Young Hegelians

Karl Marx (German: [ˈkaʁl ˈmaʁks]; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto (written with Friedrich Engels), and his three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1894), a critique of classical political economy which employs his theory of historical materialism in an analysis of capitalism, in the culmination of his life's work. Marx's ideas and their subsequent development, collectively known as Marxism, have had enormous influence.

Born in Trier in the Kingdom of Prussia, Marx studied at the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, and received a doctoral degree in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1841. A Young Hegelian, he was influenced by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and both critiqued and developed Hegel's ideas in works such as The German Ideology (written 1846) and the Grundrisse (written 1857–1858). While in Paris, Marx wrote his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and met Engels, who became his closest friend and collaborator. After moving to Brussels in 1845, they were active in the Communist League, and in 1848 they wrote The Communist Manifesto, which expresses Marx's ideas and lays out a programme for revolution. Marx was expelled from Belgium and Germany, and in 1849 moved to London, where he wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852) and Das Kapital. From 1864, Marx was involved in the International Workingmen's Association (First International), in which he fought the influence of anarchists led by Mikhail Bakunin. In his Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875), Marx wrote on revolution, the state and the transition to communism. He died stateless in 1883 and was buried in Highgate Cemetery.

The German Ideology (German: Die deutsche Ideologie), also known as A Critique of the German Ideology, is a set of manuscripts written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels around April or early May 1846. Marx and Engels did not find a publisher, but the work was retrieved and first published in 1932 by the Soviet Union's Marx–Engels–Lenin Institute. The book uses satirical polemics to critique modern German philosophy, particularly that of young Hegelians such as Marx's former mentor Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Max Stirner's The Ego and Its Own. It criticizes "ideology" as a form of "historical idealism", as opposed to Marx's historical materialism (the "materialist conception of history"). The first part of Volume I also examines the division of labor and Marx's theory of human nature, on which he states that humans "distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence".

The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Critique (German: Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik) is a book written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in November 1844. The book is a critique of the Young Hegelians and their trend of thought, which was very popular in academic circles at the time. The title was a suggestion by the publisher and is meant as a sarcastic reference to the Bauer Brothers and their supporters. The book created a controversy with much of the press and caused Bruno Bauer to refute the book in an article which was published in Wigand's Vierteljahrsschrift in 1845. Bauer claimed that Marx and Engels misunderstood what he was saying. Marx later replied to his response with his own article that was published in the journal Gesellschaftsspiegel in January 1846. Marx also discussed the argument in the second chapter of The German Ideology.

The Right Hegelians (German: Rechtshegelianer), Old Hegelians (Althegelianer), or the Hegelian Right (die Hegelsche Rechte) were those followers of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the early 19th century who took his philosophy in a politically and religiously conservative direction. They are typically contrasted with the Young Hegelians (Hegelian Left), who interpreted Hegel's political philosophy as supportive of left-wing and progressive politics or views on religion.

Bruno Bauer (/ˈbaʊər/; German: [baʊɐ]; 6 September 1809 – 13 April 1882) was a German philosopher, theologian, historian, and biblical critic. A prominent member of the Young Hegelians, he was a radical rationalist critic of the Bible and Christianity. Initially a student of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Bauer became a central figure in the intellectual circles of the Vormärz, the period preceding the Revolutions of 1848. His philosophical work was a major influence on, and target of critique for, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, with whom he had a close but tumultuous relationship.

Starting as a right-wing Hegelian, Bauer shifted to the left in 1839, developing a radical critique of religion and the state. He argued that the Christian gospels were not historical records but literary works of the human self-consciousness. His most significant work of this period, The Trumpet of the Last Judgement over Hegel the Atheist and Antichrist (1841), presented Hegel's philosophy as a revolutionary atheism that called for the overthrow of all existing religious and political institutions. Bauer's political thought was a form of republicanism based on the concept of "infinite self-consciousness," an ethical idealism that advocated for the constant transformation of society in pursuit of rational freedom.

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (/ˈfɔɪərbɑːx/ FOIR-bahkh; German: [ˈluːtvɪç ˈfɔʏɐbax]; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German philosopher and anthropologist who was a leading figure among the Young Hegelians. He is best known for his 1841 book, The Essence of Christianity, which argued that God is a projection of the essential attributes of humanity. His critique of religion formed the basis for his advocacy of atheism, materialism, and sensualism. In his later work, Feuerbach developed a more complex theory of religion arising from the human confrontation with nature. His thought served as a critical bridge between the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and that of Karl Marx.

The son of a distinguished jurist, Feuerbach studied theology at Heidelberg before moving to Berlin to study directly under Hegel. His academic career was cut short in 1830 when his anonymously published first book, Thoughts on Death and Immortality, was condemned as scandalous for its attack on the concept of personal immortality. Barred from university posts, Feuerbach lived and worked in rural isolation for much of his life, in which he produced most of his significant writings supported by his wife's share in a porcelain factory.

Max Stirner (/ˈstɜːrnər/; German: [ˈʃtɪʁnɐ], 25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), born Johann Kaspar Schmidt, was a German philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, individualist anarchism, and egoism.

Born in 1806 in Bayreuth, Bavaria, Stirner's life and work are known largely through a biography by John Henry Mackay. He was orphaned young and raised in West Prussia after his mother's remarriage. Stirner studied at the University of Berlin, where he attended Hegel's lectures. He then moved into teaching and became involved with the Young Hegelians in Berlin. Although he struggled to secure a permanent academic post, Stirner became a fixture in intellectual circles and wrote his most famous work, The Unique and Its Property (German: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), while supporting himself as a teacher.