The doctrine of the absolute idea of Hegel is an important step in dialectical philosophy. Hegel himself was a representative of the flow of objective idealism, and it is from this point of view that we should consider his concept of an absolute idea.
The Absolute Idea of Hegel in Philosophy: Three Parts of the Teaching
Speaking about the teachings of Hegel, one can not help turning to his integral system of objective idealism, which the author of the absolute idea endowed with a division into three fundamental parts:
- The science of logic. In this part Hegel describes a certain world spirit, to whom he gives an "absolute idea". This spirit is primary, and it is the forerunner of nature and everything.
- Philosophy of Nature. This is the second part of the teaching, in which Hegel calls nature secondary to the spiritual principle. If you do not go too deep, then nature is seen as the otherness of the absolute idea.
- Philosophy of the spirit. In this part of his work Hegel revises his theory and turns an absolute idea into an absolute spirit, finally recognizing the primacy of the immaterial over the material.
In the teachings of Hegel clearly traced the idealistic nature and the desire to order all things by introducing the concepts of primary and secondary.
Absolute Idea
It is important to understand that the absolute idea is not a static concept, for the essence of philosophy is that the absolute idea of Hegel begins and continues to develop, move. It can not be overlooked that this contradicts the concepts of metaphysics (in fact in this case all concepts are considered separately from each other). The dialectical approach is based on three most important principles, which, according to Hegel, provide the development of an absolute idea:
- the transition of quantity to quality,
- contradiction as a source of development,
- negation of negation.
It is these principles that shed light on the general theory of development. Before him, no one considered the contradictions from this point of view, and this was a major breakthrough. It is the idea of internal contradiction that is still considered one of the most important achievements.
This idea, which seems idealistic, in fact has a deep rational meaning, because through the prism of this one can turn to any concepts of philosophy and natural science. The dialectical method allows us to grasp the replacement of simple concepts by more complex, development towards the accumulation and deepening of meanings. Thus, in history, you can catch a lot of patterns, see social life as an evolving process.