Letters from Tomis

My Socialist Hall of Fame

During this chaotic era of vile rhetoric and manipulative tactics from our so-called bourgeois leaders, I am invigorated by the opportunity to reflect on Socialists, Revolutionaries, Philosophers, Guerrilla Leaders, Partisans, and Critical Theory titans, champions, and martyrs who paved the way for us—my own audacious “Socialism’s Hall of Fame.” These are my heroes and fore-bearers. Not all are perfect, or even fully admirable, but all contributed in some way to our future–either as icons to emulate, or as warnings to avoid in the future.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a seminal German philosopher whose work established a comprehensive philosophical framework that profoundly influenced the trajectory of Western philosophy. Born on August 27, 1770, in Stuttgart, Hegel was educated at the Tübinger Stift, where he formed intellectual relationships with contemporaries such as Friedrich Hölderlin and Friedrich Schelling.

Hegel’s philosophy is most closely associated with German Idealism, a movement that sought to reconcile the insights of Immanuel Kant with a systematic, metaphysical account of reality. His mature philosophical project is grounded in absolute idealism, the belief that reality is the manifestation of a rational process governed by the dialectic—an unfolding of contradictions that resolve into higher forms of understanding.

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) marked his first major contribution, outlining the development of consciousness from sense-certainty to absolute knowledge. His Science of Logic (1812–1816) is a dense and rigorous exposition of the dialectical method, while his Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817) and Philosophy of Right (1820) present more systematized treatments of logic, nature, and spirit, and the ethical structures of society.

Appointed to academic positions in Jena, Heidelberg, and ultimately Berlin, Hegel became one of the most influential philosophers of his time. His lectures attracted wide attention, and after his death in 1831, his thought continued to shape the development of Marxism, existentialism, phenomenology, and critical theory.

Hegel’s influence is not confined to philosophy; his ideas impacted theology, political theory, literature, and the sciences. He remains a central figure in debates about history, freedom, and rationality.

Selected Works by Hegel

• Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenology of Spirit. 1807. Translated by A. V. Miller, Oxford University Press, 1977.

• Hegel, G. W. F. Science of Logic. 1812–1816. Translated by A. V. Miller, Humanities Press, 1969.

• Hegel, G. W. F. Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline. 1817. Translated by Steven A. Taubeneck, Hackett, 1991.

• Hegel, G. W. F. Elements of the Philosophy of Right. 1820. Edited by Allen W. Wood, translated by H. B. Nisbet, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

• Hegel, G. W. F. Lectures on the Philosophy of History. Translated by J. Sibree, Dover Publications, 1956.

Selected Secondary Sources

• Beiser, Frederick C. Hegel. Routledge, 2005.

• Pinkard, Terry. Hegel: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2000.

• Taylor, Charles. Hegel. Cambridge University Press, 1975.

• Pippin, Robert. Hegel’s Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness. Cambridge University Press, 1989.

• Houlgate, Stephen. An Introduction to Hegel: Freedom, Truth and History. Blackwell, 2005.