This course is devoted to a key moment in the history of philosophy, the period of “German idealism” – i.e. the developments that were initiated by Kant, and by the attempts to constructively build forth upon Kant’s ideas, as developed by, among others, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In recent years, the label “German Idealism” has fallen into discredit, and has been replaced by the more open term “Classical German philosophy” – indicating that philosophy in this period, and in particular the reactions upon Kant’s philosophy, have been much broader in content than the label “idealism” indicates.
The present course takes up the challenge that lies in this terminological development. We’ll look into the (highly polemical, and thus also very entertaining) debate about the merits (or shortcomings!) of Kantian philosophy, anf of its later transformation in Fichte’s philosophy, in what is the most intense period of polemics, controversy, and constructive philosophical discussion of all: The period between 1801 and 1803 in which Schelling and Hegel cooperated in Jena to develop a novel perspective on philosophy, the science, the arts, and socio-political structures. an “idealism” in this period. Texts will include Schellings’s and Hegel’s programmatic and critical discussions form this period, the discussion with Fichte and with (orthodox) Kantians, and there will be ample opportunities to look into minor authors form this period, and into topics relating to natural science and to aesthetic and political issues.

Systematically, the key issue will be the ways how the ideal of a very rigorous, “systematic” style of philosophizing relates to “external” issues: nature and natural science, the arts, religion.

This course will, thus, be accessible to and of interest for students from philosophy and the history and philosophy of the natural sciences, but might also be of interest for students form other fields (art history, literature, etc.).

A reader with the relevant texts (in English translation) will be made available.

Introductory reading:

Beiser, Frederick (2002). German Idealism. The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 Cambridge, Mass. / London: Harvard UP.

Beiser, Frederick (1987). The Fate of Reason. German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, Mass. / London: Harvard UP.