Georg Wilhelm Frederich Hegel was the central figure in the philosophical period known as "German Idealism." His philosophy was called "Absolute Idealism" and was largely a response to the philosophy of Kant. He introduced his own unique version of a system of reasoning, known as Dialectics, which attempts to examine phenomena from the standpoint of their metaphysical contradictions. He is notoriously difficult to understand, writing in a dense and jargon laden prose. He nevertheless had a profound influence on many prominent thinkers of the 19-21st centuries, the likes of whom include: Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Slavoj Zizek, etc.