Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus

Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus (1796–1862) taught in Kiel and wrote an Entwurf eines Systems der Wissenschaftslehre.

He is the source of the formula “thesis — antithesis — synthesis,” which is still used today to explain Hegel’s dialectic. Hegel himself never used it; it is a secondhand simplification that has taken on a life of its own, working against the very subject it was meant to explain.