Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Timeline

Having received his theological certificate from the Tübingen Seminary, Hegel became Hofmeister (house tutor) from 1793 to 1796 to the family of Captain Karl Friedrich von Steiger, a member of the Bernese patriciate.

His relations with his Bern employers becoming strained, Hegel accepted an offer mediated by Hölderlin to take up a similar position with a wine merchant's family in Frankfurt in 1797.

In 1801, Hegel came to Jena at the encouragement of Schelling, who held the position of Extraordinary Professor at the University of Jena. There he lectured on 'Logic and Metaphysics' and gave lectures with Schelling on an 'Introduction to the Idea and Limits of True Philosophy' and facilitated a 'philosophical disputorium.'

Image source: University of Jena

In 1802, Schelling and Hegel founded the journal Kritische Journal der Philosophie (Critical Journal of Philosophy), to which they contributed until the collaboration ended when Schelling left for Würzburg in 1803.

Image source: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

In 1805, the university promoted Hegel to the unsalaried position of extraordinary professor after he wrote a letter to Goethe protesting the promotion of his philosophical adversary Jakob Friedrich Fries ahead of him.

Hegel was putting the finishing touches to The Phenomenology of Spirit as Napoleon engaged Prussian troops on 14 October 1806 in the Battle of Jena on a plateau outside the city.

Image source: Battle of Jena–Auerstedt

In 1807, Hegel had to move to Bamberg since his savings and the payment from the Phenomenology were exhausted and he needed money to support his illegitimate son Ludwig.

Image source: Bamberg

After being investigated in September 1808 by the Bavarian state for potentially violating security measures by publishing French troop movements, Hegel wrote to Niethammer, now a high official in Munich, pleading for help in securing a teaching position.

With the help of Niethammer, Hegel was appointed headmaster of a gymnasium in Nuremberg in November 1808, a post he held until 1816.

Image source: Nuremberg

Having received offers of a post from the Universities of Erlangen, Berlin and Heidelberg, Hegel chose Heidelberg, where he moved in 1816.

Image source: Heidelberg University

Written by Hegel's student Friedrich Wilhelm Carové between 1816 and 1818, and preserved in the estate of theologian Friedrich Windischmann, notes include a long-sought transcript of Hegel's Heidelberg lectures on aesthetics. In 2022, scholar Klaus Vieweg discovered more than 4,000 pages of these previously undocumented transcripts in the library of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising.

In the Phenomenology, and even in the 1817 edition of the Encyclopedia, Hegel discusses art only as it figures in the 'Art-Religion' of the ancient Greeks. In 1818, however, Hegel begins lecturing on the philosophy of art as an explicitly autonomous domain.

Image source: Lectures on Aesthetics

In 1818, Hegel accepted the renewed offer of the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, which had remained vacant since Johann Gottlieb Fichte's death in 1814.

Image source: Humboldt University of Berlin

Hegel was appointed University Rector of the university in October 1829, but his term ended in September 1830.

In 1831 Frederick William III decorated Hegel with the Order of the Red Eagle, 3rd Class for his service to the Prussian state.

Image source: Order of the Red Eagle

In August 1831, a cholera epidemic reached Berlin and Hegel left the city, taking up lodgings in Kreuzberg.

During his time in Bern, Hegel composed the text known as the Life of Jesus and a book-length manuscript titled 'The Positivity of the Christian Religion.'

While in Frankfurt, Hegel composed the essay 'Fragments on Religion and Love.'

Also in 1797, the unpublished and unsigned manuscript of 'The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism' was written.

In 1798, Hegel published Confidential Letters on the Prior Constitutional Relations of the Wadtlandes (Pays de Vaud) to the City of Bern, an early political writing.

In 1799, Hegel wrote another essay titled 'The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate', which remained unpublished during his lifetime.

In 1802, Hegel published 'How Commonsense takes Philosophy, Illustrated by the Works of Mr.', an essay engaging with popular objections to philosophy.

In 1802, Hegel also published 'The Relation of Scepticism to Philosophy', examining ancient skepticism's significance for modern philosophical inquiry.

Phenomenology of Spirit was published in 1807. This major work details Hegel's systematic vision and remains one of his most influential texts. Religion is a major theme throughout the work, well before it emerges as the explicit topic of the penultimate Religion chapter.

Image source: The Phenomenology of Spirit

This period saw the publication of Hegel's second major work, the Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik; 3 vols., 1812, 1813 and 1816; Book I revised 1831). Sometimes called the 'Greater Logic', it provides a metaphysical logic of truth rather than a mere logic of formal validity. A revised Book I appeared in 1831.

In 1817, Hegel published Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline as a summary of his philosophy for students attending his lectures at Heidelberg. With this edition, his triadic system — adopted from Proclus's Neoplatonic triad of 'remaining-procession-return' and the Christian Trinity — was completed in published form.

At Berlin, Hegel published his Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821), or Natural Law and Political Science in Outline, a textbook for his lectures on political philosophy.

Image source: Elements of the Philosophy of Right

During the last ten years of his life, Hegel did not publish another book but thoroughly revised the Encyclopedia, issuing a second edition in 1827.

Hegel issued a third edition of the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences in 1830, completing his thorough revisions of that summary of his system.

Image source: Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel died on 14 November 1831, closing a life that spanned the era of the French Revolution, Napoleonic upheaval, and the rise of German idealism.

Among the first followers to take an expressly critical view of Hegel's system were those in the 19th-century German group known as the Young Hegelians, which included Feuerbach, Marx, Engels, and their followers.

According to Bernstein, the influence of Hegel on American pragmatism can be divided into three moments: the late nineteenth century, the mid-twentieth, and the present. The first is found in early issues of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (founded 1867).

Image source: Pragmatism

In late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century England, a school known as British idealism propounded a version of absolute idealism through direct engagement with Hegel's texts.

Image source: British idealism

Some critics – most canonically Benedetto Croce, in 1907 – have attributed to Hegel some form of the thesis that art is 'dead.' Hegel, however, never said any such thing, nor can such a view be plausibly attributed to him.

Image source: Benedetto Croce

György Lukács' History and Class Consciousness (1923) helped reintroduce Hegel into the Marxist canon, renewing engagement between Hegelian dialectics and Marxism.

Image source: History and Class Consciousness

In the twentieth century, Hegel's thought was further developed in traditions such as French Hegelianism and critical theory, and became a major point of reference for existentialism.

Image source: German idealism

Discussing the 'Hegel Renaissance' in late 20th-century Anglo-American philosophy, Beiser expresses surprise – given today's highly secular academic culture – at such a surge of interest in Hegel.

Philosophy is only possible 'if it is historical, only if the philosopher is aware of the origins, context, and development of his doctrines.' In his 1993 essay 'Hegel's Historicism', Beiser declared this 'nothing less than a revolution in the history of philosophy.' In a 2011 monograph, however, Beiser excluded Hegel from the German historicist tradition, noting Hegel's greater interest in the philosophy of history than in epistemology.