[From the name of the German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831).]
(system) The philosophical system of Hegel or the philosophical tradition that began with him. In metaphysics, Hegel advocated a kind of historically-minded absolute idealism, in which the universe would realize its spiritual potential through the development of human society. Hegel's absolute idealism is often contrasted with the subjective or transcendental idealism of Kantianism, on whose innovations - in addition to the metaphysical absolutism of Spinoza (1632-1677) - Hegel based much of his philosophy. In political theory, Hegel advocated an organic theory of the state positing that individuals are merely parts of the whole (a form of collectivism often also attributed to Platonism). Hegel was probably the first philosopher to think of history as a dialectical process, which inspired the dialectical materialism of Marxism.