Hegelianism

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hegelianism is a collective name for the philosophical currents in the 19th and 20th centuries that followed or referred to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel . Hegelianism is a complex phenomenon that is characterized by a wide range of philosophical positions. Its representatives can be divided into orthodox and reform-oriented followers of Hegel's philosophy.

Hegel's influence first spread in Germany, but then weakened there again in the 1860s. Hegelianism spread abroad since the 1820s. Hegel schools emerged with very different positions in Scandinavia, Italy, France, Eastern Europe, Russia, the USA and England.

Wall of quotations and bust of Hegel in the Hegelhaus in Stuttgart

Hegel reception in the 19th century

First Hegel school

Johannes Schulze was one of the first Hegel students

Unlike the work of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, Hegel's philosophy received little public attention during his lifetime; its actual history of impact only began posthumously. Hegel's philosophy first became known in Berlin. First of all, Hegel's lectures were influential.

Since Hegel's apprenticeship in Berlin (1818–1831), a group of students emerged that became particularly influential in theology: Karl Daub (1765–1836), Philipp Konrad Marheineke (1780–1846). After Hegel's death (1831) he united to form the “Association of Friends of the Eternal”: Marheineke, Johannes Schulze (theologian, 1786) , Eduard Gans (1798–1839), Leopold von Henning (1791–1866), Heinrich Gustav Hotho (1802–73), Karl Ludwig Michelet (1801–93), Friedrich Christoph Förster (1791–1868). The association saw its main task in publishing a work by Hegel. This so-called Freundesverein edition also contained Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of history and religion , aesthetics and the history of philosophy and thus created the prerequisites for dealing with Hegel's philosophy in a broader public.

Left and Right Hegelianism

The life of Jesus by DF Strauss divided Hegelianism

Hegel's philosophy of religion was in the foreground of the interests of the early Hegel school. With the work Das Leben Jesu by David Friedrich Strauss (1808–74), published in 1835, a dispute arose. Strauss took a pantheistic approach in the work , which he also attributed to Hegel. He found approval from the theologian Wilhelm Vatke (1806–82), and later from Bruno Bauer (1809–82) and Ludwig Feuerbach (1804–72). Conservative Hegelians such as Marheineke, Carl Friedrich Göschel (1781–1861) and Georg Andreas Gabler (1786–1853) disputed this view. Others like Karl Rosenkranz (1805–79) tried to mediate. In a defense (1837), Strauss then divided the Hegelians into a conservative right, a revolutionary left and the middle according to their reaction to his “Life of Jesus”. The division into right and left Hegelians later became an expression of the division of the Hegel school into a conservative and a revolutionary wing, used far beyond the religious-philosophical dispute.

With the revolution of 1848 , Hegelianism, which had dominated the philosophical scene in Germany around 1840, stepped back in favor of other philosophical currents, which culminated in Neo-Kantianism around 1860 .

Marx

Karl Marx (1818–83) initially belonged to the left Hegelian circle before criticizing Hegel's philosophy of law in the Franco-German yearbooks (1844). However, Marx repeatedly adopted Hegelian modes of representation and concepts, such as in his analyzes of the concept of value, the “alienation” of “concrete time”, the transition from quantity to quality and contradiction. In the epilogue to Capital , Volume I, Marx openly reveals himself to be Hegel's “pupil, that great thinker”, trying to “turn his dialectic inside out” “in order to discover the rational core in the mystical shell”.

Hegel reception outside Germany

As a Hegelian, Snellman had a political impact

The international expansion of Hegelianism first took place in the north, where it followed the path of German right-wing Hegelianism. Its effect was most lasting in Finland (from the 1820s) and Norway (from 1845). In both countries it became the academically dominant philosophy for more than half a century and also had a political impact; the Hegelian Johan Vilhelm Snellman (1806–1881) became the Finnish Senator for Economic Affairs. In Norway, Hegelianism was particularly widespread at the University of Oslo; his main representative here was Marcus Jacob Monrad (1816–97), who mainly dealt with Hegel's aesthetics. In Denmark , the lively dissemination of Hegelianism by the poet and literary critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg (1791-1860) formed the background of Kierkegaard's polemics against Hegel's philosophy.

In Holland , the immediate Hegelian student PG van Ghert influenced the educational system.

The Italian center of Hegelianism became Naples in the 1840s. It mainly served the struggle for an Italian nation-state ( Risorgimento ). In 1848 the Philosophy of Law appeared in Naples, and from 1863 other important works by Hegel. Important representatives of Italian Hegelianism were Francesco De Sanctis (1817–1883), Augusto Vera (1813–1885) and Bertrando Spaventa (1817–1883).

Hegelianism exerted a great influence in Russia . He was academically represented there by former Hegel students from his time in Berlin such as Petr Redkin; But even more important were the literary and philosophical circles such as that of Nikolai Stankewitsch (1813-1840). Moscow and Petersburg became the centers of Hegel's reception. Vissarion Belinski (1811–48), Alexander Herzen (1812–1870), Michail Alexandrowitsch Bakunin (1814–1876) and Nikolai Gavrilowitsch Tschernyshevsky (1828–1889) were among the most prominent philosophers who made Hegelianism in Russia the breakthrough in the 1840s helped.

The outstanding representative of Hegelianism in Poland was August Cieszkowski (1814–94) - especially with his Prolegomena zur Historiosophie , published in 1838 .

In England, after an initial occupation with translations and commentaries on Hegel's texts, a form of “absolute idealism” developed. The most important representatives were Edward Caird (1835-1908), Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882), Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924) and Andrew Seth (1856-1931). However, this movement cannot simply be attributed to Hegelianism, since it mostly lacked its dialectical component. Their intention was to defend Christianity against the new materialistic and positivistic teachings.

In the USA, the Hegelian ideas were spread through German emigration. John Bernhard Stallo (1823–1900), Peter Kaufmann, Moncure Conway (1832–1907) and the socialist August Willich (1810–1878) were among the so-called Ohio-Hegelians . In the 1860s, St. Louis Hegelianism was established with HC Brockmeyer (1826–1906) and William Torrey Harris (1835–1909) as its organizers; the most important platform for discussion was the Journal of Speculative Philosophy published by Harris (1867-1893). American Hegelianism influenced, among other things, the philosophy of John Dewey .

Hegel reception in the 20th century

Neo-hegelianism

Dilthey's youth story Hegel sparked New Hegelianism in Germany.

At the beginning of the 20th century there was a "Hegel renaissance" in Germany, Holland and Italy, and to a lesser extent in France and England. These start about simultaneously and independently of one another. Attempts at a renewal or first reception of Hegel are collectively referred to as New Hegelianism . They reached their climax in 1930 when an "International Hegel League" was founded.
Neo-Hegelianism was particularly influenced by Neo-Kantianism and the philosophy of life .

After the older Hegelianism in Germany had ebbed from around the middle of the 19th century and was superseded by a return to Kant's criticism, a “hunger for worldview” ( Wilhelm Windelband ) led to a renewed interest in Hegel.
The starting point of the movement was the discovery of the "young Hegel" in Wilhelm Diltheys (1833–1911) The History of Hegel's Youth (1905). In it Dilthey described Hegel as "a representative of an anti-Enlightenment, 'mystical pantheism', whose thinking is at the same time extremely important for the development of historical consciousness" .

Important authors were Wilhelm Windelband (1848-1915) ( The Renewal of Hegelianism , 1910) and Richard Kroner (1884-1974) ( From Kant to Hegel , 1921/1924), who in their works the inner necessity of the development from Kant to Hegel and highlighted from neo-Kantianism to neo-Hegelianism. Following the philosophies of life of the 19th century, Hermann Glockner (1896–1979) tried to give more weight to the irrational moments found in the young Hegel. Especially in the reception of Hegel's legal philosophy, Neo-Hegelianism came in close proximity to National Socialism - for example with Julius Binder (1870–1939), Gerhard Dulckeit (1904–1954) and Karl Larenz (1903–1993).

In Holland, New Hegelianism was founded by GJPJ Bolland (1854–1922). Bolland published many of Hegel's works with annotations and in his main work Zuivere rede [= Reine Vernunft] en hare werkelijkheid a new Hegelian system with the aim of renewing Hegel's overall system. Bolland's numerous students joined together in 1923 in the Bolland Society for Pure Reason ; the central organ was the magazine Die Idee . The International Hegel League was formed from the Bolland Society in 1930 at the 1st Hegel Congress in The Hague .

Benedetto Croce was the defining figure of neo-Hegelianism in Italy

The defining figures of New Hegelianism in Italy were Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and Giovanni Gentile (1875–1944).
Croce became known far beyond Italy through his writing Living and Dead in Hegel's philosophy . He saw the enduring importance of Hegel in his "Philosophy of Objective Spirit"; He rejected Hegel's natural philosophy. In 1903 he founded the magazine La Critica (1903-1944), which contributed significantly to the establishment of New Hegelianism in Italy.
The Gentiles plant was created in close collaboration with Croce. From 1903 he worked on the magazine La Critica . Gentile tried to combine Hegel's philosophy with that of Fichte. Politically, he became a supporter of the strong state (as the embodiment of the absolute) and a follower of Mussolini , which resulted in the break with the liberal Croce.

The French neo-Hegelianism did not develop the Hegelian philosophy in the actual sense, but appropriated Hegelian models of thought, especially the dialectical form of thought. The phenomenology of the mind was particularly attractive in France. The work of Jean Wahl, Jean Hyppolite and Alexandre Kojève had a decisive influence.

Jean Wahl (1888–1974) presented an interpretation of “unhappy consciousness” ( Le malheur de la conscience dans la philosophie de Hegel , 1929), the treatise of which he regarded as the core of phenomenology.
With the lectures that Alexandre Kojève (1902–1968) gave from 1933 to 1939 at the Paris “Ecole des Hautes Etudes” on phenomenology, the breakthrough of Hegelian-dialectical thought came about in France. Kojève made references from Hegel to Husserl , Heidegger and above all Marx.
Jean Hyppolite (1907–1968) translated the phenomenology as a whole into French for the first time and edited it from 1939 to 1941 with annotations. In 1947 his extensive commentary on phenomenology ( Genèse et structure de la Phenomenology de l'Esprit de Hegel ) appeared.

The heyday of English neo-Hegelianism was the 1890s up to the outbreak of the First World War. Here especially John McTaggart (1866-1925) and Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923) emerged.

Georg Lukacs' work provided the impetus for the confrontation between "Western Marxism" and Hegel

Neo-Marxism

With the shift in focus from Marxism to philosophy in " Western Marxism " a new interest in Hegel's thought arose. The work of Georg Lukács (1885–1971) such as History and Class Consciousness (1923) and The Young Hegel (1948) were decisive . Lukacs started from the conviction that "Hegel was much closer to Marx than he thought". In his work he used central concepts from Hegel such as “ alienation ”, “ reification ”, “ totality ”.

During his exile in Moscow, Lukács took part in a theoretical foundation of Soviet socialist realism , drawing on the Hegelian aesthetic (see Lukács in the Moscow magazine "Literaturnyj kritik" ). In this context it is noteworthy that on the one hand the Hegelian aesthetic can be understood as an ideal basis for the program of Soviet literary policy, on the other hand Lukács' Hegelianism in particular motivates his criticism of the Soviet intellectual life of the time.

Lukacs' work provided important impulses for the examination of the Frankfurt School with the Hegelian philosophy. This served her to criticize bourgeois thinking. The principle of dialectic was developed into a "critical theory of reason, history and society". So tied Max Horkheimer (1895-1973) of Hegel's philosophy of history. Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) linked - following Hegel - the concept of reason with the concept of freedom. Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) dealt most intensively with the work of Hegel. In his main work, Negative Dialectics (1966), he attempted to reverse Hegel's philosophy. In it Adorno turns against the predominance of conceptual systems thinking, to which the directly given object cannot be reduced. Even with Jürgen Habermas (born 1929) made the recourse to Hegel a central element of its Positivismus- and Marx's critique ( Knowledge and Human Interests , 1968).

Contemporary Hegel reception

Robert Brandom made Hegel's pragmatism fruitful for contemporary philosophy.

Since the mid-1970s, there has been a renewed interest in Hegelian philosophy. The conferences of the International Hegel Association with important representatives of analytical philosophy such as Donald Davidson (1917–2003), Michael Dummett (1925–2011) and Hilary Putnam , which have been held since 1975 under the direction of Dieter Henrich (* 1927), played a decisive role in this (* 1926), Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000) and the work of the so-called “Pittsburgh Neo-Hegelians” ( John McDowell , * 1942, Robert Brandom , * 1950).

The main focus of the current discussion of Hegelian philosophy is on the phenomenology of mind . Four thematic complexes of Hegelian thought stand in the foreground, which were mainly taken up by Robert Brandom and John McDowell:

  • the criticism of the dualistic conception and object and the abolition of the schema-content dualism
  • the ethical pragmatism and the emphasis on the importance of social practice
  • the social conception of self-consciousness , which understands it as an intersubjectively mediated quantity through social practice (concept of recognition )
  • the anti- scientism , after our knowledge and action significantly normative component underlies and rejects the concept of a merely "observed [n] reason" as the universal basis of philosophical theories

literature

Introductions

Continuing

  • Christoph Halbig, Michael Quante, Ludwig Siep (eds.): Hegel's legacy . (= stw. 1699). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-29299-4 .
  • Douglas Moggach (Ed.): The New Hegelians. Politics and Philosophy in the Hegelian School. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, ISBN 0-521-85497-0 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Hegelianism  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Marx: '' Das Kapital '', MEW 23, 59; 106
  2. ↑ Marx: `` Das Kapital '', MEW 23, 182, fn. 40
  3. ↑ Marx: `` Das Kapital '', MEW 23, 327
  4. ↑ Marx: `` Das Kapital '', MEW 23, 623
  5. ↑ Das Kapital , MEW 23, 27
  6. ↑ Cf. Juha Manninen: Hegelianism. Sp. 527.
  7. ↑ Cf. en: Edward Caird
  8. ↑ Cf. en: TH Green
  9. ↑ See en: Andrew Seth
  10. ↑ Cf. Juha Manninen: Hegelianism. Sp. 529.
  11. ↑ Cf. en: John Stallo
  12. ↑ cf. en: Peter Kaufmann (philosopher)
  13. ↑ See Moncure D. Conway
  14. ↑ See LD: Easton: Hegel's First American Followers: The Ohio Hegelians: John B. Stallo, Peter Kaufmann, Moncure Conway, and August Willich . Athens, Ohio, 1966.
  15. ↑ iep.utm.edu
  16. ↑ See en: William Torrey Harris .
  17. ↑ See Helferich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. P. 151.
  18. ↑ See Helferich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, p. 152.
  19. ↑ In Mussolini's first cabinet he was Minister of Education (1922–1924).
  20. ↑ See Helferich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. P. 157.
  21. ↑ Cf. Gerhard Göhler: The most important approaches to the interpretation of phenomenology. 2. The existentialist approach . In Gerhard Göhler (Ed.): GWF Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. With an afterword by Georg Lukacs. Text selection and commentary on the history of reception by G. Göhler. 2nd Edition. Frankfurt 1973, p. 600.
  22. ^ Alexandre Kojève: Introduction à la lecture de Hegel. Paris (Gallimard) 1947 (German: Hegel, a visualization of his thinking. Edited by Iring Fetscher . Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 1975)
  23. ↑ See Helferich, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. P. 165.
  24. ^ Bernard Bosanquet, Knowledge and Reality, A Criticism of Mr. FH Bradley's 'Principles of Logic'. Kegan Paul, Trench, London 1885 .; The Philosophical Theory of the State , London, 1899; 4th ed., 1923.
  25. ↑ History and Class Consciousness. P. 46.
  26. ↑ Nils Meier: The journal »Literaturnyj kritik« under the sign of Soviet literary policy recognizes the agreement with Soviet literary policy in the context of an analysis of the Russian translation of the Hegelian aesthetics printed in the journal "Literaturnyj kritik" . Otto Sagner, Munich 2014, pp. 116–121.
  27. ↑ On Lukács' oscillation between affirmation and criticism, see Nils Meier: The magazine "Literaturnyj kritik" under the sign of Soviet literary politics. Otto Sagner, Munich 2014, pp. 197–198, in detail: 121–171.
  28. ↑ Friedrich W. Schmidt: Hegel in the critical theory of the "Frankfurt School". In: Oskar Negt (Ed.): Actuality and consequences of Hegel's philosophy. Frankfurt am Main 1970, p. 17.
  29. ↑ Christoph Halbig, Michael Quante, Ludwig Siep: Hegel's legacy - an introduction. In: Christoph Halbig, Michael Quante, Ludwig Siep (ed.): Hegel's legacy . Frankfurt am Main 2004, pp. 7-18.
  30. ↑ See Robert Brandom: Making it explicit (1994), Articulating Reasons (2002), John McDowell: Mind and World (1994)