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TheRight Hegelians (German:Rechtshegelianer),Old Hegelians (Althegelianer), orthe Hegelian Right (die Hegelsche Rechte) were those followers ofGerman philosopherGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the early 19th century who took his philosophy in a politically and religiouslyconservative direction. They are typically contrasted with theYoung Hegelians (Hegelian Left), who interpreted Hegel'spolitical philosophy as supportive ofleft-wing and progressive politics or views on religion.[1]
Hegel'shistoricism holds that both ideas and institutions can only be understood by understanding their history. Throughout his life, Hegel said he was anorthodoxLutheran. He devoted considerable attention tothe Absolute, his term for the infinite Spirit responsible for the totality of reality. This Spirit comes to fullest expression in art, religion, and philosophy. But the objectivity of these is the State, specifically the modern constitutional monarchy. In hisPhilosophy of Right, Hegel writes that:
Thestate is absolutely rational inasmuch as it is the actuality of the substantial will which it possesses in the particular self-consciousness once that consciousness has been raised to consciousness of its universality. This substantial unity is an absolute unmoved end in itself, in which freedom comes into its supreme right. On the other hand this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the State.[2][3]
— Philosophy of Right (1821), "The State", paragraph 258
The Hegelian right expanded this conception ofstatism, seizing on it as an affirmation of establishment politics and orthodox religion. Hegel's historicism could be read to affirm the historical necessity of modern forms of government. The Right Hegelians believed that advancedEuropean societies, as they existed in the first half of the nineteenth century, were the summit of all social development, the product of the historicaldialectic that had existed thus far. Most praised the Prussian state, which enjoyed an extensivecivil service system, good universities,industrialization, and highemployment, as the acme of progress and the incarnation of theZeitgeist.
Many of the members of the Hegelian right went on to have distinguished careers in public academia or the Lutheran Church. As a school, they were closely associated with theUniversity of Berlin, and held many of the chairs of philosophy and theology there. Generally, the philosophers of the Hegelian right have been neglected; their fame, if not their reputations, has been eclipsed by theYoung Hegelians, includingBruno Bauer andKarl Marx. They left their mark chiefly in theology. Their efforts did not have the intended effect of bolstering a sense of the inevitability of faith as a product of history; rather, they pioneered the introduction ofhigher criticism by demonstrating the influence of an era on the development of Christianity. Other members of the Hegelian Right included the Erlangen School ofNeo-Lutherans, whose influence continues to the present day inconfessional Lutheranism.
Recent studies have questioned the paradigm of Left- and Right-Hegelianism.[4] No Hegelians of the period ever referred to themselves as "Right Hegelians", which was a term of insult originated byDavid Strauss, a self-styled Left Hegelian. Critiques of Hegel offered by the Left Hegelians radically diverted Hegel's thinking into new directions and eventually came to form a large part of the literature on and about Hegel.[5]
Speculative theism was an 1830s movement closely related to but distinguished from Right Hegelianism.[6] Its proponents (Immanuel Hermann Fichte,Christian Hermann Weisse,Hermann Ulrici)[7] were united in their demand to recover the "personal God" afterpanrationalist Hegelianism.[8] The movement featured elements ofanti-psychologism in thehistoriography of philosophy.[9]
Philosophers within the camp of the Hegelian right include:
Other thinkers or historians who may be included among the Hegelian right, with some reservations, include:
