Saturday 7 December 2013

Hegel in Berlin (Part Three)

 
This is my concluding entry on Hegel's life, drawing from Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first biography of Hegel. I describe Hegel's final words on politics and falling out with Edouard Gans, his last sudden illness and death and the life of his sister.

Sunday 20 October 2013

Friedrich Carové, the battle of nations and the "Liberation of Germany"

This weekend marks the bicentenary of the Battle of Nations (Völkerschlacht) at Leipzig from 16-19 October 1813 that ended Napoleonic rule in Europe. Whilst Hegel was present in the vicinity of the equally significant Battle of Jena in October 1806 and we have a contemporary letter giving his impressions, his reaction to the Battle of Leipzig is harder to trace. The above memorial was erected to mark the 100th anniversary of the battle in 1913.

Saturday 21 September 2013

Hegel's late political thought

After some remarks about scholarship on Hegel's political philosophy, I summarise Hegel's political writings and reputation from the 1820s, including his response to the July 1830 revolution in France and the essay On the English Reform Bill (1831). The information is drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first biography of Hegel.

Saturday 24 August 2013

Later editions of the Encyclopaedia


This post summarises Karl Rosenkranz's account of the second and third editions of Hegel's Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1827, 1830). We have already translated his brief chapter on the first edition here.

Sunday 21 July 2013

Hegel's late critical essays



This post summarises Hegel's part in the founding of the Annual for Scientific Criticism in Berlin and the articles he wrote for it. The first of these (English translation above) addressed the story of Arjuna from the Indian dialogue in the Bhagavad Gita. The material is drawn principally from Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844).

Sunday 23 June 2013

The Hegelian School and its Proselytism


This post outlines the influence exercised by Hegel on and through his former students in his Berlin period. The information is drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first major biography of Hegel.

Saturday 15 June 2013

The Philosophy of History and the East


This post discusses Hegel's Berlin lectures on the philosophy of history and his late studies of eastern thought. The material is drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844).

Sunday 9 June 2013

Victor Cousin and Hegel

This post summarises the relations between French eclectic philosopher and historian of philosophy Victor Cousin (1792-1867) and Hegel. Cousin was very influential in the institutionalisation of philosophy in the French education system in the 19th century. He wrote books on John Locke and Condillac; the "Scottish school of common sense" (Hutcheson, Reid and Adam Smith); and Immanuel Kant.

Sunday 19 May 2013

Hegel in Berlin (Part Two)


This post continues my coverage of Hegel's time in Berlin (1818-31) drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first biography of Hegel. Subjects covered are Hegel's life in society and his travels.

Sunday 14 April 2013

Hegel's interest in art

This post summarises the experiential basis of Hegel's interest in art during his Berlin period, as described in Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first biography of Hegel, which also recounts Hegel's travels to other European towns and cities.

Saturday 9 March 2013

Schleiermacher and the polemic against the theology of feeling

This post discusses Hegel's relations with the Berlin theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834, above), author of Speeches on Religion to its Cultured Despisers (1799). This is based on the information in Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844), the first full length biography of Hegel.

Saturday 9 February 2013

Goethe and Schopenhauer on color

This is a brief note on the biographical facts on Hegel's relation to Goethe's theory of colors (Farbenlehre) and Schopenhauer's modification of the theory, drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844).

Sunday 20 January 2013

The Philosophy of Right and Demagoguery

Here I summarise chapter five of Book Three of Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844) on Hegel's Philosophy of Right (1821). Rosenkranz addresses principally the immediate context of Hegel's views on Restorationist thought, von Savigny's historical school of law, and the questions of student unrest and Jakob Fries.