Dying is easy; comedy is hard. Comedy is sovereign. I begin with an excerpt from Bertolt Brecht’s Fugitive Conversations. Ziffel, a physicist, is chatting with the worker Kalle: For humor, I always think of the philosopher Hegel.... He had the makings of one of the greatest humorists among the philosophers.... I read his book The Great Logic once, when I had rheumatism and couldn’t move. It’s one of the greatest humorous works of world literature. It treats of the way of (...) life of concepts, those slippery, unstable, irresponsible existences; how they abuse one another and fight with knives and then sit down together to supper as though nothing had happened.... They can live... (shrink)

Hegel’s admiration for Sophocles’ Antigone is well-known. In the Philosophy of Religion he declares it to be “for me the absolute example of tragedy.” In the Aesthetics he calls it “one of the most sublime and in every respect most magnificent works of art of all time” - and adds : “Of all the splendors of the ancient or modern worlds - and I know nearly all, and one should and can know them - the Antigone seems to me in (...) this respect the most magnificent, most satisfying, work of art.” No less extravagant is Hegel’s praise of Antigone herself: “the heavenly Antigone, the most magnificent figure ever to have appeared on earth” as he puts it in his History of Philosophy. (shrink)

Little attention has been paid to Hegel’s version of the sublime. I argue that the sublime plays a very marginal role in the Berlin lectures on aesthetics and on religion; in particular, Hegel ignores the “Romantic” sublime popular among his contemporaries. The sublime he locates in Persian poetry and more properly in Biblical Psalmody. After surveying his various articulations of the sublime, I turn to Hegel’s careful analysis of how the Psalms achieve their peculiar effects and note his focus on (...) the “individual.” Paradoxically, while close to Romantic “subreption”, their complex play with voice—and Hegel’s explication—both keep a safe distance, I contend. Turning finally to the question of anachronism and the sublime as a historical category, I suggest in a brief postscript how effects analogous to the Psalms’ rhetoric may nevertheless be detected in Terry Malick films. (shrink)

This book explores an overlooked area in Hegel studies: his use of ‘individuality’ (Individualität). Hegel joined a lively conversation, from Leibniz to Romanticism and beyond, about this novel concept/phenomenon. Successive chapters track Hegel’s engagement, in such texts as the Phenomenology, Encyclopedia, and Aesthetics. Hegel’s system tends to follow a syllogistic logic (universal, particular, singular), but ‘individuality’ departs from the norm. The category enacts a certain pragmatics (as against semantics or syntactics) regarding tacit assumptions at work or implicit terms of address, (...) which requires active participation by a thinking subject charged with discerning individuality (which bars resort to explicit rules). The category reflexively implicates the user even in presuming an objective context. ‘Individuality’ should not be confused with ‘individualism,’ wholly distinct in origin. Moreover, Hegel’s Aesthetics embraces a paradoxical anachronism. Like ‘art’ itself, ‘individuality’ emerged as an essentially modern category, though one transferred to the past and to distant cultures. (shrink)

This paper attempts in a preliminary way to bring out the ‘pragmatics’ or ‘performativity’ in Hegel’s conception of tragedy and the tragic in the Phenomenology of Spirit. The secondary literature has tended to focus on ethical content (the tragic) at the expense of cultic form and dramaturgical enactment (tragedy); and even with the tragic it has tended to overlook the different linguistic levels in use. I argue that the peculiar term ‘Individualität’ allows Hegel, in chapter VI, to describe a logic (...) of equivocal representation he sees at work in ancient ‘Sittlichkeit’ (ethical life). I argue furthermore that we seriously misrepresent Hegel’s conception of tragedy if we do not include the astonishing claims made of ‘Art-religion’ in chapter VII. Here tragedy takes on a meta-aesthetic color. Hegel sees tragedy as more than an ancient phenomenon, but as a recurring feature in attempts to represent (vorstellen) a speculative truth in sensuous form. (shrink)

On March 18–19, 1995, the Virginia Polytechnical Institute in Blacksburg sponsored a symposium on Hegel and architecture. Genially organized and hosted by Deland Anderson of VPI, the event afforded a rare opportunity for philosophers, teachers of architecture, and students to discuss common interests.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 34.1 (2001) 1-20 [Access article in PDF] On the Hegelian Sublime: Paul de Man's Judgment Call Martin Donougho In recent years, the sublime has become a focus of renewed interest in philosophy and literary theory, despite being (perhaps in part because it is) "the most confused and confusing notion of the time" (Honour 1977, 145). 1 Much of the interest has been directed at the Kantian (...) account and the long tradition stemming from it. By contrast, little attention has been paid to G. W. F. Hegel's version of the sublime, whether of the phenomenon itself or of its conceptualization. That is natural enough, it might be thought, given the marginal place accorded the sublime in Hegel's scheme of things--he simply was not interested. Yet, that very marginality is of interest, if we follow the lead of the subtlest of commentators, Paul de Man, in his essay "Hegel on the Sublime" (1983). As de Man reads and diagnoses it, Hegel's marginalizing of the sublime (much as with the section on symbolics or, indeed, aesthetics tout court) serves the interests of an aesthetic ideology. The gesture of putting the sublime aside in fact reveals more about the philosopher's system than is found in his express doctrine, de Man insists. The sublime, like Hegel's allegory, should then be read symptomatically, as the "defective cornerstone" of the entire system. 2 In this essay, I have two aims: besides explicating Hegel's theory of the sublime on its own terms, I try to assess de Man's reading of Hegel's rhetorical strategies.Even if de Man's charges fail--as I argue they do--his approach to Hegel remains, I think, full of insights. The sublime, it might well be thought, betokens the same penetration of an objective field by subjective theory that (for Heidegger and others) is at issue with Western metaphysics as a whole; a prime instance of this would be Hegel's own allegedly masterful project, including his attempt at an aesthetic system. So understood, "on the sublime" would translate as over the sublime, that is, in a bid to enframe and control discourse about "the most high" or "great writing" (see Longinus). 3 And then we might ask, for example, what Hegel is doing [End Page 1] when he consigns the sublime to a minor role, or when he instead gives the classical Ideal star billing. How exactly does he stage his discourse about art?Oddly enough, Hegel's sublime is not at all part of the main theoretical line stemming (if only in retrospect) from Immanuel Kant. That line might be dubbed "the Romantic sublime"--the title of an influential book by Thomas Weiskel, which appeared posthumously in 1976--or, alternatively, "the Yale sublime," in honor of an entire group (which includes Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom) who wrote about the tendency of Romantics such as William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson to invest themselves in their topic. 4 Kant himself points to a possible illusory move he labels subreption. Here--to apply a useful distinction Peter de Bolla (1989) draws--we have not just a discourse on, but also a discourse of the sublime. 5 The discourse of the sublime produces the very category it is meant to analyze, hence providing a space for "experience" of the sublime. A boot-strapping process induces a "subject-effect," calls forth a subject position. The remarkable thing is that--although he is said at sixteen to have made a translation of Longinus 6 and although he was, of course, familiar with the whole Kantian approach, which in many respects should have been congenial to him--Hegel stands apart from this "Romantic," or "hermeneutic," sublime. He does not at all give the appearance of staging readings in the manner sketched above, but instead adopts a distanced, disinterested perspective on the phenomenon.Even so, his aesthetic system might be accused of framing a discourse on the sublime, which, through seeking dialectical profit on its investment, shades into a discourse of the sublime. Thus, de... (shrink)

As part of the 1995 IAPL meeting devoted to “Incorporations: Virtual Reality,” John Russon organized and chaired a session on the theme “Virtual Hegel.” Participants were asked to address the issue of Hegel and the postmodern, and to facilitate discussion their papers were circulated in advance.

The subtitle is a little misleading in that the book is really a discussion of Michael Theunissen’s recent Sein und Schein. Die kritische Funktion der Hegelschen Logik, reviewed in the March Owl. The present book began life as a colloquium on Th.’s study held in Bielefeld in December of 1978, after which it was generally felt that much would be gained from asking the author himself to explain certain points. Hence the form of the book, which consists of seven questions (...) addressed by Fulda and Horstmann to determinate ‘theses’ imputed to Th., followed by Th.’s answer, and concluding with F.’s and H.’s replies. (shrink)

As the author of this agreeably written book points out, the Lectures on Aesthetics is a neglected work in English-language Hegel scholarship. Desmond responds to this lack by aiming not at a full commentary but rather at a selective discussion of some central issues. He believes that the result should be of interest not merely to Hegel scholars or philosophers but also to a wider audience, with concerns in art and in modern culture generally.

In his previous book, The Kantian Sublime, Paul Crowther set out both to explicate and to improve on Kant. This new work seeks to apply some of the ideas developed there to the contemporary social and cultural scene. In particular Crowther casts a critical eye on our "postmodern" condition and its reflection in theory and in art, aiming at a middle course between outright rejection and indulgence in Baudrillard's "ecstacy of communication." Ambitious in its scope, the book is equally so (...) in its putative solution to our ills: appeal to aesthetic contemplation, and to Merleau-Pontian embodiment in the world. (shrink)

This book contains the proceedings of a conference held in Nuremberg early in 1981, appropriately enough on the theme Hegel in Nuremberg, and in particular on his chief activities while there, education and writing the Science of Logic.

In this original and trenchantly written study, Rockmore argues that the literature on Hegel has ignored a central feature in his philosophy, namely, the embracing of a circular epistemology in order to justify claims to philosophical knowledge. This procedure receives only fitful attention from Hegel's texts, and Rockmore's book attempts to show what it is and how it bears importantly on various parts of the system. Under the name of "anti-foundationalism," it has obvious relevance, Rockmore argues, to contemporary discussions, and (...) even--given the ahistorical way in which these discussions have taken place--a few useful lessons. (shrink)

To mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Hegel’s death, the Hegel Societies of America and of Great Britain held a joint meeting in September 1981 at Merton College, Oxford. The volume under review contains the papers delivered at that conference. Its theme was well chosen, for “action” is a category central to Hegel’s system, while requiring a certain interpretative ingenuity to tease out exactly how it is so. The result is a book of great interest to Hegel studies.

Irrationalism is not irrationality but a philosophical reaction to rationalism. Yet the dynamic is no simple one, especially in the wake of Kant, who could seem both hyper-rationalist and as opening the way to Schopenhauerian irrationalism. Marx in turn accused all classical philosophers not just of failing to grasp reality but also of adopting a theoretical rather than activist epistemology. Actual Marxist rule over some of reality added still another layer of complexity to the theoretical debate.

“If there existed a philosophy of history attached to words, it would find a worthy topic in the expression ‘personality’ and the changes its meaning has undergone.” Thus Adorno, in an essay bemoaning the decline of the term from Kantian high-mindedness into media spectacle. Kant writes: “The idea of the moral law alone, together with the respect that is inseparable from it... is personality itself.” Here the unique and inmost self is identified with im personal law; my self is intelligible, (...) yet as purely noumenal it cannot be represented theoretically, only respected, in practice. The paradox is appropriated by Hegelian ethics, where the determinate individual appears nevertheless as free, this person and yet all persons: “Personhood [diePersönlichkeit] is thus at the same time the sublime and the wholly ordinary.... The supreme achievement is to support this contradiction....” Adorno discerns quite another line of descent. This line stems from Goethe rather than Kant, and runs via Humboldt and the Romantics down to our own day. Instead of personhood as calling, it emphasizes personhood as determination or destiny ; a cultivation of self in its many-sidedness, for which the ancient Greeks provide the model. It was important for J. S. Mill, and for much North American thinking from Emerson onwards.Yet mainstream sociological theorists such as Durkheim or Weber tended to prefer the first path, stressing imposed duty rather than found opportunity; indeed Weber reserves special contempt for what he sees as the indulgent subjectivism of aesthetic ‘personality.’ Which line weighs more with us moderns, or perhaps more suits our situation, would be hard to decide at this point. But the term itself remains crucial—and crucially obscure! (shrink)