ABSTRACT
G. W. F. Hegel was born in Stuttgart on 27 August 1770. At the age of 18 he attended the seminary at Tubingen where he befriended the poet Holderlin and F. W. J. Schelling. Hegel soon received a teaching post at Jena University, and began to lay the foundations for his system of Absolute idealism. Hegel moved to Bamberg and, after a brief period as a newspaper editor, he accepted the post of headmaster of Nuremburg Gymnasium. Whilst Hegel's early work is largely concerned with political and theological issues, it anticipates many of the themes of his later philosophy. For Hegel, modern philosophy was characterized by fundamental oppositions and contradictions. Central to Hegel's account of education in the Phenomenology – and to his concept of education in general – is the term Bildung. Hegel's influence upon educational thought is, like his influence upon philosophy in general, monumental.
