Western Political Thought

ELEVEN

G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831): The Social Conditions for a Non-Contractual Theory of Freedom

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a central figure in the philosophical tradition known as German Idealism. The emergence of German Idealism has long been associated with Immanuel Kant whose classic work, The Critique of Pure Reason, was published in 1781. Fichte and Schelling developed this tradition further and Hegel, who was a contemporary and a friend of Schelling, is often seen to be the culmination of this philosophical tradition. In contrast to British empiricist writers like Locke and Hume, and later on Mill, who considered all our knowledge to be derived from sense-impressions, the German Idealists gave a primary role to our thoughts and ...