Simply Hegel

The philosopher who saw history as a struggle of ideas.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is famous for being difficult to read, but the questions at the heart of his philosophy are surprisingly familiar: How does society change? Why do ideas clash? And how do we become who we are? In Simply Hegel, philosopher Robert L. Wicks offers an accessible introduction to one of the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. Wicks explains Hegel's ideas about history, freedom, politics, consciousness, and human development, showing how he understood progress as something shaped by conflict, contradiction, and change. He also introduces Hegel's most important works and places his philosophy in the intellectual and political world of early nineteenth-century Europe. Rather than reducing Hegel to a collection of difficult formulas, Wicks helps readers see the connections between his ideas and the world around us, making this challenging philosopher much easier to approach.