Political Debates amongst Hegel’s Disciples between 1830 and 1848

Hegel considered that his philosophy achieved the speculative comprehension of world history as “the progress of the consciousness of freedom”. To the ambivalences of contemporary Prussian political life – the achievements of the great Reforms on the one hand, the set-backs associated with the Restoration on the other – Hegel himself responded by embracing what had been achieved and by hoping for the prompt realization of what he considered to be in line with reason, but what remained to be brought about. For Hegel’s disciples, some of which were already his younger colleagues when he died in 1831, the situation soon became more complicated, since they were confronted with further adverse political circumstances. The Revolution of July 1830 and its appreciation already gave rise to vivid debates amongst them, but since Hegel was still alive, he was capable of avoiding a definite split. After his death, the schism became inevitable and in 1848 we find Hegelians on both sides of the barricades, at least metaphorically speaking and sometimes even in the literal sense.