Hegel's Doctrine of Essence is the central part of his Logic. The Doctrine of Essence is of central importance, since it is a critical description of traditional categories which functions also as the justification of Hegel's speculative understanding of essence. It is the most difficult text he ever penned, and due to his sudden death in 1831, Hegel never got to carry out its planned revision. This study takes an historical approach, giving flesh to Hegel's often forbiddingly abstract argument by (...) seeing it as a confrontation with his predecessors, especially Fichte and Schelling. Finally, the book shies away from an uninformative reiteration of the Logic's dialectical sequences, choosing instead to show how the Doctrine of Essence intersects with some perennial philosophical questions (above all, the relationship between freedom and determinism). (shrink)

This volume shows how _The Doctrine of Essence_ intersects with perennial philosophical questions including above all, the relationship between freedom and determinism. _The Doctrine of Essence_ is of central importance, since it is a critical description of traditional categories which also functions as the justification of Hegel's speculative understanding of essence. This study takes an historical approach to build upon Hegel's abstract argument, viewing it as a confrontation with his predecessors, inparticular - Fichte and Schelling.

This volume shows how _The Doctrine of Essence_ intersects with perennial philosophical questions including above all, the relationship between freedom and determinism. _The Doctrine of Essence_ is of central importance, since it is a critical description of traditional categories which also functions as the justification of Hegel's speculative understanding of essence. This study takes an historical approach to build upon Hegel's abstract argument, viewing it as a confrontation with his predecessors, inparticular - Fichte and Schelling.

This volume shows how _The Doctrine of Essence_ intersects with perennial philosophical questions including above all, the relationship between freedom and determinism. _The Doctrine of Essence_ is of central importance, since it is a critical description of traditional categories which also functions as the justification of Hegel's speculative understanding of essence. This study takes an historical approach to build upon Hegel's abstract argument, viewing it as a confrontation with his predecessors, inparticular - Fichte and Schelling.

This is a comprehensive, integrated account of eighteenth and early nineteenth century German figurative aesthetics. The author focuses on the theologically-minded discourse on the visual arts that unfolded in Germany, circa 1754-1828, to critique the assumption that German romanticism and idealism pursued a formalist worship of beauty and of unbridled artistic autonomy. This book foregrounds what the author terms an "Aesthetics of Figurative Theo humanism". It begins with the sculptural aesthetics of Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Gottfried Herder before moving on (...) to Karl Philipp Moritz, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder and Friedrich Schelling. The reader will discover how this aesthetic tradition, after an initial obsession with classical sculpture, chose painting as the medium more suited to the modern self's exploration of transcendence. This paradigm-shift is traced in the aesthetic discourse of Friedrich Schlegel and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. In this work, the widespread prejudice that such aesthetics initiated a so-called "Modern Grand Narrative of the Arts" is deconstructed. One accusation directed at 18th century aesthetics has been that it realised into "Art" what had previously been a living, rich tissue of meaning: this work shows how Figurative Theo humanism's attention to aesthetic values was never detached from deeper theological and humanistic considerations. Furthermore, it argues that this aesthetic discourse never forgot that it emerged from modern disenchantment-far from occluding the dimension of secularization, it draws poignant meaning from it. Anyone with an interest in the current debates about the scope and nature of aesthetics (philosophers of art, theology, or religion) will find this book of great interest and assistance. (shrink)