Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
(portrait by Jakob Schlesinger, 1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (* 27 August 1770 in Stuttgart; † 14 November 1831 in Berlin) was a German philosopher who is considered the most important representative of German idealism. Hegel's philosophy claims to interpret the whole of reality in the diversity of its manifestations, including its historical development, in a coherent, systematic and definitive way. His philosophical work is one of the most influential in the history of modern philosophy.

Hegel's work is divided into "Logic", "Philosophy of Nature" and "Philosophy of Mind", which also includes a philosophy of history.

The Significance of Hegel for Rudolf Steiner

As early as 1894 Rudolf Steiner wrote in a letter to Eduard von Hartmann:

„I do not think I differ from Hegel in anything, but only draw individual consequences of his teaching.“ (Lit.:GA 39, p. 227)

In a later lecture it is said appreciatively:

References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.

Rudolf Steiner also mentioned, in several places in his work, the positive effect that comes from studying Hegel's logic:

„It is extraordinarily useful and constitutes an extraordinarily fruitful meditation to live in Hegel's crystal-clear concepts; it is an important means of education for the soul. At the same time, it is a means of education against all laxity and loutishness of concepts, which are thoroughly exorcised by the Hegelian dialectic. If one has trained one's mind on Hegelian dialectics, one often has the impression of loose concepts when reading books by modern writers.“ (Lit.:GA 108, p. 247)

„And if untrained thinking in outer science already causes a great deal of mischief, in the anthroposophical movement in particular mischief is caused even more than by incorrect observations by the fact that with many the interest in supersensible things does not go hand in hand with an equally strong interest in logical thinking. And this purely logical thinking can be trained quite particularly by a consideration of the thought of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.“ (Lit.:GA 125, p. 27)

Hegel's philosophical view can very easily be misunderstood to the effect that he postulated a world of ideas independent of man, free-floating, as it were, and existing for itself. Hegel himself did little to dispel this misunderstanding. In contrast to this, therefore, two things must be noted: Firstly, the field in which thoughts occur is solely individual human consciousness; secondly, however, thought is based on its own inherent regularities, which is why it is always one and the same world of thought, common to all human beings, from which each individual, through his activity of thinking, draws the thoughts that occur in his consciousness. The appearance of thoughts brought about by thinking is therefore subjectively caused, but the thought content as such is objective.

„Hegel has an absolute trust in thinking, indeed it is the only factor of reality in which he trusts in the true sense of the word. However correct his view may be in general, it is precisely he who has deprived thinking of all prestige by the all-too-crass form in which he defends it. The way he has put forward his view is to blame for the hopeless confusion that has come into our "thinking about thinking". He wanted to make the significance of the thought, of the idea, quite clear by describing the necessity of thought at the same time as the necessity of facts. In this way he gave rise to the error that the determinations of thought were not purely ideal but actual. His view was soon taken to mean that he himself had sought thought as a thing in the world of sensuous reality. He never quite made this clear. It must be established that the field of thought is solely human consciousness. Then it must be shown that through this circumstance the world of thought loses nothing in objectivity. Hegel only brought out the objective side of thought; but the majority, because this is easier, see only the subjective; and it seems to them that the latter treated something purely ideal like a thing, mystified it. Even many scholars of the present day cannot be absolved from this error. They condemn Hegel on account of a defect which he does not have in himself, but which can certainly be put into him because he has not clarified the matter in question sufficiently.

We admit that there is a difficulty here for our judgment. But we believe that this difficulty can be overcome by any energetic thinking. We must imagine two things: first, that we actively bring the ideal world into existence, and second, that what we actively bring into existence is based on its own laws. We are, of course, accustomed to imagining an appearance in such a way that we only have to face it passively, observing. But this is not an absolute necessity. Unaccustomed as we may be to the idea that we ourselves actively bring an objective into appearance, that we, in other words, not only perceive an appearance but at the same time produce it, it is not an inadmissible one.

One need only abandon the ordinary opinion that there are as many worlds of thought as there are human individuals. This opinion is in any case nothing more than a long-established prejudice. It is everywhere tacitly assumed, without any consciousness that another is at least equally possible, and that the reasons for the validity of one or the other must first be considered. In place of this opinion, consider the following: there is only one thought-content at all, and our individual thinking is nothing more than a working of our self, our individual personality, into the thought-centre of the world.“ (Lit.:GA 2, p. 51f)

Literature
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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