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This force developed mankind, however it did so in a sort of zig-zag style rather than a simple upward progression. He believed there was an underlying force, something that was constantly pushing mankind forward, referred to as the “World Spirit”, “The Idea”, “The Absolute Idea”, or simply “The Absolute”. To him, an explanation was not simply a description of events connected externally, but a look at the rationalism behind the development, and the reason something occurred the way it did. They couldn’t describe anything accurately because all they could do was mention a sequence of events, connected or not, and did not consider the necessary evolution of events as an organically intertwined entity. This mindset for analyzing history illustrates why Hegel and other likeminded people detested empiricists. Thus, Hegel would argue, it is impossible to truly grasp the nature of a period in history without considering how it connects to the stages preceding and following it. At the same time though, he believed that any group of events were an inevitable stage in a process in development that in time consummates the development of its predecessor, while also containing the roots of forces that are bound to later emerge and effect a transition to a still later stage. He believed that the activities of peoples who are in the same stage of development are linked to each other in a way that forms a unique “character” for that period in history. Hegel took this idea and generalized it much more comprehensively. By analyzing German origins he tried to develop a portrait of the “German Spirit” and how it transcended through history. Herder brought forth the concept of “organic development” to the study of people and civilizations through history, suggesting that people were formed by some broad pattern of life, without which no individual phenomenon could be meaningful or even exist. This brought forth a new sort of philosophy in Germany lead by Herder and Hegel. At the time, many Germans criticized the empirical school of thought popular in France and England. He was a major inspiration to Marx as well as millions of others, and some of his ideas about history and human nature are still debated today.Īside from his books, his perhaps most well-known work is his dialectic - a method of argument used to resolve disagreement. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher and historian from the early 19th century.