page_title: Young Hegelians
section_title: Die Freien
hierarchical_section_title: Young Hegelians / Die Freien
caption_attribution_description: English: Die Freien was a 19th-century circle of political philosophers in Germany, gathering for informal discussion over a period of a few years. From left: Arnold Ruge, Ludwig Bühl, Carl Nauwerck, Bruno Bauer, Otto Wigand, Edgar Bauer, Max Stirner, Eduard Meyen, three unknown persons, Karl Friedrich Köppen.&#91;1&#93; This sketch was drawn by Engels and shows Max Stirner among others.
context_page_description: The Young Hegelians, or Left Hegelians, or the Hegelian Left, were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1831, reacted to and wrote about his ambiguous legacy. The Young Hegelians drew on his idea that the purpose and promise of history was the total negation of everything conducive to restricting freedom and reason; and they proceeded to mount radical critiques, first of religion and then of the Prussian political system. They rejected anti-utopian aspects of his thought that "Old Hegelians" have interpreted to mean that the world has already essentially reached perfection.
context_section_description: Die Freien (The Free Ones) was a 19th-century circle of Young Hegelians formed at the University of Berlin and gathering for informal discussion over a period of a few years. Its leader was Bruno Bauer, a student who had attended Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's lectures and was then asked to defend the position of the Old Hegelians against the claims of David Strauss's Life of Jesus. After reviewing the book, Bauer was converted and became even more radical than Strauss, becoming an atheist and arguing that Christianity was not only historically baseless, but it was also irrational and a barrier to progress.
  Later in his life, he would disassociate himself from the group.
caption: Die Freien by Friedrich Engels
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