ABSTRACT
G. W. F. Hegel's great legacy has been the idea that history is essential to philosophy, and Phenomenology has remained the central text for those seeking to exploit this key Hegelian idea. The "left" or "young" Hegelians, especially Ludwig Feuerbach and Karl Marx, however, have had an enormous intellectual impact. Marx's influential theory of economic change, which he called "dialectical materialism", for example, adapts several elements of Hegel's theory of dialectical development. These philosophers would, however, set themselves up as severe critics of what they saw as Hegel's idealism and theoretical method. Similarly, large-scale philosophical movements have been born as reactions to so-called "Hegelian Idealism". Both the positivist and neo-Kantian schools of philosophy and social science that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century were reactions to the apparent threat of Hegelian Idealism. The "non-metaphysical" readings of Hegel have inspired new thinking among key contemporary philosophers. Contemporary political philosophy also shows a self-conscious Hegelian influence.
