Gregor Schäfer

Von ihren frühen Anfängen in Jena bis zum Berliner Spätwerk steht Johann Gottlieb Fichtes Philosophie theoretisch gleichermaßen wie praktisch im Zeichen der Revolution: Ebenso wie das von Fichte in immer wieder neuen Ansätzen verfolgte Projekt der Wissenschaftslehre seinen Ausgang von Kants transzendentaler Revolution der Denkart nimmt und diese auf alle ihre Prinzipien und Konsequenzen hin vertieft und weiterführt, artikuliert dieses Projekt das Selbstbewusstsein des in seiner universellen politischen und geschichtsphilosophischen Tragweite für den modernen Anspruch auf Emanzipation paradigmatischen Ereignisses der Französischen Revolution. Philosophie und Revolution, Befreiung des Denkens von dogmatischen Vorurteilen und des Handelns von institutionellen Zwängen, theoretische und praktische Transformation lassen sich hierbei nicht trennen, sondern bilden eine komplexe systematische und methodische Einheit, die ihren Ausdruck in allen Teilen von Fichtes Werk findet: von den Hauptwerken der Wissenschaftslehre bis hin zu deren ‚Anwendungen‘ im Feld moralisch-ethischer und politischer Theorie, in Konzepten wie denen des Subjekts und der Handlung, des Rechts, des Staates, der Nation, der Geschichte, der Erziehung oder der Religion. Insofern Fichtes Idealismus sich hiermit als Antwort auf reale Problemlagen politischergeschichtlicher Kämpfe und Auseinandersetzungen deuten lässt, ist ihm deren Erfahrung nicht äußerlich, sondern bestimmt sie sein inneres systematisches Zentrum. Zugleich bleibt Fichte hiermit bei der Revolution als einem abstrakten Ideal der Aufklärung nicht stehen, sondern geht er deren allgemeinem Vernunft-Anspruch in den konkreten geschichtlichen Kontexten und Prozessformen und den mit diesen immanent verbundenen Widersprüchen, Krisen und Herausforderungen auch noch im Spätwerk nach. Die vorliegenden Studien untersuchen diesen Zusammenhang anhand verschiedener Phasen und Fortwirkungen von Fichtes Philosophie und diskutieren deren Relevanz im Blick auf das moderne Verständnis und die kritische Selbstreflexion philosophischen Denkens und politischen Handelns.

In 1923 Hungarian-German philosopher Georg Lukács published his early opus magnum History and Class Consciousness. Being situated at the very intersection of practical issues – vis-à-vis the deep crisis of World War I and in the middle of the revolutionary movements in its aftermath – on the one hand and sophisticated theory on the other hand the book marks an event not only in revolutionary politics – provoking a harsh critique from part of the official communist movement as well as an intensive reception particularly within the trajectories of the political-intellectual life of the 1960s – but also in philosophy. Within what one often, together with Gramsci’s and Korsch’s contemporary projects, refers to as “Hegel-Marxism”, History and Class Consciousness surely is the most systematic conception. The critique of reification – as elucidating the very structure of modern capitalist society and the forms of its thinking – the book centrally elaborates had a profound and prominent impact on the formation of later Critical Theory around Horkheimer and Adorno. Furthermore, one even may read, in some aspects, Heidegger’s Being and Time (1927) as an indirect answer to the challenge of History and Class Consciousness – and, clearly, find its traces in French existentialism around Merleau-Ponty and Sartre. Lukács explicitly articulates History and Class Consciousness, whose ‘over-Hegelianization’ of Marxism he will criticize in his later work himself, as an interpretation of Marxism in the light of post-Kantian German Idealism – mostly of Hegel but also of Schiller, Fichte, or Schelling as well as of post-idealist philosophers rooted in the idealist tradition such as Lask. Whilst the concept of reification often has been discussed in its constellation with Marxist critique of capitalism and with German sociology, particularly in Weber and Simmel, despite the label of ‘Hegel-Marxism,’ the references to Classical German Philosophy still mark an important desideratum in terms both of historical and systematic examinations. Concepts not only such as “reification” but also “totality,” “method,” “dialectics,” “nature,” “(class) consciousness,” “history,” “revolution,” or “subject-object” Lukács extensively applies in his early work, however, cannot be separated from their origin in central systematic problematics of German Idealism. At the very same time, when it comes to contemporary discussions of the reception of Classical German Philosophy, Lukács remains a rather marginal figure despite his important role within post-idealist confrontations with the theoretical and practical impact of idealism and its possible actuality. In a line with this dominant setting, it hardly has been analyzed in detail that Lukács’ interpretation of the entire sequence of post-Kantian idealism starting from the problematic of the “thing-in-itself” (Ding-an-sich) in Kant is a very original and productive one – and it hereby is neglected that, following a semantic hint, “reification” (Verdinglichung) may stand in an internal relation to this very problematic instead of being just a sociological term or the descriptive name of a social pathology. On the occasion of the centennial of the publication, the present collection presents original submissions that aim at filling this gap by examining and discussing History and Class Consciousness’ dialogue with Classical German Philosophy and its aftermath. The contributions focus on this interconnection by dwelling on central concepts in Lukács and Classical German Philosophy and its tradition systematically and by (re-)discovering relevant historical lines of reception. Of particular interest hereby is the potential this configuration has in terms of a critical thinking of – and within – our own present and its ongoing multiple crises and struggles.

“The Urphänomen”—as it says on the drinking glass that Goethe gave Hegel in April 1821—“very humbly begs the Absolute to give it a cordial welcome.” On the one hand, the relationship between Hegel and Goethe (as this present attests) is marked by a deep mutual acknowledgement or even veneration. On the other hand, central concepts in both of their thinking—such as we see in the Goethean Urphänomen or the Hegelian Absolute—demonstrate deep tensions. While Goethe’s Urphänomen emphasizes an immediate intuition of nature, for Hegel’s speculative thinking the mediation of conceptual reflection proves constitutive. These tensions do not, however, negate the significant closeness of their interests: the question of the mediation of the singular, particular, and general, that stands at the center of Hegel’s speculative logic is also continually determinative for Goethe’s poetic production and—both aesthetic and political-ethical—thinking. Thus Goethe writes in conjunction with his completion of the first part of Faust—whose structural and thematic proximity to Hegel’s Phenomenology of the Spirit has been frequently noted—that there are no individuals, who are not related to something general: “All individuals are also general: that is, this one or that one, whichever you wish, is the representative of an entire genre.” And here, for Goethe just as for Hegel, the individual can only become not only a general but also an actual individual when it acts and realizes itself in the concrete fullness of the real world, in order to arrive at itself. Similarly, for both the reality that opens up through this world-relation connected to activity is essentially characterized by contradiction and conflict, by the critical development of reshaping and transformation: the concrete fullness of the universe shapes itself not only for Hegel but also for Goethe only in passing through the “regulated, methodically cultivated spirit of contradiction” as Hegel summarizes the dialectic in conversation with Goethe. Such an inherently contradictory and tension-filled reality thus contains, for both Hegel and Goethe, a focus on the political and social present in the midst of the French Revolution and its consequences: how the upheavals and crises of the Revolution could lead—in the Age of Napoleon—to the founding of a new social order proves to be, for both, a central task of not just theoretical but also practical importance. Both Hegel and Goethe emphatically experience their time as a time of deep contradictions and tensions, characterized by the ongoing transition to a new epoch—modernity—, to an epoch whose outlines are still open and uncertain—and both of them reflect this historical experience in their work. This aspect is not least responsible for the enduring modernity of Hegel and Goethe and it inscribes itself in the leading question (for both) of the conditions and possibilities of classical art in the modern age. The aim of the thematic focus is to college original contributions that investigate and discuss both the commonalities and differences in the relationship between Hegel and Goethe across the field of philosophy, aesthetics, political theory, and their complex interactions. Although many aspects of the relationship between the two thinkers have been thoroughly studied in classical research, the importance and timeliness of the perspectives addressed here still represent a desideratum in both contemporary Hegel and Goethe studies. It is particularly the intriguing connection between philosophical, aesthetic, and socio-political aspects involved in this constellation that deserves a careful reconsideration and re-actualization.

In Hegel’s systematic conception, art (followed by religion and philosophy) constitutes absolute spirit’s first figure in which the absolute presents itself in the immediacy of sensuous intuition. As this first moment, art incorporates and performs the transition from objective spirit – as the totality of the finite conditions and relations of the political-historical world – to absolute spirit’s infinity. In this chapter, this systematic configuration is used to explore the thesis that art can be understood as a critical reflection of and on the ongoing crisis of society and its institutions. The aim is to put forward, by focusing on art, a perspective that takes Hegel’s theory of absolute spirit seriously in its systematic claims and highlights it as a form of social critique.

Die Aufsatzsammlung beschaftigt sich mit den staatstheoretischen Aspekten des Werkes von Georg Lukacs und mit seiner politischen Praxis, die, nach dem Vorbild Lenins, mit der Theorieproduktion in einem bislang meist ubersehenen Zusammenhang stand. Vierzehn Autorinnen und Autoren erortern den Demokratiebegriff, die Beziehung zur Problematik des Souverans und die ethische Dimension in Lukacs' revolutionarer Praxis. Neben der Entwicklung seines Denkens vom anerkannten Kulturphilosophen zum revolutionaren marxistischen Theoretiker wird das Verhaltnis zum deutschen Idealismus, zu Max Weber und Jurgen Habermas thematisiert. Die Gesamtheit der Aufsatze versucht zu zeigen, dass Lukacs als Theoretiker und Praktiker der Politik unser Zeitgenosse ist. Mit Beitragen von Paula Alves, M.A. u Stefan Bollinger u Rudiger Dannemann u Ulisse Doga u Frank Engster u Karl Lauschke u Christian Lotz u Miklos Mesterhazi u Dominik Nagl u Alexander Neupert-Doppler u Michael Rudlof u Gregor Schafer, M.A. u Hans-Ernst Schiller u Mariana Teixeira.

Bereits in seiner Nürnberger Enzyklopädie für die Oberklasse differenziert Hegel im Blick auf sein Konzept von Enzyklopädie programmatisch zwischen einer "gewöhnlichen Enzyklopädie", in der "die Wissenschaften empirisch aufgenommen" werden, "wie sie sich vorfinden", einesteils und einer im eigentlichen Sinne "philosophischen Enzyklopädie" als der "Wissenschaft von dem notwendigen, durch den Begriff bestimmten Zusammenhang" andernteils. Mit dem in Heidelberg und Berlin ausgearbeiteten Programm einer spekulativen Enzyklopädie will Hegel die für die Neuzeit und Moderne kennzeichnende, in ihrer Differenzierung irreduzible Pluralität wissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse in einem genuin reflexiven Modus in ihre "wahre Gestalt" bringen. Jede endliche Erkenntnis hängt in der von ihr vorausgesetzten Übereinstimmung von Objektivität und Subjektivität von einem Begriff von Wahrheit ab, den sie selbst nicht einholen kann. Es ist für Hegel die Aufgabe einer philosophischen Enzyklopädie, diese Übereinstimmung nicht nur dogmatisch zu behaupten, sondern sie geltungstheoretisch in der Genesis und Form spekulativen Wissens einzuholen und so in ihrer, in spezifischem Sinne, enzyklopädischen Systematik darzustellen. Erst in dieser geistesphilosophisch sich verwirklichenden absoluten Selbstreflexion kann die Möglichkeit wissenschaftlichen Wissens und damit die Notwendigkeit der Möglichkeit einer solchen Übereinstimmung (letzt)begründet werden. Es ist Ziel des Beitrags, dieses enzyklopädische Konzept in einigen seiner Aspekte zu umreissen und - etwa gegen den nachhegelschen Einwand einer "bloßen" Spekulation, die sich über die Empirie einzelwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnisse leichtfertig hinwegsetze - auf seine bleibende Tragweite hinzuweisen.

The essay argues for the critical potential inherent in Hegel’s speculative-logical thinking against a dominant strand of reception that separates the conception of objective spirit from the systematic speculative-logical framework. The argument hereby puts forward (i) that such receptions, ultimately, integrate their understanding of Hegel into the existing world and accommodate it to its hegemony; (ii) that an interpretation focusing on the entire speculative- logical framework, on the contrary, implies a critique of the existing world by articulating, within this world, a crisis and the possibility of action and change out of this very crisis.

Schelling calls his later philosophy a ‘philosophy of history’ or a ‘historical philosophy’. This terminology does not designate a separate discipline but rather can be understood as an integral part of what becomes – in late Schelling – positive philosophy. The concept of history as the performative enactment of freedom positive philosophy intends is constitutive for both human and, in a Christian tradition, divine freedom. Against the reduction to a merely negative philosophy, this positive understanding of history includes the possibility of the events of ruptures within history. It thinks historical time not as an empty progress or linear evolution but implies the – specifically – eschatological tendency towards something unprecedentedly new, connecting the present with the past and the future. At the very same time, it is focusing on a place for free human responsibility against the background of a profound crisis as Schelling discerns it as characteristic for modernity. The essay presents some constellations of this historical philosophy and argues for its critical potential.