"Freud is not taught in psychology departments, Marx is not taught in economics, and Hegel is hardly taught in philosophy"<p>Modern academic psychology and economics aim at being scientific; the works of Freud and Marx fall very short in this respect, according to contemporary standards.<p>Both are, of course, very important in the history of ideas. And their <i>ideas</i> are not necessarily irrelevant to the psychologist (childhood traumas <i>can</i> cause persisting psychological problems) or economist. But their actual works probably are irrelevant to the work of most psychologists and economists.<p>Hegel expelled from philosophy? First, his works are particularly difficult to read and understand (and difficult to translate into English). So he isn't popular with philosophy undergraduates. So not many courses are offered on his work. (But some are: <a href="http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/ug_honours/documents/EarlyContinentalsCourseOutline.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.philosophy.ed.ac.uk/ug_study/ug_honours/documents...</a> )<p>Also, Hegel fits on the 'continental' side of the 'analytic' vs. 'continental' philosophy binary opposition. That is probably the main reason for his lack of presence in English-speaking philosophy departments, which are overwhelmingly analytical in bent.
To be a little bit snippy, why isn't Genesis taught in evolutionary biology courses? I mean, Darwin wrote "On the Origins of Species", but Genesis was there before Darwin and wrote about the origins of all life on earth so clearly Darwin should be put in that context. How can someone understand Darwin without knowing creationism?<p>As the anti-intelligent-design folks would say, science is a harsh place for ideas and ideas need to prove themselves over and over and be verifiable. You don't get to be taught just because you wrote about something earlier.<p>There are places where these things should be taught - because they are important to our history and culture. They don't belong in the sciences anymore for varying reasons. Freud wasn't scientific in his studies (meaning things like double-blind, verifiable results). He has influenced a lot, but the field has moved past him. Marx worked under economic assumptions that were held as true by economists of the time that were later proved false (and which greatly affect his outcomes).<p>However, there are some things that have held up over time. Ricardo's Comparative Advantage (from the 17th century I believe) is still taught. The Pythagorean Theorem from over two millenia ago is huge in math. And I believe both Newton and Einstein still hold in their fields. At the same time, as we learned about the universe, Plato/Aristotle went from astronomy (they did write a lot about what was in space) to philosophy - because they were simply wrong. Thinkers who thought the earth was flat might be mentioned in a history course, but not in a science one.<p>And sometimes there is still value there. I'm a religious person myself, but I think it would be stupid to teach it in a history or science class - its ideas just have no place there. Maybe they did at one point in human history, but not today. Likewise, I think a lot of psychology today is going to fall into nothing as we learn more and at that time, the authors of today will cease to be taught in psyc.<p>Science moves forward. It's unforgiving. Once something has been proved false, it can remain, but more in the "history of ideas" way.
Hegel is still studied if the philosophy department requires a historical survey of Western Philosophy. It is hard to understand the historical context of Marx, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard if you don't know anything about Hegel. Not many schools approach it this way anymore. Coursework now is more pick and choose. Medieval thought and the 19th century are the first to be ignored.<p>The reason Hegel is not taught in depth in philosophy departments anymore is because he was an intellectual fraud. In other news, medical schools no longer teach leeching or phrenology. Consider it progress. However, if you disagree with progress, you can still get leeched from an alternative medicine quack or pick up Hegel from the literary criticism department.
For that matter, I don't know of any biology classes that teach Darwin or economics classes that teach Adam Smith, except in a passing, general sort of way.<p>I'm sure everyone knows about Darwin's finches and Smith's reasoning about the butcher's benevolence but that's a far cry from making a detailed study.<p>Fields move on. Ideas are refined and re-expressed in terms not available to the originators of those fields.<p>These texts are all valuable as historiography but it shouldn't be surprising that students learning the material don't go to them first. More often that not they were wrong about a great many things, Smith and Darwin included.
<i>Freud is not taught in psychology departments, Marx is not taught in economics, and Hegel is hardly taught in philosophy</i><p>I don't know much about Hegel but there's a simple reason that Marx and Freud are not taught anymore: because we know that they were <i>wrong</i>.
This is an interesting question. I think the main reason is time -- universities only have so much time. But yet these were major icons on the world stage: surely some classroom time should be given to them.<p>As another possibility, it may be the way humans think of science that is at issue. If we believe that science is always progressing forward towards some idealistic picture of reality and that exceptions are rare, what's the point in studying old dead guys who were obviously wrong? If, however, we believe that science is always progressing forward towards some idealistic picuter of reality and that exceptions are NOT rare, then we should pay attention to each little turn in the road we took -- we may have to go back to there.<p>I hear a lot of Marx in the political arena -- lots of times by people who have no idea they are channeling him. It might be useful for our universities to at least provide students with a good background on Karl. Likewise, to fail to understand historicism and the dialectic of the spiritis to miss out on some great ideas -- even if Marx took those ideas way too far later on.