Hegel regards absolute spirit as the source of the world. Absolute spirit is not something beyond the world. The phenomena of nature, human society and human spirit are its manifestations in different stages of development. Therefore, the process of replacement, development and immortality of things is the absolute spirit itself. The task and purpose of Hegel's philosophy is to show the absolute spirit embodied in nature, society and thinking, and to reveal its development process and regularity. In fact, on the basis of idealism, it explores the dialectical relationship between thinking and existence and reveals their dialectical identity.
Around this basic proposition, Hegel established an amazing objective idealism system, which mainly described three stages of absolute spiritual self-development: logic, natural philosophy and spiritual philosophy. Hegel always carried out this dialectical principle when discussing the development of every concept, thing and the whole system. This is one of the most amazing bold thinking in the history of human thought. Engels later spoke highly of him: "Modern German philosophy reached its peak in Hegel's system. In this system, Hegel first described the whole natural, historical and spiritual world as being in constant movement, change, transformation and development, and tried to reveal the internal relationship between this movement and development. "
Hegel wrote a lot in his life, including Phenomenology of Spirit, Logic, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Principles of Philosophy of Right, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Historical Philosophy and Aesthetics.
2. Hegel was born in Stuttgart, the capital of the Principality of Wü rttemberg, Germany, and his father was the secretary of the tax bureau. 1780, studying in the liberal arts middle school in this city, receiving classical and enlightenment education. During this period, he wrote several short essays, such as Conversation of Three People, Religion of Greeks and Romans, and Significant Differences between Ancient and Modern Poets, which showed his tendency to analyze contradictions in historical stories and take a critical attitude towards traditional religious concepts. His view that contemporary poets no longer play a wide role in aesthetics was also quite clearly put forward at this time. 1788 10 Hegel went to Tubingen Theological Seminary to study philosophy and theology. He is interested in philosophy and works hard, but he is disgusted with orthodox theology. In the college, Hegel got to know Holderlin and Schelling, and their friendship had a far-reaching impact on his ideological development. They were all enthusiastic supporters of the French Revolution. Hegel basically maintained a positive attitude towards the French Revolution. After graduating from college, he didn't choose the position of priest. 1793 ~ 1796, worked as a tutor in a noble family in Bern, Switzerland. During this period, Hegel condemned robespierre's reign of terror after the French Revolution. From the end of 1797 to the end of 1800, Hegel went to Frankfurt as a tutor. The treatment here is superior to Bern, and you can live with your good friend Holdrin, which provides favorable conditions for the development of Hegel's philosophy. 180 1 year 1 month Hegel came to Jena, the center of German philosophy and literature at that time, and began a decisive stage in his life. He started taking classes with Schelling and co-sponsored the Philosophical Review. Until the publication of Phenomenology of Spirit, the two had been cooperating and maintained a good friendship. 180 1 Hegel passed the qualification of thesis defense and speech. 1805, associate professor. 1804, Hegel became an appraiser of the mineral society of Jena and a full member of the natural research society of Westphalia. 1807 became an honorary member of Heidelberg Physics Society. 1March, 807, Hegel jumped to Banbao and became the editor-in-chief of Banbao. Because his newspaper sympathized with Napoleon, he had many disputes with Munich officials, and he resigned a year later. Hegel was transferred to Nuremberg as President of Ren Zhongxue. 18 16 Hegel went to Heidelberg as a philosophy professor and began to enjoy a high reputation. 18 18 The King of Prussia appointed Hegel as a professor at the University of Berlin. 1822, Hegel was appointed as a member of the university Council. 1826, Fox published a report celebrating Hegel's birthday, which was warned by the King of Prussia. 1829 10 Hegel was elected president of Berlin University and concurrently served as a government representative. 183 1 year, Hegel was awarded the third Red Eagle Medal. In the summer of the same year, his article "On the British Reform Act" was published. Because the king of Prussia ordered the publication to stop, the article was only published in half. 183 1 year1month 14 Hegel died in Berlin.
Hegel's major works include Phenomenology of Spirit, Logic, Encyclopedia of Philosophy (including logic, natural philosophy and spiritual philosophy), Principles of Philosophy of Right, Lectures on Aesthetics, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Lectures on Historical Philosophy and so on.
2. Philosophical thought and its development process
2. 1 Tubingen in Bern and Frankfurt.
Hegel entered Tubingen Theological Seminary from 65438 to 0788, and was influenced by I Kant, B Spinoza and J-J Rousseau. Among them, he paid special attention to Rousseau's works and paid great attention to the understanding and interpretation of ancient spirit. He wrote "On Some Prejudices Provided by Reading Ancient Greece and Classic Writers", arguing that ancient writers have maintained their prestige in almost every era, and their works are still valuable now, because they are suitable for "education". This is a noteworthy concept in Hegel's philosophy. Hegel criticized the orthodoxy with the help of the German enlightenment thinker Lessing's Netan the Wise.
Hegel's life and study in the university enabled him to study politics and religion and criticize reality. Hegel said in his thank-you letter to Lin on April 1795 that he expected to see a revolution in Germany from Kant's system and its perfection. Although Hegel had not finished criticizing Kant at this time, he affirmed the revolutionary nature of Kant's system and put his philosophical thinking on this basis. He emphasized the practical aspect of this goal, and believed that the highest purpose of philosophy is to improve people's status, and the best symbol of the times is that people deserve respect. He linked philosophers with the people and criticized religion and autocracy.
At this time, Hegel has not yet formed his own philosophical system. According to Kant's demand for rational religion, Hegel wrote The Biography of Jesus, regarding Jesus as a teacher of virtue. He also wrote The Reality of Christianity, which regarded Christianity as a dead religion that violated practical reason and was imposed on others. This occupies an important position in the history of religious criticism. 1798, he anonymously published the Secret Letter on the Relationship between the Watt Gang (Bedford) and the former bern state Law, which sharply criticized the politics and justice under the Berne oligarchy system. Hegel also studied British political economy, had a deep understanding of early capitalism, and formed an important part of his whole system. Then gradually turned to philosophy. Hegel is not satisfied with the supremacy of Kant's moral law, and regards it as the opposition between universal law and individual subject. Hegel advocates the unity of universality and individuality, morality and sensibility. He tried to overcome dualism by expounding love, life, spirit and ethics, so as to achieve dialectical unity. Hegel thinks that unity is "the combination of combination and non-combination", or "the unity of subject and object, the unity of nature and freedom, and the unity of possibility and reality". At this time, Hegel still thought that religion was higher than philosophy, and philosophy, as a reflective thinking, could not grasp the infinity of life and spirit. This view is different from his previous view. After Jena, Hegel soon gave up this view and turned to demonstrate absolute knowledge.
2.2 Jena Period and Banbao Period
Hegel's period in Jena was a turning point in turning his ideal into a system. 180 1 year, Hegel wrote the difference between Fichte's and Schelling's philosophical systems, and participated in the philosophical debate at that time. This is the first philosophical paper published by Hegel. Hegel sided with Schelling. Criticize Fichte's subjective idealism with Schelling's objective idealism. However, the article already contains Hegel's own unique views, which shows that he did not completely stay in Schelling's system. Hegel believes that absolute identity is the same and different identity, and the task of philosophy is to sublate separation and realize combination. He criticized Fichte for not achieving this identity, and only regarded self-consciousness as the subject and object. In fact, the subject is subjective and the object is objective. He also believes that the identity of Schelling's system is absolutely the same, and the elimination of any differences and opposites will lead to dogmatism. The difference between Hegel and Fichte lies in his emphasis on the objectivity of absolute as ontology; The difference between him and Schelling is that he emphasizes the absolute inclusion of differences and the process of their appearance and display. Hegel defined philosophy as the totality of knowledge and regarded it as a conceptual system. The supreme law of this system is not intellectuality, but rationality. He asked philosophy to express absoluteness in the form of dialectical unity of concept system and subject and object, thus laying the principle of his dialectical objective idealism.
Hegel also published some works criticizing Kant, Fichte and jacoby during this period. The philosophy of these people is regarded by Hegel as a kind of subjective reflection philosophy and a one-sided philosophy that needs to be overcome, so they must be distinguished from the "real philosophy" based on the whole. Among them, On Scientific Research Methods of Natural Law Rights critically sublates Hobbes' and Rousseau's theories of natural law rights, and further criticizes Kant's and Fichte's practical philosophy. He advocated the development of Aristotle's ethical principles under modern conditions, and established the consistency of individual and whole, the unity of ethics and freedom, and the unity of morality and ethics under the condition of ensuring individual freedom. Hegel also discussed the organizational form of ethics and the ethical significance of labor. All the above works and papers prepared for Hegel's creation of Phenomenology of Spirit.
Hegel began to write Phenomenology of Spirit from 1805, which was published in March 1807. It marks that the German philosophical revolution initiated by Kant has entered a new stage, and it also marks that Hegel has become a mature and unique philosopher. Hegel provides an epoch-making history of human consciousness in this masterpiece. It divides the development of human consciousness into five stages: ① consciousness, ② self-consciousness and ③ rationality, which belong to subjective spirit; ④ Spirit, that is, objective spirit; ⑤ Absolute spirit. Hegel's holistic view and great sense of history are reflected in the history of this consciousness development. Phenomenology of Spirit, as a microcosm of the development stage of human consciousness, profoundly reveals the historical dialectics of human individual development and human social development. Hegel revealed this mainly through "alienation" and "alienation of self-consciousness". Only Hegel attributed the different forms of human alienation in history to different forms of ideological alienation. In this way, he idealized the historical development upside down However, in this inverted form, there is a profound understanding of the nature of labor, that is, understanding realistic people as the result of their own labor.
Phenomenology of Spirit contains the basic outline, germination and embryonic form of the huge system founded by Hegel later. Logic contains the basic ideas at the core of Hegel's philosophy system, such as the unity of thinking content and form, the self-movement of concepts, the self-movement of truth according to its nature, the leap from quantitative change to qualitative change, the establishment of opposites and their sublation, so as to achieve the unity of negation and negation. This book has been put forward to some extent. Phenomenology of spirit also includes the basic outline of spiritual philosophy and the embryonic form of natural philosophy. When discussing "perceptual certainty", the works involve the categories of time and space; When discussing "intellectuality", some problems such as the alternation of matter, motion and force and the core of nature are put forward. When discussing "the rationality of observation", he discussed physiology and biology, put forward the view that nature should be regarded as an organic whole, and criticized the popular physiognomy and skull physiognomy at that time. When discussing "rationality", especially "spirit", many moral and ethical issues were discussed, involving the vast historical issues from ancient Greece and Rome to the modern Renaissance and the Enlightenment, which all set a precedent for the later principles of legal philosophy and historical philosophy. Although Hegel didn't regard art as a link of absolute spirit in Phenomenology of Spirit, when discussing the ethical world and morality in Greece, he had touched on the problem that tragedy originated from the conflict of one-sided ethical concepts and the fate of Greek tragedy. When discussing the religious nature of art, he distinguished abstract art, life art and spiritual art, which was intrinsically related to his later aesthetic division of artistic development into symbolism, classicism and romanticism. The discussion on religion in Phenomenology of Spirit is generally consistent with his Lecture Notes on Religious Philosophy in terms of its content arrangement.
During the one-year period from Jena to Bamburg, Hegel wrote "Who thinks in the abstract", an important article criticizing metaphysical thinking mode. But his desire to participate in political practice has not come true.
2.3 Nuremberg period and Heidelberg period
In Nuremberg, Hegel completed another masterpiece, Logic, which was published in three volumes: 18 12, 18 13, 18 16. The significance of this work is in sharp contrast to the cold reception it received after its publication. Only in Marxist philosophy can it be correctly understood, transformed and applied. Through the mysterious shell of this work, we can see the profound expression of general dialectics in nature, society and thinking. In Hegel's system, logic occupies the core position. Except Phenomenology of Spirit, he regarded his other works as the development and application of logic.
Hegel's logic is a conceptual deduction system composed of ontology, essentialism and conceptualism. The order of concepts in this system is only logical and has nothing to do with time. It existed forever before the appearance of nature and human society, and constituted the origin and essence of nature and human society. Engels pointed out that Hegel's philosophy has the nature of rationalizing God's Christian creationism. It is behind the shell of this mysticism fiction that there are profound insights about the objective dialectics system everywhere, whether it is the whole or part of logic. Marx pointed out that Hegel was "the first person who comprehensively and consciously described the general movement form of dialectics".
Generally speaking, in logic, the concept of "ontology" is direct and abstract. The concept of "essentialism" is indirect and a step forward to the specific concept. The concept of "conceptualism" is the unity of directness and indirectness, reaching a truly concrete concept. The overall structure of this logic shows that Hegel has regarded cognition as a dialectical development process from low level to high level and from abstract to concrete. But he regards this cognitive process as the development process of the objective world itself, thus imposing the logical structure of cognition on the objective world. In the logical structure of cognition, Hegel tries to unify history and logic to form an organic whole system, which itself contains the deepening and sublimation of the understanding of the real dialectical process of the world. Logic embodies Hegel's rational thought that the universe is an organic whole of movement, change and development.
In Ontology, Hegel first proposed that the mutual change of quality is a universal law in the history of western philosophy through deduction and analysis of quality, quantity and degree. Quality is the stipulation that something is something. Once the stipulation of quality is lost, something is not something. Quality itself contains quantity, so quantity is derived from quality. As the external stipulation of things, the change of quantity generally does not affect the essence of things. But there is a limit to this quantitative change. This limit is the degree or scale. Degree also includes two meanings: quantitative change does not affect qualitative change and affects qualitative change. Hegel called the points with mutually variable masses "crossing points" and the lines composed of such points "crossing lines". More importantly, Hegel pointed out that quantitative change is a "gradual process" and qualitative change is a "gradual process interruption" to "leap", criticizing the metaphysical development view of denying qualitative change and leap. He pointed out that "everything □ and □ are not continuous and gradual, but gradually interrupted, which is a leap from quantitative change to qualitative change".
"Essence theory" includes three levels of concepts: essence itself, phenomenon and reality. Hegel's outstanding contribution is mainly through the deduction of the essence itself, that is, analyzing the concepts of identity, difference, opposition and contradiction, profoundly criticizing the metaphysical worldview of denying contradiction and its universality, and revealing the fundamental law of the universe of unity of opposites. Hegel believes that taking the identity of traditional logic, the law of contradiction and law of excluded middle as the way of thinking to grasp the essence of the world is an abstract repetition of the same language, which not only fails to grasp the essence of anything, but also goes against common sense and even formal logic itself. Even the judgment of the composition of subject and object is not based on the identity of a=a, but must admit that there are differences in the unity of subject and object, otherwise it is not a judgment. Hegel further believes that it is ridiculous to say that contradictions are unimaginable, and everything itself contains contradictions. Contradiction is the root of all movements and vitality; Things will only move because of their own contradictions, and they will have motivation and activities. At the same time, Hegel also regarded the development of contradiction as a process from freedom to self-reliance. Identity, difference and opposition are all different levels of contradiction development. Identity is not a=a, but contains differences with itself. The difference is not that A is not A, but that it contains the same. Opposition is neither one nor one, and it also contains the same itself. However, these contradictory stages are still in the comfortable stage and have not yet reached the life pulse stage of mutual transformation of opposites. Only through the contradictions in the self-sustaining stage can we transition to a new unity of contradictions, that is, the foundation. It can be seen that Hegel's expression of the law of unity of opposites is quite comprehensive, contradictions are universal, contradictions are mutually exclusive and interdependent opposites within the unity, and the transformation of opposites in contradictions is conditional, which marks the sublation of old contradictions and the emergence of new contradictions. In addition, Hegel also demonstrated various dialectical unity relations between essence and phenomenon, contingency and necessity, possibility and reality with this view of unity of opposites, and criticized Kant and Hume's metaphysical views in this respect.
Conceptual theory includes three stages: subjective, objective and conceptual. In the subjective part, Hegel criticized the formalism and rigid tendency of taking traditional logic as the world outlook, and put forward the dialectical view of concept, judgment and reasoning from the internal content and relationship of logical forms. As concrete concepts to express truth, concept, judgment and reasoning are universal, but they are different from abstract "* * * similarity", but contain particularity and individuality; It is individual and special, but it does not exclude universality, which itself exists. Hegel reveals the important content of dialectics which is related to universality and particularity here, thus making the dialectical logic he founded strictly different from the traditional logic. In the objectivity part, Hegel's rational thought is mainly manifested in that he regards purpose as one of the unique characteristics of human practice, and the purpose is realized, which is called "the cunning of reason" by Hegel, that is, it is not directly related to the object, but realized by means of tools and means. Hegel's understanding of the importance of tools contains an important and reasonable thought towards historical materialism. Idea is the ultimate goal pursued by Hegel's logic. It includes the concepts of life, cognition, practice and absoluteness. This part embodies Hegel's view of truth and methodology. As far as the view of truth is concerned, Hegel believes that truth exists not only in the sum and relationship of real things, but also in the unity of opposites, so it is comprehensive and concrete; This truth is a contradictory development process. Hegel put forward the famous "action reasoning": ① the purpose originates from reality and demands to dominate reality; Objective To make and use tools to go to Tao Zhu; The result achieved the goal. In this reasoning, there is a profound reflection on how to unify understanding and practice, subjective and objective. As far as methodology is concerned, Hegel believes that the absolute concept contains all the truth of the development of the previous concept. However, what he examines here is not the result, but its development, that is, the whole philosophical method. Hegel, based on the principle of the unity of content and method, not only insists that content determines method, but also emphasizes the extreme importance of method. He clearly pointed out that "method is not an external form, but the soul and concept of content". In view of the fact that the development of philosophy is a process of contradictory movement, the dichotomy is only an external form of cognition, and it is important to adhere to the principle of unity of opposites and unify analysis and synthesis into dialectical elements. Only in this way can we grasp the opposition in unity and the unity in opposition.
Logic is of revolutionary significance in the history of logic. Because it is neither the formal logic since Aristotle, nor the linguistic analysis logic and mathematical logic today, but it belongs to another way of thinking. It takes objective idealism as the premise, dialectics as the main line, and integrates ontology, epistemology and logic, that is, it comes down in one continuous line with the expression of speculative concepts, that is, the whole process of self-expression with the unity of subject and object. Only in this sense, it is the logic of the unity of content and form, the logic of truth itself, and the way to achieve concrete truth.
18 16 Hegel began to be a professor of philosophy in Heidelberg, teaching philosophy history, philosophy of law, aesthetics, anthropology, psychology, logic and metaphysics. According to the lecture outline, he edited the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and published it in 18 17, 1827 and 1830, with important revisions every time. He also published a political paper, "Comments on the discussion of the hierarchical parliament of the Kingdom of Wü rttemberg 18 15 and 18 16", insisting on his constitutional monarchy and criticizing the national legislators for demanding the restoration of the old legal system before the French Revolution.
2.4 Berlin period
Hegel was appointed professor of Prussia. At first, he saw a reformed Prussia, and he was supported by Altenstein, a reformist figure of the Minister of Education. Hegel changed his attitude of hating Prussia in the past and hoped that Berlin, a new political center, could become the center of science and philosophy at the same time and establish a "kingdom of freedom of thought". Things didn't go as he hoped. He was closely related to the Prussian authorities, and his philosophy was criticized, even causing dissatisfaction with the Prussian authorities.
Hegel's main work in Berlin is Principles of Philosophy of Right. The philosophy of law expounds all the contents of "objective spirit", namely rights, morality and ethics. The whole philosophy of law is based on the issue of freedom, while other aspects belong to the field of phenomena or history. An important concept in the philosophy of law is "law" or "right". Hegel defined it as "the existence of all the provisions of freedom", demanding that it be distinguished from legal rights and so-called civil rights, and it cannot be explained that it refers to morality, ethics and world history as usual. Therefore, as far as theoretical principles are concerned, legal philosophy is a modern social and political theory, which is more advanced than the Enlightenment and contains critical factors for capitalist society. During this period, Hegel also taught philosophy of history. In Hegel's view of history, the basic problem of history is about freedom, and he regards history as the progress of freedom consciousness. He used teleology to understand history and thought that the ultimate goal of history was to let the spirit realize its own freedom. The essence of spirit is freedom, and all its other characteristics are means to serve freedom. Great men in history are only spiritual tools. Hegel regards the understanding of free history as a process, and finally thinks that all people are free as human beings. However, this process is more a logical representation of history. Therefore, when he emphasized the long-term nature of the process, he also emphasized the difference between the principle itself and its historical realization, which he considered to be a basic provision. Hegel, through the objective idealism principle that reason dominates the world in his historical philosophy, regards history as a regular process that is not transferred by human will, thus ending the concept that history is irrational and chaotic.
Philosophy of religion is a course taught by Hegel in Berlin. His religious thought is an important reason for the division of Hegelian school after his death. Compared with his youth, his criticism of Christianity was greatly weakened, and he even reconciled with Christianity in philosophy. This not only influenced Hegel's religious philosophy, but also left a theological imprint on other parts of his system. In Hegel's system, religion is higher than art, but lower than philosophy. At this point, he inherited the rationalist theological tradition since Aristotle and showed obvious modern color. He regards religion as a way of knowing, and believes that religion is to know the absolute through appearances. He ruled out personality god, blindly worshiping god and relying on god, but demanded to grasp god with thinking, so that religion could be "sublated" in philosophy; Emphasize that god becomes man and man becomes god. Hegel never attributed religion to the deception of priests, but regarded religion as the expression and solution of profound contradictions and conflicts between history and contemporary times. Man's concept of God corresponds to man's concept of himself, which is an important viewpoint of Hegel.
Hegel gave six lectures on the history of philosophy in Berlin. He unified the history of philosophy and philosophy. In his view, the history of philosophy is a philosophy that develops in time, and philosophy is a history of philosophy in a logical system. Therefore, the history of philosophy can be said to be the philosophy itself in the general sense. Without the history of philosophy itself, philosophy cannot be a philosophy. Hegel tried to make the history of philosophy a science, opposed the accumulation of accidental opinions, and advocated that the history of philosophy has internal and inevitable connections. He infiltrated the principle of development into the investigation of the history of philosophy and understood the history of philosophy as a complete dialectical process. This process is the process of understanding the unified truth, in which diversity, difference and particularity are not absolute, but relative, because the opposition between truth and falsehood is not fixed. Diversity in the history of philosophy is not only an absolutely necessary condition for the existence of philosophy, but also of essential significance. His lecture on the history of philosophy reached an unprecedented height.
(Above: Wang,)
3. Ethical thought
Hegel synthesized the achievements of western ethics in the past, especially inherited and developed Kant's ethics, and established a complete ethical system of rationalism. Hegel's ethics is his philosophy of law, including abstract law, morality and ethics, and its center is the dialectical development process of revealing the concept of freedom. Hegel regards law as the embodiment of the idea of freedom, and its starting point is free will. In his view, free will is an abstract law to realize itself through private property ownership; Its stipulation in individual subjective mind is morality, so morality is the law of subjective will. He pointed out that the expression of moral will constitutes behavior; The result of behavior through intentional or intentional activities is welfare; The combination of law and welfare is good, and conscience is the internal regulation or understanding of good. Hegel summed up the whole history of ethical thought and came to a basic conclusion: "Do what you want and care about welfare-not only your own welfare, but also the welfare of universal nature, that is, the welfare of others." Hegel believes that the external manifestation of moral behavior is a complex synthesis, which is the dialectical unity of inevitability and contingency, motivation and effect, purpose and means, reason and emotion, and good and evil are also interrelated and transformed. In his view, conscience is a process of dialectical development. It is only a form in the moral stage, that is, in the subjective will stage. It may be that there are both good and evil, and they are still at the "waiting point for turning evil." To realize the understanding of universal goodness as absolute value, it can only be realized in the universal relationship in the ethical stage.
Hegel thinks that the sublated morality is ethics, which shows the organic form of human beings in ethics, and its development process includes three links: family, civil society and country. Family is a combination of individuals linked by love, and the isomorphism formed by its differentiation and external relations is civil society. Civil society is a system with complex needs, which embodies the contradiction between individuals and society, self-interest and altruism. In Hegel's view, people's real activities are manifested in three links: need, labor and enjoyment. The labor that individuals meet their own needs is not only the satisfaction of their own needs, but also the satisfaction of other individuals' needs. If every individual wants to meet his own needs, it can only be achieved through the labor of other individuals. Therefore, he emphasized that others and society as a whole can't do without individuals, and individuals also realize their own values in the dedication activities for others and society as a whole, so as to achieve the unity of "for his existence" and "for their own existence". The ethical expression of this "living spirit" is "they are for me and I am for them". Hegel tried to overcome the one-sidedness of egoism and altruism, self-love theory and benevolence, and proposed that through labor and exchange, individual egoism should be transformed into meeting the needs of others and society in opposition, so as to realize the unity of personal interests with those of others and society. Hegel pointed out that civil society is divided into different classes and has strict grades, which is the main foundation of the country. The state is the unity of family and civil society, and the highest embodiment of ethical concepts, so it is a sacred force to mediate social contradictions and personal life. He emphasized that only when individuals define themselves in the universal hierarchy and class relations can they gain objectivity and individuality. Only when individuals belong to the state can the formal conscience be improved to the real conscience, and the unity of law and welfare, rights and obligations, subject and object can be achieved, and perfection and freedom can be achieved.
Philosophically, Hegel's ethical thought is idealistic in form, but realistic in content and dialectical in method. Its achievements have had an important influence on the formation and development of later ethical thoughts, including Marxist ethical thoughts.
(Above: Song Xiren)
4. Aesthetic thought
Hegel's aesthetic thought is mainly embodied in the book "Aesthetic Lectures", which is an integral part of his whole philosophical system and a concrete embodiment of his philosophical system in the fields of aesthetics and art.
Hegel believes that the origin of the world is a spiritual idea, and the whole world is nothing more than a process of self-knowledge and self-realization of an absolute idea. Thus, history is no longer a bunch of accidental phenomena, but a regular and rational development. Art, religion and philosophy are the highest stages of the development of absolute concepts in the spiritual stage. The fundamental feature of art is that ideas reveal themselves and know themselves through perceptual images, and "beauty is the perceptual expression of ideas" has become the core of Hegel's aesthetic thought.