On the Theoretical Form of Hegel’s Aesthetics

Abstract

The contemporary relevance of Hegel’s Philosophy of Art is evident in recent discussions of his emphasis upon the historicity of art (cf. esp. [19, 28, 20, 4]). No other notion in that work has received such conflicting commentaries, or diverse evaluations of its capacity to illuminate the difficult situation of modern art, as the thesis ascribed to Hegel that art has come to its end (cf. most recently [8]). Yet there is no critical edition of the aesthetics lectures, and we must still refer to Hotho’s compilation, which, if admirably cohesive, is not unproblematic either philologically or in many details.² Research has provided reliable information about the historical development both of the origin and first phases of Hegel’s philosophizing in general,³ and, more pertinently, of the genesis of his theoretical interpretations of art in particular, from the early discussions within the circle of his Tübingen friends up to the Berlin lectures of the 1820’s, which presuppose the complete system of the Encyclopedia [7] and are the basis of Hotho’s edition. These lectures have become an independent work because of the history of their effects. However, their exceedingly complicated theoretical form, which both corresponds to the “mature” Hegel’s conception of the Encyclopedia’s system and must be considered authentic in its internal structure, has never been adequately analyzed.⁴

I was young and proud, and I waxed in my arrogance when I learned from Hegel that it is not, as my grandmother had supposed, that the dear God resides in heaven, but rather that I myself here on earth am the dear God. (Heinrich Heine, Confessions, 1854)

I first presented several of the thoughts in this paper within the aegis of a seminar on “Conceptions of Philosophical Aesthetics”, which took place in Oberjoch under the direction of Klaus Hartmann. In the running text I use the following abbreviations to refer to Hegel’s works: A I, II, III = [18], vol. 13, 14, 15 (Vorlesungen über die Aesthetik); E = Enzyklopaedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundriss [17]; L I, II = Wissenschaft der Logik [15].