ABSTRACT

G. W. F. Hegel was a German philosopher and his text Phenomenology of Spirit was published in 1807. Phenomenology was the starting point for all his later philosophical texts. It was an important step in the development of a philosophical field known as Idealism. Phenomenology examines two important elements of this field: categories and truth. Categories can be thought of as a way of separating objects from one another. For most of the twentieth century, Phenomenology was seen from a Marxist viewpoint—that is, it was understood, particularly in the Soviet Union, according to the analysis of society proposed in the work of the economist and social theorist Karl Marx. Paradoxically, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the decline of Marxism appears to have reinvigorated interest in Hegel's idea. Hegel's argument was that philosophical truths emerged as history progressed and his ideas had a profound impact on the course of history.