Edgar Bauer (7 October 1820 – 18 August 1886) was a German political philosopher and a member of the Young Hegelians.

[2] In the mid-1840s, Marx' and Engels' critique of the Bauer brothers marked the beginning of their collaboration and an important stage in the development of Marxist thought.

He studied jurisprudence and philosophy at the University of Berlin, where he became a member of the Young Hegelian circle around his brother Bruno Bauer.

Edgar Bauer soon became a regular contributor to a variety of philosophical and political publications, distinguishing himself by a particularly enthusiastic revolutionary ideology.

He did not follow the 'materialist turn' in Young Hegelian philosophy inaugurated by Ludwig Feuerbach (as Marx, Engels, Grün and others did), but instead remained true to the Neo-Fichtean idealist 'philosophy of action' propagated by his brother Bruno.

While he was in prison, his former associates Marx and Engels published a scathing critique of him and his brother Bruno, titled The Holy Family (1844).

Released on the eve of the Revolution of 1848, Edgar Bauer participated in the revolutionary fighting in Berlin and Hamburg.

In 1851, facing imminent arrest, he escaped to Denmark and thence to London, England, where he lived in exile for several years.