Key to our Hegel Biography

Here is a key to our Hegel biography, which is based largely on Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844) in the French edition by Pierre Osmo. It includes links to the individual chapters. Whilst we cannot compete with the books of Walter Kaufmann, Horst Althaus, Jacques D'Hondt or Terry Pinkard, we can claim an exposition refounded on the earliest source, Karl Rosenkranz. Hegel scholarship has corrected Rosenkranz on the dating and authorship of several early manuscripts and built on his indications of Hegel's role in society, but perhaps diverged for many years from the facts he set out, particularly on the politics of the Restoration period in Berlin.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Hegel in Berlin (Part One)

This post is the first of several, dealing with Hegel's time in Berlin from 1818 to 1831. The material is drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844), the first biography of Hegel. During this time Hegel taught at Berlin University and was involved in the development of Prussian politics, culture and society. Many of his posthumously published lectures date from this period, during which his original works included the Philosophy of Right (1821), the second and third editions of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1827, 1830) and some notable contributions to journals.

Hegel in Heidelberg

This is an account of Hegel's time in Heidelberg from 1816 to 1818, drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844), the first biography of Hegel. It includes discussions of Hegel's essays on Jacobi and on the Wurtemberg Estates. I exclude from this the chapter on the first edition of the Encyclopadia (1817), which I have translated in a previous post.

First edition of the Encyclopedia

There follows a complete translation of the very brief chapter on the first edition of Hegel's Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences (1817) in Karl Rosenkranz' Life of Hegel (1844) taken from his coverage of Hegel's time in Heidelberg. The standard English translations of the Encyclopaedia are of the later editions rather than of this edition of which Rosenkranz speaks so highly. William Wallace translated the later editions of the Encyclopaedia Logic (1873) and Philosophy of Mind (1894), with the Encyclopaedia translation only completed in the 1970s with AV Miller's Philosophy of Nature. In this light, Rosenkranz' preference for the first edition is worth pondering.

Brief notes on the Science of Logic

 

These are my notes from the brief chapter on Hegel's Science of Logic in Karl Rosenkranz' Life of Hegel (1844). This gave rise to an interesting exchange of views on the Hegel-list on the nature of the Logic, which we concluded was a logic of experience-as-a-whole rather than a pure development of abstract concepts (as my version of Rosenkranz suggested) or a deceptive removal of layers of abstraction to return to a common sense view of the world (as alleged by Friedrich Trendelenberg and Andrew Seth later in the 19th century).

Hegel in Nuremberg

This post covers my reading of Hegel's period at Nürnberg, including his rectorship at the Aegidiengymnasium and marriage, drawn again from Book II of Karl Rosenkranz's Hegels Leben (1844). I will reserve comments on the Science of Logic for a separate post.

Hegel in Bamberg

There follows an account of Hegel's time in Bamberg as editor of the Bamberger Zeitung, drawn from Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844), followed by Rosenkranz's analysis of Hegel's essay on The German Constitution in the subsequent chapter, which later commentators state that he misdates to this period and which certainly has a less mature style than he attained in the Phenomenology and Critical Journal articles.

Hegel In Jena (Part One)

This post summarises chapters 1-7 of the middle book of Hegels Leben (1844) by Karl Rosenkranz that cover Hegel's time in Jena, including publication of the Critical Journal of Philosophy. This middle book as a whole starts with Hegel's arrival in Jena in 1801 and takes us up to his departure from Heidelberg for Berlin in 1818.

Hegel's early views of Religion

Here is a further summary of my reading of Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844), the first biography of Hegel from whom later biographers draw extensively. This post covers the end of Part One and briefly describes Hegel's system of ethical life and philosophy of religion prior to publication of the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807.

The early Logic, Metaphysics and Philosophy of Nature

Here is a further summary of my reading of Karl Rosenkranz's Life of Hegel (1844), the first biography of Hegel from whom later biographers draw extensively. This post covers the start of chapter 19 of Part One, by far the longest chapter in the book describing Hegel's philosophical system and philosophy of nature prior to publication of the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807.

Hegel in Berne and Frankfurt

Here is a further summary of Karl Rosenkranz' Life of Hegel (1844), starting from Hegel's time as a tutor in Switzerland from 1793-96. As the book is not available in English and my German is not (yet) up to the job, I work from the French translation of Pierre Osmo.