Hegel Group members Abhishek k gurang SCSJ-0008436 Cheng

Hegel Group members Abhishek. k. gurang SCSJ-0008436 Cheng Yen Wen SCSJ-0001886 Foo Shay Pin SCSJ-0001876 Joanna Pinto SCSJ-0004028

Background Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, was born in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied theology in Tubingen at the age of eighteen. There he made friends with the great romantic poet Friedrich Hölderlin and Friedrich Schelling who was also to become one of the major German Philosophical scene in the first half of the nineteenth century. After graduation Hegel worked as a tutor families in Bern and then Frankfurt, where he was reunited with Hölderlin. And at 1799, he worked with Schelling in Jena during the time when the Romantic Movement was experiencing its most explosive growth. Until around 1800, Hegel devoted himself to developing his ideas on religious and social themes, and seemed to have envisaged a future for himself as a type of modernising and reforming educator, in the image of figures of the German Enlightenment such as Lessing and Schiller. Around the turn of the century, however, under the influence of Hölderlin and Schelling, his interests turned more to issues arising from the “critical” philosophy initiated by Immanuel Kant.

In late 1801, Hegel published his first philosophical work, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, and up until 1803 worked closely with Schelling, with whom he edited the Critical Journal of Philosophy By late 1806 Hegel had completed his first major work, the Phenomenology of Spirit (published 1807) At Nuremberg he married and started a family, and wrote and published his Science of Logic. In 1816 he managed to return to his university career by being appointed to a chair in philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. Then in 1818, he was offered and took up the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, the most prestigious position in the German philosophical world. While in Heidelberg he published the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, a systematic work in which an abbreviated version of the earlier Science of Logic (the “Encyclopaedia Logic” or “Lesser Logic”) was followed by the application of its principles to the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit.

In 1821 in Berlin Hegel published his major work in political philosophy, Elements of the Philosophy of Right, based on lectures given at Heidelberg but ultimately grounded in the section of the Encyclopaedia Philosophy of Spirit dealing with “objective spirit. ” During the following ten years up to his death in 1831 when Hegelianism had gained an enormous following at nearly all the universities in germany, he published subsequent versions of the Encyclopaedia. After his death due to cholera in the same year, versions of his lectures on philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy were published.

Progress of world spirit through out history

Critical about Romantics World spirit- sum of human utterance. Speak of the progress of the world spirit through out history

Truth- is subjective All knowledge is human knowledge Hegel’s philosophy – method for understanding the progress of history Think productively Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant etc. have something common. – Hegel does not

Hegel- believe the basis of human cognition changed from one generation to the next (pg 358, para 5) No eternal truth, no timeless reason. (pg 358, para 7 ) History is like a running river.

History of thought (reason) is like a river. A thought can be correct from where you stand. • History is dynamic- a process • Truth is this same proess. • Reason is “progressive” -Human knowledge is constantly expanding and progressing.

Hegel says…. World spirit expands and become broader Although the world has always existed, human culture and human development have made world spirit increasingly consciousness of its intrinsic value Historical reality- humanity has advance towards greater rationality and freedom

Dialectic process -A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory or idea with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions. -Contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction. - a concept gives rise to its opposite, and as a result of this conflict, a new and third view arises.

3 stages of knowledge Thesis= intellectual proposition Antithesis= negation of thesis, a reaction to the proposition. Synthesis= solves the conflict between thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.

Example: Thesis: Men cannot fly Antithesis: Men can fly Synthesis: Create a flying machine which can help men fly. But, the story will doesn’t end with this synthesis. This synthesis will become a new thesis that generate another antithesis, giving rise to a new synthesis, which mean that the process of historical development is continually generated.

The negation of the negation Negation: when there was an extreme claim is proposed, a contradictory claim will arise Development takes place in cycles. Consists of 3 stages: the original state of the objects, its transformation into its opposite (that is, its negation), and the transformation of the opposite into its own opposite.

Real is rational and rational is real That was tangibly a sanctification of things that be. according to Hegel: - certainly not everything that exists is also real, without further qualification. example, refer to old book (pg 366 -367)

Concept of “ becoming ” -is used to resolved the tension between “being” and “nothing” -Being and nothing was in the opposite concept. -(pg 368)

Hegel’s logic Analyzes what happens when categories are predicated of a subject. Due to inconsistencies arise between thesis and antithesis, the logic progresses until we have a fully consistent description of a subject. The logical moves through thesis and antithesis to synthesis do not describe reality as it actually is, but reflect the way finite and incomplete thought corrects its subjective and limited predications on the way to completeness.

Objective Powers It emphasized the importance of the family, civil society and the state. He believed that the individual was an organic part of the community. Reason manifests itself above all in language. eg: The Norwegian language manage well without Mr. Hansen, but Mr. Hansen cannot manage without Norwegian.

People is also born into its historical background , and nobody had a free relationship to this kind of background. The person who does not find his place within the state is therefore an unhistorical person. State is more than the individual citizen. Hence, one cannot resign from society.

Conclusion To Hegel, history is the realization for world spirit. To be able to speak of the progress of world spirit, Hegel claim that we should understanding the progress of history. Hence, the 3 stages of knowledge – thesis, antithesis and synthesis represent the progression of history. These contradictions between thesis and antithesis are levels of consciousness.

To said that the world spirit become conscious of itself which involve in 3 stages: i. Subjective spirit – the world spirit become conscious of itself. ii. Objective spirit – the world spirit reaches a higher consciousness in the family, civil society and state. It is call as objective spirit because it appears in interaction between people. iii. Absolute spirit – world spirit had reaches the highest form of self-realization. It is art, religion and philosophy.