Why would Hegel, if he were alive today, sit reading the Ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles while watching the Sopranos?

There’s a lot of philosophy in the Sopranos. And, of course, the story of the New Jersey mobster takes psychology as its central theme.

But I think the focus of the show, which ran for six seasons between 1999-2007, is Tony Soprano’s torn identity, his existential questioning about who he really is, and the ever looming threat of nihilism.

Not least because of James Gandolfini’s performance, the questions about individual identity and our relationship to the state in the 21st century are I think what makes the series so enduring.

It’s all about the question of identity – who someone really is. The search for some stable meaning.

Tony is a mob boss, a family man, a business man, an Italian, an American, a Catholic, and, on top of this, is torn between being a good and a bad person. Many of Tony’s problems come from these identities coming into conflict, causing him existential problems.

If he were alive today, I’m going to say that the Sopranos would be Hegel’s favourite show. He’d binge it over and over.

Unfortunately for Hegel he lived around the turn of the 19th century, witnessed the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rise and defeat. But like Tony Soprano he was searching for some kind of meaning in life. Hh was searching for direction.

He realised that for there to be meaning in life there had to be meaning to history.

Was it god that had some grand plan? Was there a god? If not, what was moving us forward? If anything.

Hegel’s answer to these questions began quite simply.

He said that, ‘the history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom’.

But the rest of his philosophy is notoriously complex.

Hegel looks at European history, from the Greek city states, to the rise of Christianity, to the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the modern liberal Prussian state that he lived in, and concludes that political and social systems develop to produce an increasing amount of individual and societal freedom.

He thinks that the way we understand the world – the way we come together – evolves over time. This was decades before Darwin was writing.

When he looks at conflict and argument, he sees two competing ideas battling each other. The better way of living wins. Those who are more free, more self-aware are better motivated, fitter, wiser, etc.

He sees history as a kind of mathematical progression, through which a universal harmony of interests is developed.

He sees this happening on a personal and societal level, literal and abstract.

For Hegel, history progresses dialectically. Through the development of theses antitheses and syntheses.

A thesis is just a way of doing something – whether it’s a chess technique, a form of government or a way of fighting a war, building a computer.

A thesis always come up against an opposing technique or mentality – an antithesis.

Hegel says that the best parts of the thesis will subsume the best parts of the antithesis. And a synthesis of the two will emerge. This dialectic process will continue until the best way of doing something develops. This is Hegel’s philosophy of history. And it is driven by what he calls ‘Geist’.

Geist is that ultimate freedom – that end goal.

One of Hegel’s most famous concepts is the negation of the negation. It’s difficult to wrap your head around.

But, say I have a view of something. And you have a competing view. In a discussion, your view – if its right – takes something away from my view – my understanding. It negates something in me. I’m potentially wrong about it. I seek – to make sure I’m right – to negate that negation. To confirm that I’m doing something right.

But, Hegel says that usually there’s some truth in both views, and so if we are rational, which we are, because rationality drives history, the views synthesise, and we move forward.

It’s a kind of negotiation. Imagine this happening across an entire society. Negations being constantly worked out.

A scientist might have a hypothesis. Someone disagrees. Ideas get synthesised and we move to have a more complete understanding of the world.

So what has this got to do with Tony Soprano?

The show centres around Tony’s visits to therapy in an attempt to treat his panic attacks. Like a Greek corus or a Shakespearian soliloquy, this plot device allows us to get inside the character’s head – to hear his thoughts out loud.

What we see is a head of conflicting identities, primarily torn between being a good family man and a ruthless and effective mob boss. Like Hegel’s dialectic, this is a thesis and an antithesis that can’t coexist. They are a contradiction in Tony’s head.

Most episodes centre around themes that question what it is to be in the mob, or a husband, or in a family, or an Italian, or Catholic, and how they come into conflict.

I think the episode called College in season one illustrates all of this well.

Tony and his daughter Meadow are on a trip looking around colleges for a few days.

The episode starts with Meadow asking Tony whether he’s in the mafia. At first Tony is offended but eventually acknowledges that some of his business activity is illegal. Meadow is trying to understand her father’s identity, and when he acknowledges it, a reconciliation about the truth is made. A synthesis of two opposing views about who Tony is in Meadow’s head.

Scenes like this also highlight the question of identity in the Sopranos.

The episode is about different identities being incompatible with each other. There is a dialectic process of trying to either have each coexist, or to get the other to recognise the way you live and the reasons for it. Tony explains that there weren’t many options for Italian people, to explain why he does what he does.

While Tony and Meadow are away, Carmella, Tony’s wife, has dinner with the local priest. She too is torn between supporting Tony and he family and being a good Catholic, but this tension is increased further by Father Phil’s conflict between his faith and abstinence and his desire for Carmella.

There’s even a scene where Father Phil gives Carmella a book about different religions – again, competing ways of viewing the world.

Meanwhile, Tony sees an FBI informant who went into the witness protection programme. Again, he is torn between looking after his daughter, who gets too drunk, and the codes of the mob.

He eventually murders the informant. He could have had someone else do it, but he clearly enjoys it.

After he kills him he looks up and sees ducks . His first panic attack happened after a family of ducks that had been living in his pool migrates. In therapy, Doctor Malfy thinks the ducks may have represented his own family leaving him.

After, he has to lie to Meadow about where he’s been.

Then he sees this quote in the university: ‘No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered to as to which may be true’ – Nathaniel Hawthorne

So why would Hegel like this so much? Hegel found the tension between family life, ethics and the state interesting. He especially liked the story of Antigone by the Ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles, who Tony has a lot in common with.

In the play, brothers Eteocles and Polynices are meant to rule Thebes together, alternating their duties each year on decree of their father. After the first year though Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices goes to war with him and they kill each other in a duel.

Their closest relative, Creon, becomes king.

He declares that Polynices must not be buried – he must be left to rot. He decides that the rule of law – peace – is more important than any war or insurrection. Polynices brought misery.

Antigone is Polynices’ and Eteocles’ sister. For the Greeks, not burying someone means they will not get into the afterlife, so this decree by the new king is traumatising for her, she literally can’t live with it,

She attempts to bury her brother only to be caught. Creon asks if she thinks she’s above the law.

Hegel points out that there are two conflicting positions. One of the rule of law – what’s right for the community. And one of familial values. How the family is, when it comes down to it, more important than the rest of the community.

Like the Sopranos, Antigone is a tragedy about what happens when values contradict each other.

Antigone refuses to refrain from burying her brother. Creon refuses to let Polynices be buried. Antigone ends up being imprisoned and hangs herself.

The point of Antigone is that to do the right thing, the moral and ethical thing, she has to be a criminal.

You can see these dilmmas being worked out in the Sopranos – tragic characters trying to navigate the world.