judged by ordinary standards. In addition, the World Spirit itself sometimes seems unjust and cruel, bringing death and destruction. Individuals believe that they are pursuing their own goals, but in reality they are carrying out the intentions of the World Spirit. The “cunning of the world mind” is that it uses human interests and passions to achieve its own goals.

According to Hegel, freedom is the fundamental principle of the spirit. However, freedom is possible only within the framework of the state. It is in the state that a person gains his dignity as an independent person. For in the state, says Hegel, adhering to the Rousseauian concept of the true state, it is the universal that rules (i.e., the law), and the individual, by his free will, submits himself to its rule. However, the state is undergoing a remarkable evolution as far as freedom consciousness is concerned. In the Ancient East, only one person was free, and humanity only knew that one person was free. It was an era of despotism, and this one man was a despot. In reality, it was abstract freedom, freedom in itself, rather even arbitrariness, rather than freedom. The Greek and Roman world, the youth and maturity of mankind, knew that some people are free, but not man as such. Accordingly, freedom was closely connected with the existence of slaves and could only be an accidental, short-lived and limited phenomenon. And only with the spread of Christianity did humanity learn true freedom. Greek philosophy prepared the way to this knowledge; humanity began to realize that man as such is free - all people. The differences and shortcomings inherent in individuals do not affect the essence of man; freedom is part of the very concept of “man”.

The French Revolution, which Hegel hailed as a “wonderful sunrise,” was another step on the path to freedom. However, in the later period of his activity, Hegel objected to the republican form of government and even to democracy. The ideals of liberalism, according to which all individuals should participate in government, began to seem unjustified: in his opinion, they led to unfounded subjectivism and individualism. A constitutional monarchy, in which the sovereign had the final say, began to seem to Hegel a much more perfect form of government.

Philosophy, according to Hegel, deals only with what is, and not with what should be. Just as every person is “the son of his time,” “philosophy is also time comprehended in thought. It is just as absurd to assume that any philosophy can go beyond the boundaries of its contemporary world, as it is absurd to assume that an individual is able to leap over his own era.” Therefore Hegel in Philosophy of law limited to the task of understanding the state as a rational substance. However, viewing the Prussian state and the restoration period as a model of rational analysis, he was increasingly inclined to idealize the Prussian monarchy. What Hegel said about the state as a whole (the state is the divine will as a present spirit, unfolding into the actual image and organization of the world), apparently applied to this specific state. This also corresponded to his conviction that the last of the three stages of historical development had already been reached: the stage of old age, but not in the sense of decrepitude, but in the sense of wisdom and perfection.

Hegel Georg Friedrich Wilhelm (1770-1831)

Hegel Georg Friedrich Wilhelm (BESB)

Hegel Georg Friedrich Wilhelm(27 August - 14 November)

(Georg-Friedrich-Wilhelm Hegel) - can be called a philosopher par excellence, because of all the philosophers, philosophy was everything to him alone. For other thinkers, it is an attempt to comprehend the meaning of existence; with Hegel, on the contrary, existence itself tries to become philosophy, to turn into pure thinking. Other philosophers subordinated their speculation to an object independent of it: for some this object was God, for others it was nature. For G., on the contrary, God himself was only a philosophizing mind, which only in perfect philosophy achieves its own absolute perfection; G. looked at nature in its empirical phenomena as scales that the snake of absolute dialectics sheds in its movement.

Life of Hegel

Origin of Hegelian Philosophy

Not only the development of new philosophy, but also all modern scientific education in its theoretical foundations originates from Descartes, who first firmly and clearly established two principles, or, more precisely, two higher rules for scientific activity: 1) consider the phenomena of the external world exclusively from the point of view mechanical movement; 2) internal phenomena, spiritual world considered solely from the point of view of clear rational self-awareness. The indicated significance of Descartes can now be considered generally accepted, but hardly many are sufficiently aware of the fact that the direct and positive influence of Cartesian principles was especially beneficial for the physical and mathematical sciences, while the humanities and philosophy themselves did not, on the one hand, such obvious and enormous successes, and on the other hand, the best that they achieved, although it was associated with the principles of Descartes, but in a more negative way: it was rather a reaction against Cartesianism, rather than the direct fruit of its application. The reasons for this are clear. Descartes' principle was completely consistent with the own nature and task of mathematics and the physical and mathematical sciences; he distracted from nature one side and precisely that which was obviously the real subject of these sciences - the side subject to number, measure and weight; everything else for these sciences, by the very essence of their task, was only an extraneous admixture, and the Cartesian principle, which eliminated such an admixture, powerfully contributed to both a clearer consciousness scientific problem, and a more successful and comprehensive resolution of it. Another thing is the humanities and especially philosophy itself - its task is not one aspect of what exists, but everything that exists, the entire universe in the fullness of its content and meaning; it strives not to determine the exact boundaries and external interactions between parts and particles of the world, but to understand their internal connection and unity. Meanwhile, the philosophy of Descartes, abstracting from the universal whole two separate and irreducible aspects of existence and recognizing them as the only true field of science, not only could not explain the internal connection of all things, but was forced to deny such a connection even where it was obvious fact. The difficulties and “obvious incongruities” that arose from this are well known: the best and immediate refutation of Cartesianism was the necessity, in which its founder was placed, to reject the animation of animals, since their mental life cannot be attributed to any (actually) thinking , no extended substance. But even at the cost of such absurdity, the matter could not be corrected. That living connection between spiritual and material existence, which in the external world is represented by the animal kingdom, this same connection, denied by Cartesianism, is found in ourselves, in our own mental life, determined by the constant interaction of spiritual and material elements. To give the appearance of possibility to this essentially impossible, from the Cartesian point of view, interaction, various theories, as is known, were invented ad hoc: about the external intervention of a higher power ( concursus Dei Descartes, occasionalism of Geelinckx), about the vision of things in God (Malebranche), about pre-established harmony (Leibniz). These notorious theories, with their obvious inconsistency, only led successive minds to such a conclusion: since it is impossible to introduce into “clear and separate concepts” the interaction between the mechanism of the external world and the internal region of the thinking spirit, then shouldn’t we directly reject, as a natural illusion, the independent meaning of one from these two incompatible worlds, recognizing one of them as the appearance of the other? Which of the two terms - the physical machine, or the thinking spirit - should be given preference, which of them should be recognized as truth and which as illusion - this question for the majority was already predetermined by the clarity and reliability of the mechanical worldview and the extreme difficulty for the simple mind to recognize, following Berkeley, all this such a weighty mass of material existence for an empty ghost. And not even a hundred years have passed since the death of Descartes, who declared animals to be automata, when his compatriot La Mettrie extends this view to “thinking substance”, considering in his popular book “L’homme machine” the whole person as a mechanical product of material nature. This view eliminates, of course, the irreconcilable dualism of Cartesian philosophy, but at the same time any philosophy that turns into a separate factual product of one or another human machine and, therefore, ceases to be the knowledge of universal truth. To dispute the empirical dependence of the human spirit on the external material world, as is inherent in superficial spiritualism, is a fruitless endeavor. Copernicus of philosophy, Kant, did better: he showed that this entire sphere of empirical existence, in which the dependence of our spirit on external things is a fact, is itself only a region of conditional phenomena determined by our spirit as a cognizing subject. Suppose that from the point of view of the earth's surface the Sun is actually a small disk revolving around the Earth; in fact, the Earth and everything on it depends entirely on the Sun, in it it has a fixed center of its existence and the source of its life. The cognizing subject seems to be just a bright spot above the huge machine of the universe, but in fact he, like the Sun, not only illuminates the Earth, but also gives laws to its existence. Kant did not, like Berkeley, deny the intrinsic existence of external material objects, but he argued that a certain way of their being, their existence, how do we know it? depends on ourselves, that is, it is determined by the cognizing subject: everything that we find in objects is put into them by ourselves. This has been known for a long time regarding sensory qualities. We we perceive objects as red, green, sounding, sweet, bitter, etc. Whatever the object in itself and whatever happens to it, it cannot be, that is, be felt as red or green, if there is no seer subject, cannot be sonorous if there is no hearing subject, etc.; colors, sounds, etc. are, as such, only our sensations. Without dwelling on this elementary truth, finally acquired for science by the same Descartes, Kant makes a more important discovery (which in his field was made by the famous theosophist and visionary Swedenborg 15-20 years before him): We we construct objects in space, We We divide continuous reality into temporary moments; space and time are the forms of our sensory perception. We in our cognition we assign to objects the properties of substantiality, causality, etc. - all these properties are only categories of our intellect. We do not know what the world is like independently of us; but the world we know is our own creation, the product of the knowing subject. Thus, Kant’s critical philosophy freed the human spirit from the nightmare of a self-legal and self-sufficient world machine, in which it itself was an insignificant wheel, that weighed on it. But this freedom remained purely negative and empty for Kant. Kant proved that the world known to us, all external being with which we deal, is necessarily composed according to the forms and laws of the knowing subject, as a result of which we cannot know what things are in themselves. But this reasoning goes further: our higher mind with its metaphysical ideas is also (and even, as we will now see, to an even greater extent) a subjective ability, like the lower cognitive powers; it also, in its action, expresses only the properties and needs of the knower, and not the nature of the knower. If the forms of our sensory contemplation (space and time) and the categories of reason do not at all guarantee the reality corresponding to them, then even less do the highest ideas of reason provide such guarantee: God, immortality, free will. For our sensory and rational knowledge of the visible world (the world of phenomena), although in all its definite forms depends on the cognizing subject, but at least receives material independent of it in our sensations (or, more precisely, in those excitations or irritations that cause sensations) , whereas the same cannot be said about the said ideas from the point of view of pure reason. They do not have any material independent of the subject and therefore remain pure transcendental ideas of reason and receive from Kant only practical meaning, on the one hand - as postulates (requirements) moral consciousness, and on the other - as regulative principles that give purely formal completeness to our cosmological and psychological concepts. In addition, regarding the external world, transcendental idealism, relating everything knowable here to the subject, recognizing things in themselves as absolutely inaccessible to us and yet not denying their existence, puts the human spirit in a position, although more honorable, but in a certain sense even more painful. heavier than what the realism of the mechanical worldview assigns to it. For according to this latter, although a person is completely dependent on external things, he can at least cognize them, he knows that on which he depends, whereas according to Kant, our subject with all his grandiose legislative and regulatory apparatus of knowledge is hopelessly immersed in the immeasurable and an ocean of unknowable “things in themselves” that is absolutely dark for him. He is not subject to, inaccessible to these things, just as they are to him; he is free from them, but this is the freedom of emptiness. The human spirit, finally freed (in theory, of course) from the power of external objects by Kant’s brilliant successor, Fichte (for their relationship, see Fichte), now needed to be freed from its own subjectivity, from the formal emptiness of its self-consciousness. Schelling undertook this liberation and finally completed it (again, of course, in theories) G.

The main thing in Hegel's philosophy

True freedom is achieved by the spirit not through renunciation of objects, but through knowledge of them in their truth. “Know the truth and the truth will set you free.” True knowledge is the identity of the knower and the known, subject and object. This identity is the truth of both; but it is not a fact, it is not an abiding, inert being; in their being, subject and object as such are posited separately and externally relative to each other, therefore not in truth. But the truth exists, and it does not need to be found either in the inert existence of external things, or in the subjective activity of our I, endlessly creating his visible world solely in order to always have material for the exercise of virtue (Fichte’s point of view); truth does not sit in things and is not created by us, but is itself revealed in live process an absolute idea that posits from itself all the diversity of objective and subjective existence and reaches in our spirit to complete self-consciousness, that is, to the consciousness of its identity in everything and the identity of everything in it. Thus, to know the truth we do not need to rush around with our I, trying it on different objects; truth is inherent in ourselves as well as in objects; it contains and realizes everything, and we only need to let it recognize itself in us, that is, reveal its content in our thinking; this is the content the same thing which is expressed in the existence of the object. The object (of trends) exists in truth only together with everything, in its internal logical connection with all others; This is how he is thought: in his concept there is nothing that is not in his reality, and in his reality there is nothing that is not contained in his concept. That same absolute idea (or “living substance”, becoming a subject, turning into spirit), which put itself into the object as its hidden meaning or reason, she thinks it in true philosophical knowledge, that is, imparts to it an internal subjective or self-being. The object of unconditional knowledge is the substantial content of being, which at the same time is the direct property of our I, selfish, or concept. “If the embryo,” says G., “by itself is future man, then he is not yet a man himself for myself; he becomes such only when his mind reaches the development of what constitutes his essence.” The idea in being is related to the idea in thinking in a similar way. Real philosophy, or unconditional thinking, is not the subject’s relationship to an absolute idea as something separate, but the completeness of self-disclosure of this idea for oneself.

But what is this unconditional thinking, in which the absolute idea finds itself? At this point, Hegel’s main originality lies; here he parted ways with his friend and like-minded person, and then with his rival and enemy, Schelling. That the true task of philosophy is the knowledge of the absolute and that in the absolute subject and object are identical, and after the elimination of this basic opposition all others are eliminated, so that truth is defined as the identity of everything in one thing - this was Schelling’s own point of view. G. fully assimilated this general idea of absolute identity, or absolute subject-object, as the real definition of truth and the basic principle of philosophy, liberating it from the skeptical duality of Kant and from the one-sided subjectivism of Fichte. But how is this principle of absolute identity realized in real knowledge, how is the content of true science or philosophy derived from it? For Schelling, the method of unconditional knowledge was mental contemplation ( intellektuelle Anschaung), on the expected impossibility which Kant based his belief in the unknowability of the essence of things. In order for the world of intelligible essences (numena), Kant said, to be given to us in real knowledge, and not in subjective ideas only, it would be necessary that the basis of such knowledge be mental intuition, just as the basis of our actual knowledge of the world of phenomena is sensory intuition ( in the forms of space and time); but we do not and cannot have such mental contemplation, and therefore the world of noumena inevitably remains unknowable for us. Schelling asserted not only the possibility, but also the reality of mental contemplation as the only true way of philosophical knowledge. G., without disputing this in principle, but considering the actual content of Schelling’s philosophy, found that his mental contemplation actually boils down to two general techniques, equally unsatisfactory. Firstly, “considering any object as it is in the absolute” consists, as it turns out, in the following: one only needs to assert that although this object is now spoken of as something separate, but that in the absolute (A = A) such separateness does not exist at all, because in it everything is one. Having thus formulated the essence of this first technique absolute philosophy, G. mercilessly notes: “this is the only knowledge that in the absolute there is no difference to everything, opposed to the discriminating and filled knowledge or passing off the absolute as the darkness of the night, in which all cats are gray, can only be called a naive emptiness in the sphere of knowledge.” With this method alone it would, of course, be impossible to create even a ghostly system; The second method of absolute knowledge comes to the rescue, which consists in constructing various symmetrical schemes on the basis of universal identity and drawing analogies between the most dissimilar objects. If we are preached, says Hegel, “that the understanding is electricity, and the animal is nitrogen, or that it is equal to north, or south, etc., presenting these identities sometimes in this very nakedness, sometimes covering them with more complex terminology, then inexperience might be amazed at such a force connecting things that apparently lie so far away; she could see deep genius here, amuse herself and congratulate herself on these praiseworthy activities. But the trick of such wisdom is as easy to understand as to use it, and once it has become known, repeating it becomes as unbearable as repeating a trick that has been solved. The apparatus of this monotonous formalism is like a painter’s palette, on which only two colors are rubbed, for example, red and green: one for historical paintings, and the other for landscapes.”

To this supposedly speculative method of general confusion, on the one hand, and external subsuming under arbitrary schemes, on the other, G. opposes truly scientific speculation, in which the very content of knowledge is in the form logical concepts dialectically develops from itself into a complete and internally connected system.“As an objective whole,” says G., “knowledge asserts itself on the more solid foundations, the more it develops, and its parts are formed simultaneously with the whole region knowledge. The center and the circle are in such a connection with each other that the first beginning of the circle is already a relation to the center, which (for its part) is not yet a perfect center until all its relations are completed, that is, the whole circle.” True science, according to G., is neither an external processing of given material, nor a simple statement of a general idea about particular phenomena: science is self-creativity of the mind. Here “the absolute transforms itself into objective completeness, into a perfect, self-supporting whole, which has no foundation outside itself, but is founded only through itself in its beginning, middle and end.” This whole is a real system, an organization of positions and views. To such a system as goals Schelling also strived for scientific creativity, but he could not achieve it due to his lack of true dialectical methods. He certainly contrasted his sterile “mental contemplation” with ordinary rational thinking, which distinguishes objects and gives them definitions in solid concepts. True speculation does not deny rational thinking, but presupposes it and contains it within itself as a constant and necessary lower moment, as the real basis and reference point for your action. In the correct course of truly philosophical knowledge, reason, dividing a living whole into parts, distracts general concepts and formally opposing them to each other, gives the inevitable beginning to the thought process. Only after this first rational moment, when a separate concept is affirmed in its limitations as positive or true (thesis), can a second negative dialectical moment be revealed - the self-negation of the concept due to the internal contradiction between its limitations and the truth that it should represent (antithesis), and then, with the destruction of this limitation, the concept is reconciled with its opposite in a new higher, that is, more meaningful, concept, which, in relation to the first two, represents the third positive-reasonable, or actually speculative, moment (synthesis). We find such a living, moving trinity of moments at the first step of the system; it determines the entire further process, and it is expressed in the general division of the whole system into three main parts.

The necessity and driving principle of the dialectical process lies in the very concept of the absolute. As such, it cannot relate simply negatively to its opposite (not absolute, finite); it must contain it within itself, since otherwise, if it had it outside itself, it would be limited by it - the finite would be the independent limit of the absolute, which would thus itself turn into the finite. Hence, true character the absolute is expressed in its self-negation, in the position of its opposite, or other, and this other, as posited by the absolute itself, is its own reflection, and in this extra-existence or other-existence, the absolute finds itself and returns to itself as the realized unity of itself and its another. And since the absolute is what is in everything, then this same process is the law of all reality. The power of absolute truth hidden in everything dissolves the limitations of particular definitions, takes them out of their rigidity, forces them to pass from one to another and return to themselves in a new, more true and free form. In this all-pervading and all-forming movement, the whole meaning and the whole truth of what exists is a living connection that internally connects all parts of the physical and spiritual world with each other and with the absolute, which outside this connection, as something separate, does not exist at all. The deep originality of Hegel's philosophy, a feature unique to it alone, lies in the complete identity of its method with the content itself. Method is a dialectical process of a self-developing concept, and content is this same all-encompassing dialectical process - and nothing more. Of all the speculative systems, only in Hegelianism is absolute truth, or idea, not only an object or content, but the very form of philosophy. The content and form here completely coincide, covering each other without a trace. “The absolute idea,” says G., “has itself as its content as an infinite form, for it eternally posits itself as another and again removes the difference in the identity of the positer and the posited.”

Brief outline of the Hegelian system

Since true philosophy does not take its content from the outside, but it is itself created within it by a dialectical process, then, obviously, the beginning must be completely meaningless. This is the concept of pure being. But the concept of pure being, that is, devoid of all signs and definitions, is in no way different from the concept of pure nothingness; since this is not the being of something (for then it would not be pure being), then this is the being of nothing. The first and most general concept of the understanding cannot be retained in its particularity and rigidity - it uncontrollably turns into its opposite. Being becomes nothing; but, on the other hand, nothing, insofar as it is thought, is no longer pure nothing: as an object of thought it becomes being (thinkable). Thus, the truth remains not behind one or the other of two opposite terms, but behind what is common to both and what connects them, namely the concept of transition, the process of “becoming” or “being” (das Werden). This is the first synthetic, or speculative, concept, which remains the soul of everything. further development. And it cannot remain in its original abstraction. Truth is not in motionless being, or nothingness, but in process. But a process is a process of something: something passes from being into nothing, that is, disappears, and from nothing passes into being, that is, it arises. This means that the concept of process, in order to be true, must pass through self-negation; it requires its opposite - a certain being, or "tubeing" ( das Daseyn). In contrast to pure being, or being as such, determinate being is understood as quality. And this category through new logical links (something And other, finite And infinite, for-itself existence (Fur-sich-seyn) And being for someone (Seyn-fur-Eines), single And much etc.] goes into category quantities, from which the concept develops measures as a synthesis of quantity and quality. The measure turns out to be essence things, and thus from the series of categories of being we move into a new series of categories of essence. The doctrine of being (in the broad sense) and the doctrine of essence make up the first two parts of G. logic (objective logic). The third part is the doctrine of concept(in a broad sense), or subjective logic, which includes the main categories of ordinary formal logic (concept, judgment, inference). Both these formal categories and all “subjective” logic here have a formal and subjective character, far from being in the generally accepted sense. According to G., the basic forms of our thinking are at the same time the basic forms of the thinkable. Every object is first defined in its generality (concept), then differentiated into the multiplicity of its moments (judgment), and finally, through this self-difference, it closes in on itself as a whole (conclusion). At a further (more specific) stage of their implementation, these three moments are expressed as mechanism, chemistry And teleology(showing the logical meaning of these main degrees of world existence was one of G.’s merits, but assigning them specifically to the third, subjective part of logic is not free from arbitrariness and artificiality). From this (relative) objectification, the concept, returning to its internal reality, now enriched with content, is defined as idea at three stages: life, knowledge And absolute idea. Having thus achieved its internal completeness, the idea must, in its fulfillment, logical integrity to submit to the general law of self-negation in order to justify the unlimited power of its truth. The absolute idea must pass through its otherness ( Andersseyn), through the appearance or disintegration of their moments in natural material existence, in order to discover their hidden power and return to yourself in a self-aware spirit.

The absolute idea, out of internal necessity, posits or, as G. puts it, lets go of external nature - logic passes into philosophy of nature, consisting of three sciences: mechanics, physics And organics, of which each is divided into three according to the general Hegelian trichotomy. In mechanics mathematical we are talking about space, time, motion and matter; final mechanics, or the study of gravity, considers inertia, impact and falling of bodies, and mechanics absolute(or astronomy) has as its subject universal gravitation, the laws of motion celestial bodies And solar system as a whole. In mechanics, in general, the material side of nature predominates; In physics, the formative principle of natural phenomena comes to the fore. "Physics universal individuality" has as its subject light, the four elements (in the sense of the ancients) and the "meteorological process", "physics special individuality" considers specific gravity, sound and heat, and "physics whole individuality" deals, firstly, with magnetism and crystallization, secondly, with such properties of bodies as electricity, and thirdly, with the "chemical process"; here in the variability of matter and the transformation of bodies the relative and unstable nature of natural entities and unconditional value form, which is realized in the organic process, which is the subject of the third main natural science - organics. In this highest, most concrete and meaningful region of nature, form and matter completely penetrate each other and internally balance each other; an integral and stable image here is not an accident or a product of external forces (as in mechanics), but is an adequate embodiment of self-creating and self-sustaining life. Predilection for trichotomy forced Georgy to classify the mineral kingdom as “organic” under the name of geological organism, along with plant and animal organisms; However, in concrete nature there is no absolute boundary between the inorganic and the organic, and crystallization can be looked at as an embryonic organization. In real plant and animal organisms, the intelligence of nature, or the idea living in it, manifests itself in the formation of many organic species according to general types and degrees of perfection; further - in the ability of each organism to continuously reproduce the form of its parts and its whole through the likening of external substances ( Assimilationsprocess); then - in the ability to endlessly reproduce the race through series of generations remaining in the same form ( Gattungsprocess), and finally (in animals) - about subjective (mental) unity, which makes the members of an organic body one self-sensing and self-moving being.

But even at this highest level of the organic world and all of nature, reason or idea does not achieve its truly adequate expression. The relation between the generic and the individual (the general and the individual) remains here external and one-sided. The genus as a whole is embodied only in the non-existence of the indefinitely multiple individuals belonging to it, separated in space and time; and the individual has the generic outside itself, positing it as offspring. This failure of nature is expressed in death. Only in rational thinking does the individual being have within itself the generic or universal. Such an individual being, internally possessing its own meaning, is the human spirit. In it, the absolute idea from its extra-existence, represented by nature, returns to itself, enriched with the fullness of real-concrete definitions acquired in the cosmic process.

The third main part of the G. system is philosophy of spirit- itself triples according to the distinction of spirit in its subjectivity, in its objectification and in its absoluteness. Subjective spirit firstly, it is considered in its immediate definition as essentially depending on nature in character, temperament, differences in sex, age, sleep and wakefulness, etc.; does all this anthropology. Secondly, the subjective spirit is represented in its gradual ascent from sensory certainty through perception, reason and self-consciousness to reason. This internal process of human consciousness is discussed in phenomenology spirit, which, in the sense of preparing the mind to understand G.’s point of view, can serve as an introduction to his entire system, and therefore was set out by him in the above-mentioned special work before his logic and encyclopedia of philosophical sciences, in the cat. she then entered in a compressed form. The last of the three sciences of the subjective spirit, psychology, its content approximately coincides with the main parts of ordinary psychology, but only this content is located not in its empirical particulars, but in its own in a general sense, as an internal process of self-revealing spirit.

Having achieved true self-determination in its inner essence in theoretical thinking and in free will, the spirit rises above its subjectivity; he can and must manifest his essence in an objectively real way, become a spirit objective. The first objective manifestation of the free spirit is right. It is the exercise of free personal will, firstly, in relation to external things - the right property, property secondly, in relation to another will - right agreements, and, finally, in relation to one’s own negative action through the negation of this negation - in law punishments. Violation of a right that is only formally and abstractly restored by punishment evokes in the spirit moral demand for real truth and goodness, which are opposed to unrighteous and evil will as duty (das Sollen), speaking to her in her conscience. From this dichotomy between duty and improper reality, the spirit is liberated in real morality, where the personality finds itself internally connected or in solidarity with the real forms of moral life, or, in G. terminology, the subject recognizes himself as one with moral substance at three degrees of its manifestation: in family, civil society (bürgerliche Gesellschaft) And state. The state, according to G., is the highest manifestation of the objective spirit, the perfect embodiment of reason in the life of mankind; G. even calls him a god. As the realization of the freedom of everyone in the unity of all, the state, in general, is an absolute end in itself (Selbstzweck). National states, like that national spirit ( Volksgeister), which is embodied in these states, are special manifestations of the universal spirit, and in their historical destinies the same dialectical power of this spirit operates, which through their replacement gradually gets rid of its limitations and one-sidedness and achieves its unconditional self-conscious freedom. The meaning of history according to G. is progress in the consciousness of freedom. In the East only the one; all objective manifestations of rational human will (property, contract, punishment, family, civil unions) exist here, but exclusively in their general substance, in which the private subject appears only as accidens(for example, family at all legitimized as a necessity; but the connection of a given subject with his own family is only an accident, for the only subject to whom freedom belongs here can always by right take away from any of his subjects his wife and children; in the same way, punishment in its general essence is fully recognized here, but the right of the actual criminal to punishment and the right of the innocent to be free from punishment do not exist and are replaced by chance, for the only subject of freedom, the ruler, has the generally recognized right to punish the innocent and reward criminals). In the classical world, the substantial character of morality still remains in force, but freedom is no longer recognized for one thing, but for several(in aristocracies) or for many(in democracies). Only in the German-Christian world is the substance of morality completely and inextricably united with the subject as such, and freedom is recognized as an inalienable property everyone. The European state, as the realization of this freedom of all (in their unity), contains as its moments the exceptional forms of the former states. This state is necessarily a monarchy; in the person of the sovereign, the unity of the whole appears and acts as a living and personal force; this central power one is not limited, but is complemented by participation some in management and representation everyone in class assemblies and in jury trials. In a perfect state, the spirit is objectified as reality. But, bearing within himself the absolute idea, he returns from this objectification to himself and manifests himself as an absolute spirit in three degrees: art, religion and philosophy.

On Russian language translated: “A Course in Aesthetics or the Science of the Fine” by V. Modestov (M., 1859-1860; in the Benard appendix “Analytical and critical analysis of the course in aesthetics in France”); "Redkin Encyclopedia, Review of Hegelian Philosophy"; his “Logic G.” (“Moskvityanin”, 1841, part IV); "A look at the philosophy of G." (“Right. Sob.” 1861, vol. I); A. D. Gradovsky, “Political philosophy of G.” (“J. M. Nar. Ave.”, part 150); M. Stasyulevich, “Historical experience. review of the main systems of philosophy. history" (SPb. 1866, pp. 394-506).

The article reproduces material from the Great Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron.

Hegel (ITU)

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770 - 1831), the largest German philosopher who completed the development of classical German idealism. He was a professor in Jena, Heidelberg and Berlin. G.'s philosophy is a system of absolute dialectical idealism (see. Idealism), affirming the identity of being and thinking. Hegel destroyed the gap between the knowable (external) world and the knowing subject (man), proving that the “thing in itself,” which Kant considered unknowable, manifests itself completely in its phenomena and that therefore it is completely knowable and is known by us as we study its properties. G. believed that the “thing in itself,” in its inner essence, resembles the human spirit. In this regard, G. considered the “absolute spirit” (or “absolute idea”) to be the essence of everything that exists, the creative principle and source of all the diversity of the world.

And before him, holistic philosophical concepts were created. He was not the first to speak about the world mind and its implementation in material substance. The laws of dialectics were invented and introduced into philosophy long before the appearance of Hegel, but only he made dialectics the main law of development. Pre-Hegelian philosophers saw contradiction as a puzzle that needed to be solved, or an annoying obstacle that needed to be overcome. Hegel saw here the engine of progress and the meaning of history. An idealist, he inspired revolutionaries whose ideas turned out to be no less idealistic. Hegel's efficiency and the power of his mind still amazes us. Professionalism modern philosopher determined by whether he managed to defeat the old man Georg Wilhelm. After Hegel, any other philosophical work will seem like the work of a schoolgirl.

Biography of the philosopher

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born on August 27, 1770 in the city of Stuttgart. Father Georg Ludwig was a serious man and took care of a good education for his son. The future philosopher did not get out of his studies, because after public school private teachers were waiting for him. I must say that the boy liked this life. He fell in love with books, loved studying, especially since his father paid for his successes. School education passed on a tangent, without any special impressions, but he happily spent all his free time in the library.

Hegel is interested in the history of science and philosophy. He fell in love with ancient authors, whom he re-read until the last days of his life. This is all the more strange since the philosopher did not take German literature seriously, preferring all kinds of vulgarity. Perhaps his love for pulp reading is somehow connected with his studies at the theological seminary, where Hegel entered after graduating from high school? Serious theologians often see literature as a source of entertainment, a break from abstractions. However, Hegel never became a theologian, although he took a theological course at the University of Tübingen. Here he studies philosophy and defends his master's thesis.

He doesn't waste time on social life. He never grabbed a sword, fighting for insulted honor. Hegel was not at all offended by caustic remarks. It seems his dream is to have his own office, filled from top to bottom with books. But the events of the Great French Revolution seriously interested the future giant of thought. To be able to discuss them, Hegel enrolls in the student political club. He was not an ascetic, much less a saint, allowing wine, tobacco and cards into his life - in moderation.

Dialectics in his life

Having abandoned his career as a priest and theologian, Hegel was hired as a home teacher for a noble citizen of the city of Bern, Karl Steiger. The profession of a tutor allowed him to live comfortably and engage in self-education. The offspring of the patrician do not distract Georg Wilhelm too much. He reads and writes a lot. His attitude to the events in France is twofold. On the one hand, he understands the progressive role of the revolution, but he does not like the terror of Robespierre. Meanwhile, every revolution is an excellent illustration of one of the laws of Hegel’s dialectics - the “law of the negation of negation.” The revolutionaries rejected the power of the king in order, overcoming the instinct of destruction, to impose a new government. However, a people corrupted by freedom will never go into the statehood voluntarily; terror is inevitable. In executions, the revolution denies itself, following the law of Hegelian dialectics. The revolution, like Saturn, devours its children - this was said by one nobleman in the face of the guillotine.

One day, friends managed to drag Hegel to the Alps. He wandered along the picturesque slopes with an alpenstock and did not understand why he was here. Nature interested Georg Friedrich only in a philosophical package. At the beginning of 1797, he returned to his homeland to once again immerse himself in the kingdom of ideas. The following year, the philosopher's first printed work was published, and a year later his father died, leaving an inheritance of 3,000 guilders. Two antinomies - sad (the death of the father) and joyful (inheritance and financial independence) - turn into the thesis and antithesis of Hegel's logical triad, ending in synthesis. A scientist quits teaching to enter the field of university science.

His movement up the academic ladder fits perfectly into the “law of the negation of the negation.” A young professor at the University of Jena has difficulty finding his way to the souls of his students. The language of his reasoning is complex and incomprehensible. After tiring lectures, Professor Hegel retires to his office to continue working on his “Phenomenology of Spirit.” The first attempt to become a student favorite failed. In 1807-1808, Hegel was the editor of a newspaper in Bamberg, and from 1080 to 1816 he headed the classical gymnasium in Nuremberg.

It is difficult to imagine that a person who has written so many difficult (literally and figuratively) books could marry for love. However, the “law of the transition of quantity into quality” explains this easily and simply. The number of years lived and the accumulated weight in society (the rector of the gymnasium) lead the scientist to the idea of a qualitative change in life, that is, about starting a family. He married Maria Helena Susanna von Tucher in 1811. The second attempt to develop into his opposite (and become a favorite of the younger generation) was made by Hegel in 1816, when he began teaching at the University of Heidelberg. Apparently, “Phenomenology of Spirit” brought him fame not only in scientific circles. The universities of Berlin, Erlangen and Heidelberg want to see him in their philosophy departments. In 1818, Hegel chooses Berlin. Soon the number of books read and one’s own conclusions took on a new quality, resulting in the “Philosophy of Law,” published in 1821.

Here in Berlin, Hegel finally turns into a favorite of the student audience. Giving lectures on the history of philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of religion and aesthetics becomes his main occupation. Not only Germans from numerous countries of the German world, but also young men and women from other countries come to listen to him. The laws of dialectics hung inexorably over Georg Wilhelm until the end of his days. In 1830, he was at the pinnacle of honor, appointed rector of the University of Berlin. In 1831, the Prussian King Frederick William III decorated his chest with the Order of the Red Eagle, III class, for his service to the Prussian state. Probably following the law of “denial of negation”, cholera visited Berlin that same year. The frightened philosopher flees the capital and settles in Kreuzberg. But longing for his beloved students, and perhaps a thirst for new praise, drives him back. It seems to him that the epidemic has already passed. On November 14, 1831, the contradiction between life and death (due to infection with cholera or as a result of a disease of the gastrointestinal tract) reached an insurmountable stage, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel appeared before the World Spirit.

Only forward!

The mystical writings of Jacob Boehme had a great influence on Hegel. The Fall of man was a necessary stage in the evolution of the universe in which God must come to know himself. Hegel is read by Kant, Rousseau and Goethe. Modern society and culture seem to him to be filled with contradictions - between the subject and the object of knowledge, between man and nature, between “I” and “other”, between freedom and power, knowledge and faith, Enlightenment and Romanticism. The philosopher tries to reduce the tension of these contradictions to a comprehensive, developing and rational unity, which he, in different contexts, called “absolute idea” or “absolute knowledge”.

The main characteristic of this unity, according to Hegel, is the development and manifestation of itself through contradiction and negation. These qualities are manifested in dynamics, in different areas of being - in consciousness, in history, philosophy, art, nature and society, striving for a rational unity that preserves these contradictions as phases of development. Hegel calls this process conscious, because only the mind can see in these stages a movement towards knowledge of itself. This unity is rational, since the same logical fundamental order of development lies in every sphere of existence, being self-awareness, although full self-awareness comes only at the last stage of development. The fullness of awareness does not lie somewhere outside existing objects or consciousnesses. We can say that self-awareness ends in the philosophizing brains of individual people, who, through self-awareness, carry out the process of self-knowledge in general. To remain a subject (active participant) historical process, a person must profess a philosophy of absolute negation.

The world after Hegel

By making contradiction the criterion of truth, Hegel put a powerful weapon in the hands of scientists, evolutionists and historians. By rationally explaining the revolution, he thereby justified it. Marxism, nourished by the ideas of Hegel, reached Russia and made changes in it that were monstrous in their cruelty. His dialectic of history can be reduced to the benefits of violence in the cause of historical progress.

People argue about him until they are hoarse, but only those who have found the strength to read and somehow understand Hegel. Some consider him the father of totalitarianism, others - the herald of reasonable freedom. Views are attributed to him that he did not express. But Hegel himself is to blame for this. If he had written not for an abstract genius, but for his students, there would have been much more real readers of his works. For most, he remains a symbol of academic learning, the approaches to which may be blocked by our own laziness or ignorance.