The Aesthetic Philosophy of Early German Romanticism and Its Early German Idealist Roots

Abstract

German Idealism is notoriously difficult to define: Is it a cultural movement, or a dedication to a certain set of philosophical positions? Should it be considered in terms of chronology and geography? Should it be defined by the unfavorable gaze of its detractors, and thereby, at least if we follow G. E. Moore, overcome? Is it a movement that begins, say, with the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781), includes Fichte’s Science of Knowledge (1794) and Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), and then ushers in the work of figures such as Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860)?1 The other articles in this collection shed light on the looming issue of what German Idealism is, so I can leave this particular quixotic chase to others. I will assume for the sake of my story that German Idealism was, at the very least, shaped by a set of critical responses to Kant’s work, responses that preserved Kant’s view of system and the unity of reason, yet sought to overcome some of the troubling dualisms left in the wake of his critical work (in particular the one between intellect and sense).2 While not all post-Kantian paths led to Hegel, Hegel, dubbed by Rüdiger Bubner as “the absolute professor of Berlin,”3 was certainly a central figure of German Idealism. In what follows, a contrast between Hegel’s philosophical convictions and those of Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) will be marked in order to clarify some of the differences between German Idealism and another recalcitrant (at least in terms of its definition) movement, early German Romanticism.4