Arnold Ruge

Arnold Ruge (13 September 1802 – 31 December 1880) was a German philosopher and political writer. He was the older brother of Ludwig Ruge.

Born in Bergen auf Rügen, he studied in Halle, Jena and Heidelberg. As an advocate of a free and united Germany, he shared in the student agitations of 1821-24, and was jailed from 1824 to 1830 in the fortress of Kolberg, where he studied Plato and the Greek poets. Moving to Halle on his release, he published a number of plays — including Schill und die Seinen, a tragedy — and translations of ancient Greek texts — e.g. Oedipus in Colonus. He became a Privatdozent at the University of Halle in 1832.

He also became associated with the Young Hegelians. In 1837 with E. T. Echtermeyer he founded the Hallesche Jahrbücher für deutsche Kunst und Wissenschaft. In this periodical he discussed the questions of the time from the point of view of the Hegelian philosophy. According to Frederick Copleston:

“Ruge shared Hegel's belief that history is a progressive advance towards the realization of freedom, and that freedom is attained in the State, the creation of the rational General Will.[...] At the same time he criticized Hegel for having given an interpretation of history which was closed to the future, in the sense that it left no room for novelty.”

The Jahrbücher was detested by the orthodox party in Prussia; and was finally suppressed by the Saxon government in 1843, and Ruge left for Paris.

In Paris, Ruge co-edited the Deutsch–Französische Jahrbücher with Karl Marx briefly. He had little sympathy with Marx's socialistic theories, and soon left him. He left Paris in 1845 for Switzerland, and then became a bookseller in Leipzig.

...
Wikipedia