Life:
- Born 1770 Stuttgart
- Cf. 1789 fall of Bastille
- Cf. 1806 Napoleon’s Battle of Jena
- Cf. French dominion over Germany (1806-1814) included substantial reform (incl. abolishment of serfdom, proto-revolutionary attempts)
- 1799 inheritance (father’s death) allowed him to stop being a family-tutor and join the University of Jena, where previously Fichte and Schilling had been, and Schelling was
- Schelling was becoming famous, but when Hegel eclipsed him, he would claim that he had stolen his ideas. He had first met Schelling at a seminary (via scholarship) he attended after finishing school. The two fell out when Schelling read the introduction of PoM as a polemic against his ideas.
- Phenomenology of Mind – motived to write by a dwindling inheritance, but the contract for writing contained a heavy penalty for late production; finished on the day Napoleon invaded Jena, and in a rush Hegel had to send his only manuscript off via courier despite worries that it could be lost (13 October 1806, published 1807).
- Jena’s occupation disrupted his academic life. He left for other jobs, including newspaper editor, and for nine years a headmaster in Nuremberg, where he had an illegitimate son with his landlady, and married (a daughter of an important family).
- During these years published three volumes of Science of Logic (1812, 1813, 1816).
- Reputation led him to professorship at University of Heidelberg where he wrote Encyclopedia of Logic.
- Increasing reputation led him to chair at University of Berlin (1818 until death 1831).
- Wrote Philosophy of Right
Perspective: H’s P’s development of ideas parallels the development of history, and the latter is proof of the former.
[Q] The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom [PoR]
Blurb of Philosophy of History: Goes through history – Orient, Greek states, Roman rule, Christianity, Reformation, Germanic world – describing the freedom of consciousness had by the people of each epoch, and how that freedom invariably progresses. That list of epoch is roughly described in terms of: only dictator is free, all other’s controlled; some have individual freedom; this freedom is contrasted by state control, thus birth of introverted philosophies; realization of spiritual dimension for freedom; individuals become masters of their own spirituality; society becomes rational, thus allowing “objective freedom”.
- Popper accuses H of serving his employer – Frederick William of Prussia.
The Phenomenology is necessary as a preface to the History because it answers the question, “Why is the history of the world nothing but the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
- Nb. Springer’s argument for translating Geist as mind, given the likelihood that H is contributing to the dialog since Descartes, regarding the questions surrounding “What is mind”.
- Study of how mind appears to itself.
