Hegel, G.W.F.
Hegel, G.W.F.
Bio Sketch
G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher, central figure of German Idealism. Hegel developed a dialectical system in which contradictions are resolved at higher levels of understanding (Aufhebung). His phenomenology of spirit and philosophy of history influenced Marx, Benjamin, and critical theory.
Key Works
- Phenomenology of Spirit (1807)
- Science of Logic (1812-16)
- Philosophy of Right (1820)
Key Concepts
- dialectics
- spirit
- recognition
Relevance to Geoffrey's Research
Hegel's dialectics inform Benjamin's dialectical images and the Frankfurt School's critical theory. His work connects to themes of history, modernity, and the possibility of critical architecture.
Source Support
- source-notes/kidder-gadamer-for-architects
- source-notes/elliott-benjamin-for-architects
- Ornament and Order (Soulillou 2002/2006) — the appearance/essence formula as ornament's social theory: "In Hegelian terms one might say that the appearance is the essence; there is no appearance which could conceal or contradict the essence" (p. 317) — the Hegelian identity invoked to ground eleutheros' fusion of freedom with exterior appearance: the free man's ornamentation not a mask over status but status's own presentation, the genealogical premise of the free/not-free opposition in Western aesthetic judgement (see free-and-not-free).
- Boredom and Bedroom (Teyssot 1996/2006) — the Berlin counterpoint: Kierkegaard's room-bound inwardness defined "exactly contrary to what Hegel had been saying in Berlin" (p. 345) — Hegel as the public, systematic philosophy against which the first theory of privateness (inwardness) posed itself; the private room's ideology (reality as "only his thinking within his room," the window's outside "merely an illusion") dialectically paired with the philosophical publicity it negates.
