Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was one of the most important German philosophers of the 19th century. He studied theology and philosophy in Tubingen, where he met Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) and Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843). After professorial posts in Jena, Nuremberg and Heidelberg, he was appointed to the University of Berlin, where he became the successor of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814). Here, Hegel, who alongside Fichte and Schilling is considered to be the most important representative of German Idealism, had his greatest impact by, for example, founding the Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik in 1826.

Lazarus Sichling (1812–1863), portrait of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), steel engraving after a lithograph by Julius L. Sebbers (1804–1837), after 1828; source: Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hegel.jpg, public domain.