Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Stuttgart‑born Hegel studied theology at Tübingen alongside Schelling and Hölderlin. His *Phenomenology of Spirit* (1807) traced consciousness evolving toward absolute knowing via thesis–antithesis–synthesis dialectic. Lectures in Heidelberg and Berlin systematised logic, nature and spirit, influencing Marx, Kierkegaard and continental philosophy. Hegel died during a cholera outbreak but his dialectics pervade social theory and historiography.