Born in Stuttgart and educated in Tübingen, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel devoted his life wholly to academic pursuits, teaching at Jena, Nuremberg, Heidelberg, and Berlin. His Wissenschaft der Logik (Science of Logic) (1812-1816) attributes the unfolding of concepts of reality in terms of the pattern of dialectical reasoning (thesis — antithesis — synthesis) that Hegel believed to be the only method of progress in human thought, and  Die Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences) (1817) describes the application of this dialectic to all areas of human knowledge. Hegel's Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse and Gundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Philosophy of Right) (1820) provide an intellectual foundation for modern nationalism.

An ontology that incorporates the traditional Aristotelian syllogism as a sub-component rather than a basis.

For Hegel, the most important achievement of German Idealism, starting with Kant and culminating in his own philosophy, was the demonstration that reality is shaped through and through by mind and, when properly understood, is mind