Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Bio
All the deets on your favorite critic's personal life.
Basic Information
| Name | Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel |
| Tagline | "You can't handle the truth." |
| Nickname | Wilhelm, Willy, The Original GWF Hegel |
| Sex | Male |
| Home town | Stuttgart, Germany (but I've been all over the Rhineland, really) |
Work & Education
| Occupation | Philosophizer by day, and, um, philosophizer by night, too. I mean, I've tutored a lot and had a couple of great teaching gigs (at the Universities of Jena, Heidelberg, and Berlin), but nothing too crazy, ya know? Mostly, I like sitting around and thinking about stuff. I guess my unified truth involves armchair philosophy, god, and the university, in addition to a buncha other things… |
| Education | I flippin' love school. I started at the age of three, and when I entered the Latin grammar school in Germany, I was one of the only kids whose mommy–ahem–mother had already taught him some Latin. Want me to recite the alpha declension? Maybe later. Anyway, I eventually graduated from Tübingen Seminary, and started my career as a tutor-professor-philosopher extraordinaire after that. |
Beliefs
| Political views | People have said some crazy things about my politics. Like that I'm a fascist or into totalitarian regimes (anachronism much?). That's just not the case. I've got some thoughts—okay, a lot of thoughts—on how great civilizations, lorded over by rules of great truths, will conquer all. But this rhetoric just falls out of my notions of reality and the all opposition-consuming dialectic… so these "politics" better represent my belief in certain ideological inevitabilities rather than my personal preferences. I know philosophers are usually super into themselves, but it's not all about me, me, me, okay? |
| Religious views | So, here's the thing: I went to seminary, and even wrote an essay called, "Life of Jesus." In this essay, I talk about how Jesus can be understood as the ultimate rational philosopher, whose miracles are actually metaphors. It's pretty great, if I do say so myself. Anyway, though I'm a God-lovin' dude, I don't like taking orders or sticking to the status quo. So though my Dad wanted me to keep on with my religious studies, I didn't feel like I could think totally freely in that system, man. Philosophy gives me better access to power—I mean, truth. |
Activities & Interests
| Likes | Reality TV Modern Geist Stories The Sphinx (the OG, not this sphinx) Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Law of Excluded Middle |
| Dislikes | Right Hegelians Left Hegelians Existentialism Heidegger Marionettes |
| Interests | The French RevolutionPrussia Age of Enlightenment The Fall of Man Heraclitus |
| Groups | German Idealists Continental Philosophers Analytic Philosophers Art for Critics' Sake Žižekians |