In his day, 18th-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was what we would call a “celebrity academic”, enjoying top university posts and a wide readership for his books. This might explain some of the hostility that Hegel faced from his contemporaries. Arthur Schopenhauer called his writing the work of a “clumsy charlatan”, which rendered readers “incapable of reflection, coarse and bewildered”. His compatriot Friedrich Nietzsche snorted that an education based on “Hegelian craniums” is “terrible and destructive”.

Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were largely overlooked during their lifetimes, so professional jealousy no doubt accounted for some of this. But deep intellectual differences also underpinned their animus. Whereas Hegel’s critics largely promoted individualism, the famous author of The Phenomenology of the Spirit taught that fitting into society is generally the best path to a good life.

Atlantic