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Let us start with Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. His respect for the Greeks was firmly rooted in him at a young age when he was studying in Tubingen. After completing high school in Stuttgart in 1788, he enrolled in the Tübingen Stift, which was more like a barracks than a university at the time. Also arriving were Friedrich Hélderlin, who would go on to be a great German poet, and a little later Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, who was five years younger than them. The latter had only just turned 16 when he started university with special permission (Gyenge 2005.). Their effect on each other is immeasurable, which is thoroughly demonstrated by amanuscript from this period (Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus, The Oldest Systematic Program of German Idealism) whose author is indeterminable. It is either Hegel, Schelling, or Holderlin. Or all three, at the same time or one after the other. Or who knows? It can never be determined conclusively now, although there are different theories on the subject. Even I have written in support of one, but now I find the theory of multiple authorship likely (Gyenge 2005, pp.239-242.)‘. If we take it as such, Hélderlin’s effect can be identified in large part by his enthusiastic love culture, starts with the Greeks. This does not mean that the wisdom of the Far East is not interesting, but there is no direct connection between the two. It is entirely obvious that the Buddha, despite being roughly his contemporary, had no effect on Heraclitus, who knew nothing about him. This is why it is the utmost primitive ignorance to accuse Hegel or Kant of racism. Please examine the tradition spanning Seneca through St. Thomas Aquinas to Leibniz and Heidegger, in which the point of reference is always Greek philosophy. The entire European philosophy was born on the islands and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and was strengthened in a grove in the vicinity of Athens. 4 Isupported the argument behind Schelling’s authorship (as did Manfred Frank). I did this because at the time I was still interested in the science, and I thought the best wait to be worthy of its greatness was by constructing an own theory: as senseless and convoluted as possible, something nobody would understand, not even ourselves most of the time, only let it be new when compared with what came before.)
