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Stirner
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and leading figure of German idealism. Hegel, who was born in 1770 and died in 1831, lived through the major historical upheavals of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars. To make sense of these transformations, Hegel developed a philosophy of history which saw it as being guided by ideas, the highest form of which he called the world-spirit. For Hegel, this idea-driven history was also a way to overcome dualistic philosophy, via dialectics. Hegel’s influence endured after his death, with his followers splitting between the conservative Right Hegelians and the revolutionary Left Hegelians, or the Young Hegelians, including Marx, Feuerbach, Bauer, and Stirner. According to Marx and Engels, however, many of the Young Hegelians failed to outgrow Hegel. In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels accuse Stirner in particular of plagiarizing Hegel clumsily throughout his work.
Hegel Quotes in The German Ideology
The The German Ideology quotes below are all either spoken by Hegel or refer to Hegel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Vol. 1, Part 3: Saint Max, Section 2 Quotes
From these examples, therefore, it is superabundantly evident how Jacques le bonhomme, who strives to “get rid as quickly as possible” of empirical history, stands facts on their heads, causes material history to be produced by ideal history, “and in so in everything”. At the outset we learn only the alleged attitude of the ancients to their world; as dogmatists they are put in opposition to the ancient world, their own world, instead of appearing as its creators; it is a question only of the relation of consciousness to the object, to truth; it is a question, therefore, only of the philosophical relation of the ancients to their world—ancient history is replaced by the history of ancient philosophy, and this only in the form in which Saint Max imagines it according to Hegel and Feuerbach.
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Vol. 1, Part 3: Saint Max, Section 3 Quotes
Since all these advantages have already been extensively demonstrated, it suffices here to give a brief summary of the most important of them: carelessness of thought—confusion—incoherence—admitted clumsiness—endless repetitions—constant contradiction with himself—unequalled comparisons—attempts to intimidate the reader—systematic legacy-hunting in the realm of thoughts by means of the levers “you”, “it”, “one”, etc., and crude abuse of the conjunctions for, therefore, for that reason, because, accordingly, but, etc.—ignorance—clumsy assertions—solemn frivolity—revolutionary phrases and peaceful thoughts—bluster—bombastic vulgarity and coquetting with cheap indecency—elevation of Nante the loafer to the rank of an absolute concept—dependence on Hegelian traditions and current Berlin phrases—in short, sheer manufacture of a thin beggar’s broth (491 pages of it) in the Rumford manner.
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Hegel Character Timeline in The German Ideology
The timeline below shows where the character Hegel appears in The German Ideology. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Vol. 1, Part 1: Feuerbach, Section 1
...of other countries. Marx and Engels dispute this, arguing that the legacy of the Young Hegelians is not a great philosophical achievement but rather an intellectual expression of German national character:...
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Vol. 1, Part 2: Saint Bruno, Section 1
...Marx and Engels satirically describe Bauer’s invective against Feuerbach, a grand polemic heavily indebted to Hegel. Bauer believes that the struggle for liberation depends entirely upon the victory of self-consciousness over...
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Vol. 1, Part 3: Saint Max, Section 2
...German perspective into sweeping, universal proclamations. Moreover, Stirner’s entire schema is an incomplete copy of Hegel, rearranged to end on a more triumphant note.
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...and large, little is new here, with the majority of Stirner’s ideas recognizably derived from Hegel. Marx and Engels do notice, however, Stirner’s invocation of “you” and mockingly declare that this...
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Marx and Engels once again stress the sloppiness with which Stirner has copied Hegel, depicting all of world history as simple proofs of Hegel’s theories. Marx and Engels provide...
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...Russia under the latter. Stirner’s analysis of China is a completely incoherent mess of plagiarized Hegel and racist caricature. Ultimately, Stirner’s theory of history begins and ends with Hegel: it sets...
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...the profane, conveniently ignoring the reality of the Middle Ages. Stirner continues to copy from Hegel, abstracting even further away from the subject he is ostensibly discussing. Stirner collapses all the...
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...Sancho Panza. They reiterate that Stirner’s history is little more than an unsophisticated copy of Hegel. Moreover, it lacks the dialectics that make Hegel’s flawed philosophy worth examining.
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Vol. 1, Part 3: Saint Max, Section 3
...largely empty stand-in for the free, self-enjoying ego. This is once again largely copied from Hegel, with the crucial distinction that Stirner has taken an abstract concept of Hegel’s and claims...
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...necessarily implies other kinds of relations between people. Marx and Engels, themselves strong critics of Hegel, concede that on this point Hegel is far more of a materialist than Stirner.
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Vol. 2, True Socialism
...France and England is a real proletarian movement is in Germany an ideology copied from Hegel and Feuerbach, led by and appealing to not the proletariat, but the petty bourgeoisie. Marx...
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Vol. 2, Part 4: The Historiography of True Socialism
...arrogantly dismisses the socialist and communist movements of other countries, advising the French to study Hegel more closely. To Grün, Germany’s lack of real political and economic development is an advantage...
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...compelling critiques of Proudhon’s theories (which are themselves flawed) because Proudhon is attempting to adapt Hegel’s dialectics. In order to critique this project, one needs to actually understand Hegel’s method, something...
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