Hegel's Century: Alienation and Recognition in a Time of Revolution

by Jon Stewart

The remarkable lectures that Hegel gave in Berlin in the 1820s generated an exciting intellectual atmosphere which lasted for decades. From the 1830s, people flocked to Berlin to study with people who had studied with Hegel, and both his original students, such as Feuerbach and Bauer, and later arrivals including Kierkegaard, Engels, Bakunin, and Marx, evolved into leading nineteenth-century thinkers. Jon Stewart's panoramic study of Hegel's deep influence upon the nineteenth century in turn reveals what that century contributed to the wider history of philosophy. It shows how Hegel's notions of 'alienation' and 'recognition' became the central motifs for the era's thinking; how these concepts spilled over into other fields - like religion, politics, literature, and drama; and how they created a cultural phenomenon so rich and pervasive that it can truly be called 'Hegel's century'. This book is required reading for historians of ideas as well as of philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Theory, Nonfiction

344 pages, Hardcover

First published August 31, 2021

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Other authors publishing under this name are:

Jon Stewart, Philosopher
Jon Stewart, Comedian
Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart, Director of Communications for Government Relations and Health Policy at Kaiser Permanente
Jon Stewart, Econometrics
Jon Stewart, Photographer

Reviews

[Shadi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has two modest aims in this work: (1) highlight two of the most central concepts of Hegel's philosophy and (2) track their evolution and instantiations in the European thinkers descendant from Hegel.

The two central concepts are that of recognition and alienation. Alienation implies a separation; I am alienated from another person when there is a dividing line between us. Bridging the gap amounts to a process of recognition. Hegel's philosophy could be interpreted as a system of overcoming alienation of all different kinds. Most notably, overcoming religious alienation occupied many of his writings in which he concludes Christianity as the ultimate religion. This is primarily due to the fact that only in Christianity does god reveal himself as man so that humans can recognize both the divine and themselves in his representation.

After reviewing recognition, alienation, and religion in Hegel's works the author divides the remainder of the book into a two-part survey of the synergies and clashes with Hegel in some of his direct students' philosophies and with that of the philosophers who studied with his students after his death. The common tie and overarching message is that each of these philosophers recognized their time as being characterized with a crisis (just as Hegel had) of different origins and sought to use Hegelian ideas (even in the process of a direct Hegelian critique) to propose a way forward.

The crisis originated in the political for the poet Heinrich Heine, the economic for Marx and Engels, and even the psychological for Kierkegaard to name a few of the authors surveyed in this book. Each context came with its own version of alienation, from direct external censorship of thought to state alienation of labor and the despairing internal alienation of the self. The author then reads the development of Western philosophy in the nineteenth century as a global conversation, with roots in Hegel's system, on the interpretation of history, the role of philosophy, and the necessity of religion. The book also dispels some of the misconceptions surrounding Hegel as a philosopher of the state and provides important historical background to truly understand the philosophical, religious, and political landscape of nineteenth century Europe.