Absolute idealism

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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Hegelianism
Forerunners
Aristotle Böhme Spinoza Rousseau Kant Goethe Fichte Hölderlin Schelling
Principal works
The Phenomenology of Spirit The Science of Logic Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences Elements of the Philosophy of Right Lectures on the Philosophy of History
Schools
Absolute idealism British idealism German idealism
Related topics
Right Hegelians Young Hegelians
Related categories
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
v t e

Absolute idealism is chiefly associated with Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher who was greatly influenced by Hegel's work, and the British idealists.^[1][2]

According to Hegel, being is ultimately comprehensible only as an all-inclusive whole (das Absolute). Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being. Otherwise, the subject would never have access to the object and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge of the world.

The absolute idealist position dominated philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain and Germany, while exerting significantly less influence in the United States. The absolute idealist position should be distinguished from the subjective idealism of Berkeley, the transcendental idealism of Kant, or the post-Kantian transcendental idealism (also known as "critical idealism")^[3] of Fichte and of the early Schelling.^{[4][clarification needed]}