Gregor Schäfer

Theme and Focus: In the field of social and human sciences, it is currently generally accepted that the processes of secularization Western societies seemed to undergo following a linear trend not only display considerable differences, but appear to be questioned altogether by the resurgence of interest and importance of religious phenomena. In brief, to quote Habermas, we live in ‘postsecular’ societies – and any discourse ignoring the religious elements underpinning political theories, actions and language would fall short of understanding the complexity of the sociopolitical reality we live in. Among the many configurations of the theologico-political tangle, the notion of ‘theocracy’ is striking in its multifaceted – and somewhat internally contradicting – features, lending the side to quasi-opposite readings, usages, interpretations. While on the one hand, ‘theocracy’ might refer to the institutionalised and accepted rule of the priestly class, on the other hand one may use the notion to point to the mystical rulership of God himself. This vagueness – or rather, proneness to opposed appropriations – is symptomatic of a notion that rightly sits at the core of the politico-theological battlefield, a theoretical and/or imaginative space that is increasingly open to contestations. In the course of the 20th century, the problematic of political theology has been raised time and again by a series of notable thinkers. Schmitt’s 1922 seminal namesake essay first reopened the question of political theology framing it in terms of an analogous ‘systematic structure’ between the concepts of modern theory of the state and their theological antecedents, allegedly the basis of a secularisation process (Schmitt, Political Theology, 36). Around the same period – between the end of the First World War and the Nazi rise to power – the relation between two different frames of the politico-theological diptych came under the attention of German-Jewish thinkers such as Bloch, Benjamin, and Buber. While in Bloch’s Spirit of Utopia (149), the articulation between those levels calls for a ‘second truth’, a more substantial yet subjective plan of experience, in Benjamin’s Theologico-political fragment (Selected Writings, vol. 3, 305) one finds it pictured in the oft commented image of the arrow, pointing towards the consummation of history, yet promoting ‘the coming of the Messianic Kingdom’ – a ‘category of its approach’. If it is true that the longing and approximation of the coming of the Kingdom are but one of the most powerful images Bloch summons to present the nature of the utopian spirit, Benjamin seems to recognise in Bloch’s work a firm rejection of the political character of theocracy. Lastly, Buber’s later work Kingship of God, while presenting a historical treatment of the matter, also addresses the problem, raising it from another angle. In what several scholars recognised as an implicit rebuttal of Schmitt’s theses, one finds the distinction between the historical aspects of charismatic rulership – sociologically expounded – and the level exceeding covenant and statute, the level of the pure spiritual χάρις (charis). It is only through opening a communication to this level – the ‘theopolitical’ one – that one fully grasps the poignancy of theocracy and not only its potentially detrimental aspects. The image and idea of a religiously imbued political command, once alien from political debates in the West, has once again become present, raising a new set of problems and questions, at a national and at an international level. Conflicts, uprisings, aggressions are often tinged with religious connotations, either embedding a religious imaginary inside the political discourse, or taking place against the backdrop of a theologically bent narrative. It is in view of this renewed centrally politico-theological tropes that we wish to reopen and resume the discussions kindled by 20th-century thinkers, in the hope of casting some new light on the overall political panorama, questioning its presupposes and foundations. The contributions include these – and related – topics : • What exactly is political theology? Does it have a normative or descriptive character? Is it intrinsically polemical? Is there an atheist political theology? • What is the relation between positive and negative political theology? • How can we define and describe the distinguishing line between the secular and the religious, the profane and the messianic, immanence and transcendence? • Are those categories and dichotomies still useful or do we need to devise new conceptual instruments? If so, which ones? • How and why is it relevant to maintain such a lens to look at the political panorama today? What is instead outdated in these formulations and discussions? • How can we make sense of current theories of secularisation? Is the notion of secularisation still helpful today?

Within the current economic and geopolitical landscape, dominated by widespread crises and wars that are paving the way for a return to what Adorno called “barbarism,” it is becoming increasingly complex for philosophical theory to fulfill its task of grasping the dynamics of the present time in concepts and giving them an objective form. Faced with the worsening living conditions in Western societies and a growing bellicosity in European and global politics, critical discourses and forces appear incapable of interpreting the needs – and of making their forces converge – of those political subjects and collective energies they were traditionally called upon to represent. Instead, it is the tendencies of regression, the re-emergence of authoritarianism, and the corrosion of democracy that seem to be gaining progressively greater and more widespread consensus on a global scale. This trend is also reinforced through cultural life: the appeal to a backward-looking imaginary comes along with an increasing spread of nationalist and racist symbols and concepts. To avoid falling silent in the face of this contradictory universe, theory is confronted with the critical task to focus on the ways the social world can be interpreted and to direct the forces and antagonisms at play towards a critical path, aimed at transforming present conditions. Within this framework, Ernst Bloch’s Heritage of Our Times (Erbschaft dieser Zeit, 1935) can represent a useful starting point not only (1.) for grasping the objective and structural connections of current dynamics in all their differentiations and, in Bloch’s terminology, “non-synchronicity,” Ungleichzeitigkeit, but also (2.) for identifying possible directions for a transformative overturning of their immanent contradictions. In Heritage of Our Times, Bloch investigates the reasons that led to the rise of National Socialism in Germany, identifying the socially and temporally composite nature of the Weimar Republic and its multiple stratified layers of objective “non-synchronicities.” With this concept, as Beat Dietschy emphasizes in the corresponding entry of the Bloch Wörterbuch (Dietschy, Zeilinger, Zimmermann 2012), Bloch summarizes the discontinuous articulations of society in four fundamental directions: (a) in terms of a Marxist analysis, with regard to the different class positions on the economic-structural level; (b) the unequal speed of development between city and countryside, center and marginalized/subaltern areas, between different regions within a single country as well as between nations having different positions in the international division of labor; (c) the heterogeneity of temporal structures in the different spheres of social life (politics, culture, aesthetic and literary representations, etc.); (d) the different levels of consciousness in both its individual and collective dimension. All these objective dissonances, which are reflected on the ideological plane in the intertwining of progressive positions, regressive myths, and ideological remainders from different time phases, were historically appropriated by fascism and stigmatized as irrational by the mainstream of left-wing politics. Bloch’s investigation thus strives to offer clues for a global rethinking of both philosophical theory, culture, and political discourse, capable, on the one hand, of imaging renewed forms of rationality able to do justice to these structural non-simultaneities; and, on the other, of reintegrating these discontinuous dynamics within a theoretical framework that sees both their connection to the logic of capitalistic society and their potential for resistance to it. Whereas the category of Ungleichzeitigkeit could shed light on the structural discontinuities at economic, political, and cultural level both on a national and global scale, concepts such as “heritage,” “montage,” “progress,” or “multiversum” could open up a renovated interpretation of both the historical process and the manifold cultural forms and configurations within it. Ultimately, a reconsideration of Bloch’s intellectual legacy in light of the contemporary situation could unveil the possibility of an intertwining of cultures and worlds that deeply transforms the traditional idea of “universality” while preserving all its inner temporal and spatial richness. In this framework, the contributions of this issue aim at reconsidering Bloch’s thought, and specifically, his 1935’s work Heritage of our Times, in order to open up its productivity for exploring the contradictory and complex phenomena of our present. By determining the genesis and historical phase in which the concept of “non-sinchronicity” was developed, and by rediscovering its origin and evolution within the whole of Bloch’s works, this volume seeks to focus on how Bloch’s categories can be re-interpreted (a) for regaining the connection between the multiple temporal lines that traverse contemporary society and its complex logic; (b) for understanding the cultural and symbolic configurations of our time, by inheriting its hidden emancipative and, in Bloch’s understanding, utopian germs; and (c) for rethinking the ways in which an emancipative theoretical and political discourse can be structured, being capable of developing the transformative trajectories layered in the discontinuous and latent energies immanent to this very society, its ideologies, cultures, arts, and literary forms. Specifically, the contributions in this volume will address the following aspects: 1. They will investigate Bloch’s concepts – such as “non-synchronicity,” “multiversum,” “progress,” and “heritage” – by examining their complex theoretical articulations and questioning their productivity for understanding contemporary contradictory dynamics. 2. They will shed light on the relationship between Bloch’s thought and Marxian critique, emphasizing the moments in which Bloch expands Marx’s framework toward a non-leveling inclusion of the different temporal layers within a society and inherent to different societies on a global scale. 3. They will consider Bloch’s analysis of the cultural formations, mythologies, rituals, and symbols appropriated by historical fascism as well as, more generally, fascist tendencies in historical times of crisis, as well as his attempts to imagine a new montage of concepts, emotions, and images that could open the way to a different future structured by a new collective imagination and utopia.

Strikingly, the Greek word stasis (στάσις) combines two opposite meanings: Whilst, on the one hand, it can be translated as ‘static’ identity and ‘standstill’, on the other, it also is used for ‘civil war’, ‘subversion’, ‘revolution’, and ‘struggle’ within a political body. What, in the configuration hereby at stake, at first sight, seems to be quiet and stable, turns out to be the very opposite: the unsettling dynamics of a permanent destabilization. Bringing together these two aspects, stasis, insofar, is a prominent example for what, in the introduction of his Science of Logic, Hegel describes as the ‘speculative spirit’ of language: although, as Hegel emphasizes, it is completely arbitrary that a specific word, as such, combines two opposite meanings (i.e., although there is no ‘deeper’ historical truth of this etymology), this arbitrary fact, at the same time, indeed performs the process of speculative logic in which the ‘standstill’ of a fixed identity becomes visible as being involved in the dynamics of an ongoing dissolution and disturbance: equally as, along with this dynamics, of the possibility of a real change, of qualitative transformation. Paradigmatically exhibiting the function of other terms that play a central role in Hegel’s philosophy – such as Ver-stand and, last but not least, system (σύστημα) itself, as meaning both the stabilized unity of an organized apparatus of different elements and the engagement of these elements in a fight –, stasis, insofar, embodies the very core of the process of speculative logic itself: as a discursive process that, whilst necessarily presupposing the fixed apparatus of Verstandeslogik, at the same time, through the very immanence and resistance of Verstandeslogik and its static character, transforms it into a new logic, i.e., the logic of qualitative change – both in the logical realm and in the real, historical-political world, in nature and spirit – as which Hegel understands his entire project of a speculative logic. Against this background, the present contribution argues for an interpretation of Hegel’s system – as methodologically articulated by the process of speculative logic – according to which, in Hegel, standstill and transformation should be thought as intrinsically connected. Inscribed in this structure, in Hegel, real change can be actualized only through the resistance of stasis.

In his commentary on Hegel, Subject-Object: Erläuterungen zu Hegel (1951), Ernst Bloch – who certainly is the most prominent philosopher of Utopia in 20th century – criticizes the closed structure of Hegel’s system as the ‘spell of anamnesis’ that makes it impossible to think something really new. At the same time, he describes the structure of Hegel’s system as the simultaneity of the presence and the absence of the whole, the totum: a structure he calls a ‘utopian presence’. Whilst Hegel - as well as Bloch criticize any abstract understanding of Utopia that opposes it to the present world in an external way, according to this interpretation, a utopian structure can be found at the very heart of Hegel’s system. Together with Bloch’s reference to Schelling’s late positive philosophy – as focusing on a drive striving beyond any abstract-identical, un-historical understanding of presence – and together with references to obvious utopian aspects in Kant’s and Fichte’s practical-moral philosophy, German Idealism plays a central systematic role in Bloch’s concept of (concrete) Utopia. Similarly, this constellation allows one to discern Utopia as a systematic – both theoretical and practical – structure present already in German Idealism itself. Although Bloch explicitly refers to these connections, the role of German Idealism as a central historical and systematic source for his concept of Utopia is still widely neglected in research on Bloch – as well as Utopia and its methodologically and systematically constitutive role are still a marginalised topic in research on German Idealism. At a time of crisis such as our present – characterised by its ongoing contradictions, uncertainty, and openness – addressing this question is particularly relevant not only theoretically but also practically. The present volume aims to respond to this desideratum by dwelling on this constellation and discussing its systematic and critical relevance from different perspectives – be it with regard to the epoch of German Idealism itself (particularly in the work of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, but also in that of other figures belonging to this tradition such as Hölderlin) or to the dialogue of post-idealist philosophy with German Idealism (such as – apart from Bloch – in Marxism and Critical Theory). Keywords: Utopia/Concept of Utopia/Utopian Thinking, Classical German Philosophy/German Idealism, Post-Idealist Philosophy, Critical Theory, Philosophical Systems.

The topic of this issue is Hegel’s account of action. To act typically means to realise one’s goals through the exercise of one’s intention – that is, one acts upon reasons that justify one’s action as true and good. If one fails to act, one’s reasons are obstructed – either by external circumstances, such as unfavourable conditions, or byone’s inertia of intelligence, the additional judgement required from the agent to translate one’s intention into concrete action. On this view, action is understood as a predicate of ability: the power to act is conceived independently of its actual conditions. In this light, whether an action is realised becomes irrelevant, since its validity is not empirically verifiable. In other words, if action is understood as mere potentiality – prior to entering into relations with the empirical world – its effects on others, or how they judge it, become entirely irrelevant. The agent, in this sense, retains the authority to insist that, regardless of what one actually does, one’s intention remains perfectly valid. Hegel criticises this model. It may turn out that, in acting from intention, the agent is mistaken. Or even if one’s reasons are sound, the outcome could still be wrong. For instance, helping others may be a valid principle, but the way it is employed could be flawed if those one intends to help are, in fact, hindered or harmed by one’s actions. In other words, knowing that an action conforms to an ability (potentia) is never enough to rule out the possibility that something about it is wrong in the particular situation. That possibility could only be excluded if the content of the action were realised in its concrete exercise – a notion that undermines the very idea of ability as such. Therefore, Hegel insists that action cannot be separated from one’s concrete doing. On Hegel’s terms: the actuality of purpose is the purpose of acting. Because the consequences of action partake within the causality of the action itself, as a result every action is, by its very concept, incongruent with the agent’s prior intention. Hegel’s prominent critique of moral action – as an action that focuses solely on intentions and, insofar as it takes place in the actual form of social and political life, comes into conflict with its consequences – is evidently connected with this structure. If no action can be separated from its actual consequences, then what distinguishes a successful action from a failed one? And if action is mediated by the incongruence between intention and outcome, what does this imply for the “truth” of the entire process of the action? What is – from this perspective – a “wrong” action, what is a “true” action, and how do they relate to each other in understanding the entire process of action? Moreover, if action cannot be free from intention or validated by its outcome, but both of them can be explained only through the whole of its process, how then should we interpret the ethics of Hegel’s philosophy of action (as both a deontological and a utilitarian or pragmatist interpretation would be misleading)? The present issue aims to explore these questions and the nexus of related topics (e.g., virtuous action, political action, historical action) from varied perspectives, all of which stem from the following conceptual tension: for Hegel, action resides in one’s concrete doing – there is no action outside of what one actually does, and in this sense, action cannot be validated by one’s intention in its entirety. Yet this does not mean that its validity depends on its consequences; rather, both intention and outcome are explained in light of knowledge discerned through action. While Hegel’s understanding of action has gained growing interest in recent scholarship, this aspect remains largely overlooked and underdeveloped. Beginning with the Phenomenology of Spirit, traversing through the Science of Logic, and culminating in the Philosophy of Right and the Philosophy of History, this question remains highly relevant for Hegel’s entire practical philosophy. Specifically, this issue aims to explore, among others, the following set of problems as articulated in Hegel’s practical philosophy: - How is practical knowledge related to action, and what grounds this relation? - In what ways do intention and outcome figure within the causality of action, and across different kinds of action (virtuous, political, historical, etc.)? - What is the relation between failed and successful action? Are these distinct or simply different aspects of one and the same concept of action? - How can we distinguish action from the notions of ability, power, or disposition? - Is action independent of, or dependent upon, other competent subjects, and does this imply that it is intersubjective and social in its origin? - What does it mean to concretely exercise action within specific forms of social and political life? Keywords: G.W.F. Hegel, philosophy of action, practical philosophy

Der Band fragt, ob Kritische Theorie heute noch kritisch sein kann, wo sie selbst zur Tradition geworden ist. Im „Prozeß zwischen Kant und Hegel“ (Adorno) wird nach einem Denken gesucht, das die Unvernunft des Wirklichen explizit machen kann, ohne dabei den eigenen Standpunkt als vernünftig affirmieren zu müssen. Die Beiträge sollen der Kritischen Theorie im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kant und Hegel zu einem entsprechend geschärften Selbstverständnis verhelfen. Statt den Schritt von Kant zu Hegel als eindeutigen „Fortschritt“ nachzuvollziehen, gilt es, den „Prozeß“ zwischen Erkenntniskritik und spekulativer Dialektik fortzuführen. Editors: Conrad Mattli, Robert Pfeiffer, Gregor Schäfer Contributors (in alphabetic order): Wacyl Azzouz, Alexandra Colligs, Lasse Hansohm, Leonie Hunter, Axel Hutter, Vladimer Jalagonia, Christian Lotz, Robert Pfeiffer, Frank Ruda, Karen Saavedra, Gregor Schäfer, Slavoj Žižek.

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.

Hegel’s original project of a new, i.e., speculative logic – as presented in his Science of Logic – is situated in a historical moment that witnesses the failure of old, dogmatist metaphysics and the loss of its both theoretical and practical relevance. Confronted with Kant’s critique – as Hegel’s diagnosis of this situation has it –, metaphysics has lost its theoretical foundation as well as, in parallel with that, its roots and being embedded in real life and real needs. By understanding itself as the “actual metaphysics (eigentliche Metaphysik),” Hegel’s speculative logic thereby is performed as a critical transformation of old metaphysics. The absolute, in this configuration, is not any more a pre-given substance or substratum but – logically – conceptualized as absolute idea and absolute method: as the process of a transformation and change that necessarily is not limited to the sphere of Science of Logic but – unleashing an overall process – becomes a driving force in the spheres encompassed by Hegel’s philosophy of reality – of nature and spirit – as well. The present essay puts forward that a Hegelian concept of emancipation should be understood within this setting of a speculative transformation of metaphysics. Becoming a logic of immanent change that replaces old metaphysics, Hegel’s new metaphysics understands the world (as a central concept of cosmology in old metaphysics) as the historical-political world in which emancipation becomes a real possibility and necessity. Instead of being a given substance, the metaphysical absolute – understood as the absolute method’s recursive movement – cannot any more be limited (according to the traditional formula) to a first philosophy (prima philosophia) but rather takes the form of a last philosophy (ultima philosophia): of a metaphysics that is what it is only at the end and as the end of the entire system’s dialectical process. Being the concise name of this liberating process and marking its visibility in the political world, emancipation thereby is a force that is both present in the world and in the multiplicity of its ongoing emancipatory movements and that, at the same time, inscribes in them an “absolute tendency” towards a ‘metaphysical’ conclusion or end as it is articulated, in Hegel’s systematic conception, by absolute spirit’s recursive systematicity. Importantly, in contrast to interpretations of Hegel’s social-political philosophy that, whilst pointing to its critical and emancipatory potential, intend to separate it from its strong ‘metaphysical’ framework – i.e., from the concepts of the absolute idea, absolute method, and absolute spirit, from the form of systematicity –, this systematic understanding of emancipation thereby rather intrinsically depends on these concepts. By transforming old metaphysics in speculative logic, Hegel does not abandon metaphysics. Metaphysics rather becomes – as being embedded in the world and its ongoing struggles and battles for liberation, as an emblematic point of reference of spirit’s work of liberation through world history – a new metaphysics: i.e., a metaphysics of the new, of emancipation. Keywords: Absolute Idea, Absolute Method, Absolute Spirit, Emancipation, Metaphysics, Old vs. New, Speculative Logic.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte presents his writings in two sections: Whilst the Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre), in the sequence of its different elaborations from the early Jena period to the later Berlin period, is the central point of reference in his theoretical philosophy, the works on issues such as his conceptions of nature, anthropology, moral philosophy and ethics, politics, economy, history, or religion – including the exoteric writings addressing the general public such as the Addresses to the German Nation – obviously are part of what one rather would understand as practical philosophy. This external division, however, does not imply that one could separate these two sides in the form of an abstract dualism: It is, on the contrary, rather from the very beginning onward that, in the post-Kantian context, Fichte is concerned with the challenge of how to systematically-methodologically bring together theory and its practical ‘application,’ thinking and acting, ideality and reality. For Fichte, philosophy is not just empirically but intrinsically connected with historical time, i.e., with the present epoch facing, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the beginning of political modernity and its challenges, including all the practical needs and interests inscribed in this present time – hereby articulating, as the title of his philosophy of history prominently has it, The Characteristics of the Present Age. As well as the Doctrine of Science, strictly following the methodological path of its own logic, is characterized by a performative dimension according to which systematic thinking realizes itself, out of the very immanence of its systematicity, as a practical activity engaging ‘our’ own participation, the portions of Fichte’s philosophy that address practical interests cannot be separated from the theoretical foundation. Constituting a complex unity, the two spheres are connected throughout, resulting in an overall structure and process in which theoretical philosophy – precisely as theoretical philosophy – is practical, forced to realize itself, and in which, at the same time, practical philosophy embodies and performs the systematic core of theoretical reflection instead of being its merely external application. The contributions of this collection focuses dwell on the unity of theoretical and practical philosophy in Fichte from various perspectives, addressing topics such as: · The immanently practical, ethical-political character of Fichte’s Doctrine of Science (in any of its elaborations), resp. of his entire systematic conception. · The systematic place and function of Fichte’s conceptions of practical issues such as ethics, politics, or history and the unity and tension between ideality and reality hereby at stake. · Connections between the transcendental structure of philosophy and praxis in Fichte and/or, with a focus on Fichte, in other philosophers. · Fichte’s conceptions of nature, of body and embodiment, of moral and political acting, of history, art, or religion as constitutive links between ideality and reality. · Different aspects of the relationships between idealism and realism in Fichte and, focusing on Fichte, in German Idealism in general. · Fichte’s understanding of the present age as an integral part of his philosophy. · The multiple forms, styles, and modalities Fichte applies in presenting his philosophy and the performative and rhetoric figures of addressing and activating the ‘public’ ( Publikum) as a practical ‘us’ or of personifications such as the ‘vocation of man’ or the ‘scholar’ hereby constitutively involved. · Fichte’s understanding of the specifically performative character of thinking and of acting. · Possible dialogues between Fichte’s philosophy and other philosophers and philosophical conceptions – such as particularly, in German Idealism, Kant, Hegel, and Schelling or, in the post-idealist context, the Marxist, phenomenological, or existentialist traditions – related to the question of the unity of theoretical and practical philosophy. · The critical potential of this overall theme and its possible impact on contemporary discussions and debates.

Marxism understood its relationship to Hegel’s absolute idealism – following re-spective programmatical formulas in Marx, Engels, and Lenin – as the procedure of a materialistic “reversal” (“Umkehrung,” or “Umstülpung”). Taking, however, the complex structure of Hegelian idealism seriously the question arises as to how such a “reversal” – and the separation between system and method hereby implied – is systematically and methodologically possible at all, going beyond a mere meta-phor. Among the philosophically most ambitious projects intending to clarify this question and its theoretical and practical implications is the German Marxist philos-opher’s Hans Heinz Holz (1927-2011). By taking Hegel’s speculative philosophy and its systematic framework – and, along with it, the entire pre-Hegelian tradition of speculative metaphysics – as seriously as, both from part of the Marxist tradition and of non-Marxist philosophy, hardly anyone does, he puts forward that Marxism ultimately remains structurally dependent on Hegel’s entire system and should be understood, based on an elaborated understanding of the “speculative” nature of philosophy, as its “materialistic reading” or “translation.” It is the aim of the present paper to outline and – from a Hegelian perspective – critically discuss the program of this “materialistic reading.” By so doing the paper points to the relevance of this subject not only for Marxism but – as its particular focus – for interpretations of Hegel’s philosophy that are interested both in its strong systematic claims and in its – specific – metaphysical function in terms of our practical-political orientation in the world.

Situated in the constellation of post-Kantian philosophy, Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and Hegel’s absolute idealism certainly belong to the most elaborated systematic conceptions of the epoch of Classical German Philosophy. Marking the bifurcation of two distinctive ways after Kant, up to our very present, Fichte and Hegel are often interpreted as two alternatives between which one would have to choose: Whilst, from a Fichtean perspective, Hegel’s speculative philosophy may be rejected as a metaphysics that disregards the strict criteria of transcendental foundation, from a Hegelian perspective, Fichte’s transcendental idealism may be seen as just a link in the genealogy between Kant and Hegel that, in a limited way, indeed may have its legitimacy, but that, at the same time, also should be overcome at the end. These settings, however, tend to oversee the much more complex ongoing dynamics and possible connections in the tension-filled process between Fichte and Hegel. One thereby should not only take into consideration that Hegel’s critique of Fichte – as outlined starting from Hegel’s Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy (1801) and, as a critique of the Kantian-Fichtean conception of right and morality, the Essay on Natural Law (1802/03) – points to Fichte’s early Jena period. A critical re-evaluation of Fichte’s entire philosophical work, including his later Berlin period – with its more and more relevant emphasis on the terminology of the absolute instead of that of the I’s subjectivity as well as on intersubjectivity – never has taken place from Hegel’s part. It also is worth noting that Fichte’s critique of objective idealism focuses on early Schelling (who, at this time, was accompanied by Hegel). However, from its part as well it has never had the opportunity to criticize Hegel’s mature overall conception, which was developed only after Fichte’s death in 1814. Notwithstanding its rejection of subjective idealism, it is characteristic for Hegel’s absolute idealism that, in it, subjectivity and finitude – as ascribed to Fichte’s position – are not just overcome, but play a constitutive role as a persistent moment without which speculative infinity could not be thought at all. Furthermore, Hegel’s turn towards a speculative logic, with all the differences hereby at stake, indeed shares many motives and concerns with Fichte’s particular conception of transcendental logic as the critique of a merely formal and static logic. And for both of them, in their practical philosophy, the overcoming of a formalist morality towards a concrete material ethics, combined with the systematic relevance of a philosophy of history, becomes more and more central after 1800. Even if a closer reading of this consellation, finally, must re-confirm a profound difference between the two conceptions – of Hegel’s speculative logic and ethical conception on the one hand, of Fichte’s transcendental philosophy and the pertinent role of the moral ‘Ought’ and a more utopian dimension in his practical philosophy (as harshly criticized by Hegel) on the other hand –, it surely can provide a much more specified, subtle, and complex picture. According to this, Fichte and Hegel may not that much operate as the representatives of two fix positions but rather as the participants of an ongoing dynamic project – constitutive for the entire epoch of Classical German Philosophy and the common problems and questions it faces – full of tensions, convergences, and possible bridges. Against this background, the present special issue of the journal Fichte-Studien focuses on approaches that critically re-examine the connections between Fichte and Hegel both in their differences and in their similarities and possible dialogues - including topics such as: - Re-examinations of Fichte’s and Hegel’s overall systematic conceptions and frameworks of transcendental idealism/logic and speculative idealism/logic as well as of the differences and/or similarities between specific portions and concepts in them – such as (transcendental/logical) subjectivity, the status of the absolute and the idea (resp. ideality) in both conceptions, or the understanding of system/systematicity, method, nature, or religion. - Re-examinations of the status of reality/the real in both conceptions, resp. of the relationships between idealism and realism at stake. - Comparisons between Fichte’s and Hegel’s practical philosophy with regard to their, in each case, constitutive systematic functions – i.e., the fundamental role of praxis – and both to their differences and common interests – such as the status of morality, ethics, practical reason, and ideality, the struggle for a material ethics and a philosophy of history in its systematic relevance, or the concerns with other practical issues such as the French Revolution and its contradictory process and global impacts (including, particularly, its impacts on Germany), economy, political acting/subjectivation, or the problem of war and peace. - Settings that relate the process between Fichte and Hegel to other important figures of Classical German Philosophy – such as Kant, Schelling, or Jacobi. - Propositions for how we should deal with the constellation between Fichte and Hegel with regard to our own present – both in its theoretical and practical debates and challenges – and for what actually could be the critical potential and relevance of this constellation.

In spite of Kant’s rigorous critique of the Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics, questions about the systematical role central configurations of Leibniz’ philosophy play not only in early Kant but also in the idealist systems of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling cannot be neglected. What connections can be traced, e.g., between Leibniz’ Monadology on the one hand and Fichte’s Doctrine of Science, Schelling’s conception of a philosophy of nature, Hegel’s speculative logic, or the overall idealist claim for systematicity on the other hand? And what continuities can be identified between the metaphysical-theological problem of a theodicy and the philosophies of religion and history in German Idealism? What common issues can be found between Leibniz’ search for an encyclopedic philosophy and Hegel’s project of an Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences? In what respect are Leibniz’ – also politically relevant – conceptions of perspectivity and of an ontologically founded reflexivity and (inter-) subjectivity present in central configurations of German Idealism? Keynotes: G.W. Leibniz, J.G. Fichte, G.W.F. Hegel, I. Kant, F.W.J. Schelling; Classical German Philosophy / German Idealism, Metaphysics, Monadology, Philosophy of the 18th Century, Rationalism, System.