Hegel saw history as an evolution of ideas that would culminate in the ideal liberal-democratic state.

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Hegel says somewhere that all great historic facts and personages recur twice.

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They have indeed been influential, drawing the attention and even admiration down the ages of philosophers as diverse as Hegel, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.

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Chuck Hegel, the so- called independent senator from Nebraska, Olympia Snow, an independent senator from Maine, both Republicans said, Congress should really look into this.

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Whether it's philosophy students arguing in a dorm about what Hegel meant, or fledgling Java programmers inspecting one another's code, people learn best as part of a cohort.

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The goal of modern liberalism was the rational state, a state that completed the long-standing attempt at the rational control of nature and human life that began with Machiavelli and culminated with Hegel.

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More recently, Francis Fukuyama has echoed Hegel's theme.

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