The Imagination In German Idealism And Romanticism

Explores imagination and human rationality in a crucial period of philosophy, from hermeneutics and transcendental logic to ethics and aesthetics.

The dialectic between reason and imagination forms a key element in Romantic and post- Romantic philosophy, science, literature, and art. Inventions of the Imagination explores the diverse theories and assessments of this dialectic in essays by philosophers and literary and cultural critics. By the end of the eighteenth century, reason as the predominant human faculty had run its course, and imagination emerged as another force whose contributions to human intellectual existence and productivity had to be newly calculated and constantly recalibrated. The attempt to establish a universal form of reason alongside a plurality of imaginative capacities describes the ideological program of modernism from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day. This collection chronicles some of the vicissitudes in the conceptualization and evaluation of the imagination across time and in various disciplines.

This volume of 23 previously unpublished essays explores the relationship between the philosophy of J.G. Fichte and that of other leading thinkers associated with German Idealism and the early Romantic movement. Several papers explore the broader question of Fichte's relationship and contribution to “German idealism” and “German romanticism” in general, while others offer comparative studies of the relationship between Fichte's writings and those of Leibniz, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Schleiermacher, and Wilhelm von Humboldt. Taken collectively, this set of essays provides anglophone readers with a new and historically accurate understanding of the origin, development, and reception of Fichte's philosophy in the context of its own era and in relationship to the most important intellectual movements of the time. The authors include both well established and internationally recognized experts in their fields as well as younger scholars with fresh and challenging perspectives to offer. This volume proposes a new interpretation of the history of German idealism in general and of the place therein of Fichte'sWissenschaftslehre. It emphasizes the intimate connection between “transcendental idealism” and “German romanticism” and shows how developments within each of these intellectual movements reflected and in turn influenced developments within the other. Finally, it sheds new light on Fichte's own philosophical development and does so by relating the various stages of his writings to other contemporary movements and authors.

In this book Jane Kneller focuses on the role of imagination as a creative power in Kant's aesthetics and in his overall philosophical enterprise. She analyzes Kant's account of imaginative freedom and the relation between imaginative free play and human social and moral development, showing various ways in which his aesthetics of disinterested reflection produce moral interests. She situates these aspects of his aesthetic theory within the context of German aesthetics of the eighteenth century, arguing that Kant's contribution is a bridge between early theories of aesthetic moral education and the early Romanticism of the last decade of that century. In so doing, her book brings the two most important German philosophers of Enlightenment and Romanticism, Kant and Novalis, into dialogue. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers in both Kant studies and German philosophy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Often portrayed as a movement of poets lost in swells of passion, early German Romanticism has been generally overlooked by scholars in favor of the great system-builders of the post-Kantian period, Schelling and Hegel. In the twelve lectures collected here, Manfred Frank redresses this oversight, offering an in-depth exploration of the philosophical contributions and contemporary relevance of early German Romanticism. Arguing that the early German Romantics initiated an original movement away from idealism, Frank brings the leading figures of the movement, Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), into concert with contemporary philosophical developments, and explores the role that Friedrich Hölderlin and other members of the Homburg Circle had upon the development of early German Romantic philosophy.

Comprehensive and incisive, with three new chapters, this updated edition sees world-renowned scholars explore a rich and complex philosophical movement.

"The fundamental concern of Romanticism, which brought about its inception, determined its development, and set its end, was the need to create a new language for religion"--

Scholarship on Immanuel Kant and the German Idealists often attends to the points of divergence. While differences are vital, this volume does the opposite, offering a close inspection of some of the key Kantian concepts that are embraced and retained by the Idealists. It does this by bringing together an original set of critical reflections on the role that the German Idealists ascribe to fundamental Kantian ideas and insights within their own systems. A central motivation for this volume is to resist reductive accounts of the complex relationship between German Idealism and Kant’s Idealism through a study of the inheritance of Kant’s legacy in German Idealism. As such, this volume contributes to new interpretations and rethinking of traditional accounts in light of these reflections on some of the significant components of German Idealism that can defensibly be called Kantian. The contributors to this volume are Dina Emundts, Eckart Förster, Gerad Gentry, Johannes Haag, Dean Moyar, Lydia Moland, Dalia Nassar, Karin Nisenbaum, Anne Pollok, and Nicholas Stang.