Jakob Friedrich von Abel

Jakob Friedrich von Abel (1751–1829) taught philosophy at the Hohe Karlsschule in Stuttgart, where Schiller was among his students, and from 1790 onward in Tübingen.

For Hegel, he represented the earliest encounter with philosophy outside the classroom: Abel gave lectures at the home of Hegel’s parents. At the same time, he led the Stuttgart branch of the Illuminati, serving as chairman from 1783 under the cover name Pythagoras Abderitis — the educational circle and the secret society overlapped.

What the young Hegel took from this cannot be determined. His diary notes only that the professors Hopf and Abel “honored our societies with a visit.”