Tragic irony: Socrates in Hegel's history of philosophy

The following thesis outlines Hegel's interpretation of Socrates in order to prove that as a negative dialectician, Socrates constitutes both a world historic personality who met a fate (Schicksal) which was tragic and practiced a philosophy which was tragically ironic. Hegel's Theory of Tragedy is applied to Socrates' absolutely free will which brought him to a tragic clash with the Athenian Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), the Sophists' arbitrary will, and the phenomenological will of uneducated Athenians. It is argued that in Hegel's view Socrates represents a negative dialectic which through the negation of negativity becomes positive as a midwifery of the consciousness. The Socratic Elenchus is argued to not be representative of "the Socratic Irony," but as a negative moment of the Socratic Method. Positively, the Socratic dialectic is a Tragic Irony which sublates the finite will and the infinite arbitrary will in order to become a trans-subjective absolutely free will.