Idealism without Absolutes

Trenchju

Description

Idealism without Absolutes offers an ambitious and broad reconsideration of Idealism in relation to Romanticism and subsequent thought. Linking Idealist and Romantic philosophy to contemporary theory, the volume explores the multiplicity of different philosophical incarnations of Idealism and materialism, and shows how they mix with and invade each other in philosophy and culture. The contributors discuss a wide range of major figures in the long Romantic period, from Kant and Hegel to Nietzsche, as well as key figures defining the contemporary intellectual debate, including Freud, Heidegger, Adorno, Lyotard, Derrida, de Man, and Deleuze and Guattari. While preserving the significance of the historical period extending from Kant to the early nineteenth century, the volume gives the concept of Romantic culture a new historical and philosophical meaning that extends from its pre-Kantian past to our own culture and beyond.

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Tilottama Rajan

Romanticism and the Invention of Literature
Jan Plug

Allegories of Symbol: On Hegel's Aesthetics
Andrzej Warminski

Toward a Cultural Idealism: Negativity and Freedom in Hegel and Kant
Tilottama Rajan

Mediality in Hegel: From Work to Text in the Phenomenology of Spirit
Jochen Schulte-Sasse

Beyond Beginnings: Schlegel and Romantic Historiography
Gary Handwerk

Curvatures: Hegel and the Baroque
Arkady Plotnitsky

Three Ends of the Absolute: Schelling, Holderlin, and Novalis
David Farrell Krell

Schopenhauer's Telling Body of Philosophy
Joel Faflak

Sacrificial and Erotic Materialism in Kierkegaard and Adorno
John Smyth

Absolute Failures: Hegel's Bildung and the "Earliest System-Program of German Idealism"
Rebecca Gagan

Futures of Spirit: Hegel, Nietzsche, and Beyond
Richard Beardsworth

Conclusion: Without Absolutes
Arkady Plotnitsky

Contributors

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie moderne
• Philosophie moderne
• Germany
• Literary theory

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791485538
• Langue: English

Extrait

Idealism without Absolutes Philosophy and Romantic Culture

ediittedby Tiillottama Rajjan and Arkady Pllotniitsky

Idealism without Absolutes

SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory Rodolphe Gasché, editor

Idealism without Absolutes



Philosophy and Romantic Culture

Edited by Tilottama Rajan and Arkady Plotnitsky

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2004 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address the State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Idealism without absolutes : philosophy and romantic culture / edited by Tilottama Rajan and Arkady Plotnitsky. p. cm. — (SUNY series, intersections—philosophy and critical theory) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6001-0 (alk. paper). 1. Idealism, German. 2. Romanticism—Germany. 3. Absolute, The— History. I. Rajan, Tilottama. II. Plotnitsky, Arkady. III. Intersections (Albany, N.Y.)

B2745.I34 2004 141'.0943—dc21

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003050602

Acknowledgments

Introduction Tilottama Rajan

Contents



Romanticism and the Invention of Literature Jan Plug

Allegories of Symbol: On Hegel’sAesthetics Andrzej Warminski

Toward a Cultural Idealism: Negativity and Freedom in Hegel and Kant Tilottama Rajan

Mediality in Hegel: From Work to Text in the Phenomenology of Spirit Jochen Schulte-Sasse

Beyond Beginnings: Schlegel and Romantic Historiography Gary Handwerk

Curvatures: Hegel and the Baroque Arkady Plotnitsky

Three Ends of the Absolute: Schelling, Hölderlin, Novalis David Farrell Krell

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Contents

Schopenhauer’s Telling Body of Philosophy Joel Faflak

Sacrificial and Erotic Materialism in Kierkegaard and Adorno John Smyth

Absolute Failures: Hegel’sBildungand the “Earliest System-Program of German Idealism” Rebecca Gagan

Futures of Spirit: Hegel, Nietzsche, and Beyond Richard Beardsworth

Conclusion: Without Absolutes Arkady Plotnitsky

Contributors

Index

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Acknowledgments

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The editors would like to acknowledge the support of their respective insti- tutions, The University of Western Ontario and Purdue University, for support that has made possible the completion of their research for this volume. Tilottama Rajan would also like to acknowledge the aid of the Social Sci- ences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, a grant from which, among other things, paid for research assistance for the editing, indexation, and preparation of the manuscript. We owe a great debt to our contributors, some of whom waited with great patience for this project to come to fruition. An earlier version of chapter 10 was published as “Hegel Beside Him- self: Unworking the Intellectual Community,”European Romantic Review13, no. 2 (2002): 139–45.

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Introduction

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Tilottama Rajan

In the past decade the philosophical tradition of German Idealism has come to be recognized as a rich and complex part of “Theory,” while this field itself has been associated with a fundamentally interdisciplinary way of thinking and range of practices. Yet there has been little intensive consideration of either the disciplinary or interdisciplinary nature of Idealism itself. Nor has much attention been given to the ways in which philosophy—the discipline in which Idealism is anchored—is itself hybridized and de-idealized by its connections with other fields. This volume attempts to rethink the conceptuality and disciplinarity of post-Kantian philosophy across the full range of the long romantic period, from Immanuel Kant and the Schlegels at one end, through the post-Kantian Idealists, to Friedrich Nietzsche. The volume is thus organized by three interconnected concerns. First, the essays share a sense that it is possible to have an idealism without the totalizing formulas often associated with post-Kantian philosophy, as repre- sented by such concepts (conventionally interpreted) as G. W. F. Hegel’s Absolute Knowledge or J. G. Fichte’s Absolute Ego. The space for this ide- alism is created by a particular symbiosis between ideality and materiality. Second, this symbiosis often occurs through the contamination or extension of philosophy into other, more “material” disciplines such as psychology, history, or literature. At stake, then, is the very identity of philosophy as the host for a variety of other parasitic discourses that reciprocally reconfigure philosophy itself. In such circumstances it would be easy to read the intellec- tual tradition studied here through twentieth-century lenses. And indeed the essays all draw on contemporary theory: notably the work of Gilles Deleuze,

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