Hyppolite was a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure at roughly the same time as Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1939 he published the first French translation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. After the war he became a professor at the University of Strasbourg, where he wrote The Genesis and Structure of the Phenomenology of Spirit (1947) before moving to the Sorbonne in 1949.

In 1952, Hyppolite published Logique et existence, a work that may have had a seminal effect on what was to become known as Post-modernism. This book tries to correlate Hegel's Phenomenology to his Logics (longer and shorter). In doing so, it raises the questions of language, being, and difference that were to become the hallmarks of new French philosophy at the end of the 20th century. One excellent hint at the importance and centrality of this book is found in Giles Deleuze's review of it. The translators of the English language edition of the text (SUNY Press, 1997) were thoughtful enough to bundle Deleuze's review at the rear of the volume.

In 1954, he became the director of the École Normale Supérieure and in 1955 produced a study of Karl Marx's earlier, more Hegelian period. In 1963 he was elected to the Collège de France and given a chair in The History of Systems.

While philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre were known for producing new works influenced by German philosophy, Hyppolite is remembered as an expositor, teacher, and translator. He influenced a number of thinkers, including Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gérard Granel, Etienne Balibar and Gilles Deleuze.

"Marx and Hegel" is one of his major books.