Abstract
An underlying assumption common to all classical German philosophers was that all branches of knowledge were interrelated and constituted a single integral whole. Writers of the time believed that there was not a plurality of sciences, but a single, universal science. The impetus in this direction had been prepared by Kant’s predecessors, particularly by the Pietist writers, who were a prolific source of many ideas in German idealist philosophy. Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, for example, declared that:
Whosoever will prepare himself for the coming golden age must see the sciences in their true simplicity and undivided form … For the separation of the sciences is the result of the corrupt times. The unification of the sciences is part of the preparation for the golden age.1
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Notes
Quoted in Hans-Joachim Mähl, Die Idee des goldenen Zeitalters im Werk des Novalis (Heidelberg, 1965), p. 350.
J.G. Fichte, Sämmtliche Werke, ed. LH. Fichte, 8 vols (Berlin, 1845–46). Vol. I, pp. 40–60.
I. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. V (Berlin, 1908), p. 30.
Schelling, Schellings sämmtliche Werke, ed. K.F.A. Schelling, 10 vols (Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856–61), Vol. III, p. 628.
R. Haym, Die romantische Schule (Berlin, 1870), p. 352.
Hans Werner Arndt, ‘Einführung’, Christian Wolff, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. I (Hildesheim, 1965), p. 19.
A. Cobban, In Search of Humanity: The Role of the Enlightenment in Modern History (London, 1960), p. 75.
J. Erhard, L’idée de Nature en France dans la première motitié du XVIII e siècle (Paris, 1963), p. 70.
P.C. Erb (ed.), Pietists: Selected Writings (London, 1983), pp. 35–6.
Friedrich E.D. Schleiermacher, Werke, eds Otto Braun and Johannes Bauer (Aalen, 1967), Vol. IV, p. 437.
In English both Entäußerung and Entfremdung are habitually translated as ‘Alienation’. This is in accordance with the idea put forward by Georg Lukács and accepted by modern writers that the two terms are simply German translations of the English word ‘alienation’. See C.J. Arthur, Dialectics of Labour: Marx and his Relation to Hegel (Oxford, 1986), p. 147. This is clearly wrong, since it dissociates Entäußerung from außer, and from the contrast between Inner and Outer.
There is considerable dispute about whether the ‘Systemprogramm’ should be attributed to Schelling or Hegel. The main arguments for both sides are collected in Jamme, C. and Schneider, H. (eds), Mythologie der Vernunft: Hegels ‘ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus’ (Frankfurt am Main, 1984). I am inclined to believe that Schelling was the author, because the ideas contained in the ‘Systemprogramm’ were characteristic of his intellectual biography. It was he who originated the conception that the State was an Idea. Thus, even if Hegel did compose the ‘Systemprogramm’, he could only have been elaborating on a conception which belonged to Schelling.
F.W.J. Schelling, Briefe und Dokuments, Vol. I, 1775–1809, ed. Horst Fuhr-mans (Bonn, 1962), pp. 69–70;
C. Jamme and H. Schneider, Mythologie der Vernunft: Hegels ‘ältestes Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus’ (Frankfurt am Main, 1984), pp. 11–12.
G.S. Ford, Stein and the Era of Reform in Prussia, 1807-I815 (Gloucester, Mass., 1965), p. 203.
A. Müller, Schriften zur Staatsphilosophie, ed. Rudolf Kohler (Munich, 1923), p. 85.
A. Müller, Elemente der Staatskunst, ed. Jakob Baxa (Jena, 1922), Vol. I, p. 155.
A. Müller, Ausgewählte Abhandlungen, ed. Jakob Baxa (Jena, 1921), pp. 104–5.
Hamann, Sämmtliche Werke, Vol. II, p. 197; R.G. Smith, J.G. Hamann 1730–1788: A Study in Christian Existence (London, 1960), p. 70.
R. Haym, Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken (Berlin, 1880), Vol. I, pp. 139–40.
J.G. Herder, Sämtliche Werke, Vol. I, ed. B. Suphan (Berlin, 1877), p. 153.
F. Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie, Vol. I (Leipzig and Darmstadt, 1843), pp. 563–4.
H. Levin, Die Heidelberger Romantik (Munich, 1922), p. 92.
R. Saitschick, Joseph Görres und die abendländische Kultur (Breisgau, 1953), pp. 26, 101–2.
J. Baxa (ed.), Adam Müllers Lebenszeugnisse (Munich, Paderborn, Vienna, 1966), Vol. II, p. 277.
J. Görres, ‘Teutschland und die Revolution’, Gesammelte Schuften, Vol. IV (Munich, 1856), pp. 150–1;
G. Mann, The History of Germany since 1789 (Penguin, 1974), pp. 106–8.
‘Wachstum in Historie’, J. Görres, Gesammelte Schriften (Cologne, 1926), Vol. III, p. 379.
F.B. Artz, Reaction and Revolution in Europe 1814–1832 (New York, 1934), pp. 7–11.
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© 1996 James D. White
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White, J.D. (1996). The Romantic Heritage. In: Karl Marx and the Intellectual Origins of Dialectical Materialism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230374218_2
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