IV.

Hegel

Nineteenth-century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel disagreed with Kant's theory concerning the inescapable human ignorance of what things are in themselves, instead arguing for the ultimate intelligibility of all existence. Hegel also maintained that the highest achievements of the human spirit (culture, science, religion, and the state) are not the result of naturally determined processes in the mind, but are conceived and sustained by the dialectical activity (see Dialectic) of free, reflective intellect. Further strains of idealistic thought can be found in the works of 19th-century Germans Johann Gottlieb Fichte and F. W. J. Schelling, 19th-century Englishman F. H. Bradley, 19th-century Americans Charles Sanders Peirce and Josiah Royce, and 20th-century Italian Benedetto Croce.

See also Philosophy: Idealism and Skepticism.