Chapter 2 introduces Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion and offers an analysis of his account of the story of the Fall from Genesis. Here Hegel develops his discussion of alienation, since the Fall is a story about how humans are alienated from themselves. It shows that alienation is a fundamental fact of human existence and not just something contingent. The chapter also introduces Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History and presents his analysis of the alienation that was characteristic of the Roman Empire. Hegel points out that the schools of Roman philosophy—Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism—can all be seen as reactions to this. An account is given of Hegel’s analysis of Christianity, which he sees as overcoming this alienation. At the end of his lectures, Hegel claims that his own time in the 1820s has certain elements in common with the Roman Empire, when the world of culture had lost its meaning and people fell into a state of alienation and despair. Later thinkers were generally dissatisfied with Hegel’s view that it was sufficient simply to understand the nature of the contemporary crisis. They demanded a more active approach to the world.

Chapter 7 explores the thought of the Danish philosopher and writer Søren Kierkegaard. It gives a close reading of the chapter “The Unhappiest One” from the first part of Either/Or. Kierkegaard brings up Hegel’s idea of the unhappy consciousness for comparison, thus signaling the importance of the concept of religious alienation. A discussion is also given of Kierkegaard’s critical assessment of his own age in his work A Literary Review of Two Ages, which was published on the eve of the Revolutions of 1848. Finally there is an analysis of Kierkegaard’s account of the nature of the alienated human being in The Sickness unto Death. An overview is given of his system of the forms of despair of which humans are victims. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the concept of alienation in Kierkegaard and Hegel.

Chapter 3 is dedicated to Hegel’s student, the poet Heinrich Heine. It provides an account of Heine’s life and his personal relations to figures such as Hegel and Marx. An analysis is given of Heine’s On the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany, with specific attention paid to the role he ascribes to Hegel. Heine portrays Kant and Fichte as philosophers of the revolution and Schelling as the philosopher of the Restoration. If Schelling is the villain, then Hegel is the hero of the story of German philosophy that Heine wants to tell. Hegel is portrayed as the high point of the development of the revolution of German thought. Heine compares the revolution of the mind that took place in Germany with the French Revolution that took place in the real world. He predicts a great German revolution that will begin a new period in European history. An interpretation is given of Heine’s poem “Adam the First,” which takes up some of the motifs from Hegel’s analysis of the Fall. An account is also given of Heine’s “The Silesian Weavers,” a poem written on occasion of the rebellion of weavers in Silesia in Prussia in 1844.

Chapter 1 begins with an overview of Hegel’s life. This chapter offers an introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and explains the role of the work vis-à-vis what Hegel calls “science.” The work is intended to refute different forms of dualistic thinking. A close reading of his analysis of the lord and the bondsman and the unhappy consciousness from the “Self-Consciousness” chapter is given. Hegel’s account of intersubjective recognition is explored. Self-consciousness is our awareness of ourselves in contrast to our awareness of objects. We like to think of ourselves as independent individuals. We know who we are, regardless of what the circumstances are or what others might think of us. But Hegel goes through a series of arguments to refute this view of common sense. He demonstrates that our awareness of ourselves is in fact dependent on other people. It is argued that the Phenomenology can be read as a book primarily about alienation. At each level in the work, there is some kind of other that confronts the human mind. The goal is to work through these different conceptions and overcome them by showing the deeper, hidden unity.

This chapter looks at the enduring influence of Hegel on the philosophy of the nineteenth century, especially his ideas of alienation and recognition. Variations of these ideas can be found explicitly or implicitly in all of the thinkers examined in this study and appear in a number of different contexts in addition to philosophy: religion, history, politics, literature, poetry, etc. This shows that the seed that Hegel planted in The Phenomenology of Spirit and later in his Berlin lectures in the 1820s continued to grow through the subsequent decades. This chapter shows that, starting with him, all the thinkers discussed in this study believed there to be an important crisis in their time. An overview is given of their different diagnoses of the nature of this crisis and its causes. A key feature in all of these is the role of alienation in modern life in various spheres: religion, politics, economics, art, etc. Likewise, an account is provided of the various solutions they proposed. Finally, an attempt is made to demonstrate that these issues carry over into the twentieth century, where they are taken up and further expanded upon by philosophers and social scientists.

Chapter 6 is dedicated to the work of the young Karl Marx. It begins with an analysis of Marx’s “Introduction to the Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right,” which reveals the influence of both Hegel and Feuerbach. Marx sees his own work as continuing the criticism of religion that Feuerbach explored and expanding it to the social-political sphere. A close reading is given of the different kinds of alienation that Marx identifies in the “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,” which use Hegel’s Phenomenology as the point of departure. An account is given of the polemic between Marx and his one-time friend Bruno Bauer, which is played out in The Holy Family, a work coauthored by Marx and Engels. Finally an analysis is provided of The German Ideology with its polemic with the Young Hegelians and its theory of alienation.

Chapter 8 treats the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and provides a close reading of his work Notes from Underground. While Dostoevsky was never one of Hegel’s students in Berlin, he was influenced by Hegel’s thought and fits well with the general trajectory of European thinking in the nineteenth century that the present work traces. The underground man is portrayed as suffering from the disease of reflection, which is characteristic of the modern age. He offers a criticism of the modern scientific worldview, specifically rationalism and materialism. The influence of Hegel can be seen in the fact that the underground man’s relations to others can be characterized as based on the need for recognition. The underground man plays the role of the slave with some and the master with others. The theme of self-alienation is also very much present. The underground man knows full well that he is a coward and a morally depraved person, and in his moments of transparency he admits this. He can be seen as a symbol of modern alienation.

The Introduction presents the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel and raises questions about the influence of his Berlin lectures in the 1820s. A remarkable generation came to learn from him, which included figures such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner, David Friedrich Strauss, and Heinrich Heine. After his death a second generation of students came to Berlin and were inspired by his legacy. Among these were Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Søren Kierkegaard, Ivan Turgenev, and Mikhail Bakunin. All of these thinkers testify to the special intellectual atmosphere in Berlin that arose in connection with Hegel’s philosophy both during his lifetime and in the decades after his death. The present work takes as its point of departure the intellectual milieu at the University of Berlin, which was the fountain of inspiration that nourished the leading figures of the age. The introduction defines Hegel’s concepts of alienation and recognition, which are taken as the guiding themes for a study of philosophy in the nineteenth century. A handful of critical theses are sketched.

Chapter 5 is dedicated to a study of Hegel’s controversial student Bruno Bauer. An account is given of Bauer’s life and his relations with Hegel, Marx, Engels, and others. The chapter gives a close reading of Bauer’s Christianity Exposed. This work was immediately banned by the Prussian government, which confiscated the book from the bookstores and tried to destroy the entire print run. Bauer explains that the work is about the atheistic Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, which, he claims, has recently seen a revival. Bauer explains his idea of “modern criticism,” by which he means that the proper philosophical view should not just be critical of specific things but rather should issue a universal criticism, sparing nothing, regardless of how sacred it might be. Bauer argues that alienation is a necessary feature of religion. He holds Christianity responsible for the undermining of freedom, equality, and love. Bauer notes that religious sects must also persecute any form of critical or independent thinking. Religion thus demands that individuals sacrifice their faculty of reason, which amounts to their very humanity.

Chapter 9 is concerned with the thought of the Russian anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin. In 1840 Bakunin traveled to Prussia and attended the University of Berlin. There he came into contact with some of Hegel’s leading students. The chapter begins with an analysis of his work God and the State. Like Hegel, he has recourse to the myth of the Fall in order to understand the fundamental shift from nature to spirit. But in contrast to Hegel, the important thing about the biblical account for Bakunin is the element of rebellion, which is essential for human freedom. A comparison is given of the criticism of religion found in Bauer and Bakunin, according to which humans must emancipate themselves from the belief in God in order to realize their own freedom. Bakunin also draws on Hegel’s theory of recognition and freedom. To be who we are, we need the recognition of others in society. An overview is provided of Bakunin’s criticism of Hegel and his followers in Statism and Anarchy. Finally, Bakunin’s bitter polemic against his one-time friend Karl Marx is examined.