Abstract

The publication in the mid-1980s of the new critical edition of Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of religion is widely recognized to have been one of the most important events in the history of modern Hegel scholarship. By differentiating between Hegel’s own manuscript and the individual transcripts of the lectures made by his students, this edition enabled a wider philosophical public to trace for the first time the development of Hegel’s philosophy of religion throughout the 1820s. In view of the great importance of this new version of Hegel’s lectures, Jaeschke’s Reason in Religion, originally published in 1986 as Die Vernunft in der Religion: Studien zur Grundlegung der Religionsphilosophie Hegels, deserves particular attention and respect, because it is the first comprehensive study of Hegel’s philosophy of religion to be based on the new edition, and because Jaeschke himself was the person primarily responsible for preparing that edition.