Elizabeth Millan Brusslan

This chapter details Goethe’s influence on the development of early German Romantic philosophy. It explores some of the reasons why Goethe became a leading literary influence on early German Romantic philosophy. The unique literary style of the early German Romantics is presented; in particular, their fusion of literary and philosophical approaches to central philosophical issues is explored. The modern spirit that unified Goethe and Schlegel is presented as the motivation for Schlegel’s turn to Goethe’s work. Finally, Schlegel’s analysis of _Wilhelm Meister_ is presented as a Romantic ideal of art.

This book addresses the philosophical reception of early German Romanticism and offers the first in-depth study in English of the movement's most important philosopher, Friedrich Schlegel, presenting his philosophy against the background of the controversies that shaped its emergence. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert begins by distinguishing early German Romanticism from classical German Idealism, under which it has all too often been subsumed, and then explores Schlegel's romantic philosophy (and his rejection of first principles) by showing how he responded to three central figures of the post-Kantian period in Germany—Jacobi, Reinhold, and Fichte—as well as to Kant himself. She concludes with a comprehensive critique of the aesthetic and epistemological consequences of Schlegel's thought, with special attention paid to his use of irony.

_Argues that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers._ This book brings the history of Latin American philosophy to an English-speaking audience through the prominent voices of Mauricio Beuchot, Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg, María Luisa Femenías, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Oscar R. Martí, León Olivé, Carlos Pereda, and Eduardo Rabossi. They argue that Spanish is not a philosophically irrelevant language and that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers. Part I of the book looks at why the history of philosophy has not developed in Latin America. A range of theoretical issues are explored, each focusing on specific problems that have hindered the development of a solid history. Part II details the complex task of writing a history of philosophy for a region still haunted by the specter of colonialism.

Goethe and Friedrich Schiller stand together immortalised in Ernst Rietschel's statue at the centre of Weimar. In their lifetime, Goethe and Schiller shaped the culture of German-speaking lands, not only through their poetry, plays, and novels, but also in their role as editors of journals that helped to set the intellectual tone of the period. Schiller's journalDie Horen and Goethe'sPropyläen, although short-lived, were important literary vehicles of the period and provided a forum that brought scientists, historians, philosophers, and poets into conversation with one another. The late 1700s and early 1800s were years of intense intellectual development in Germanspeaking lands; the arts flourished and aesthetics developed as a serious branch of philosophy.During the ‘Age of Goethe and Schiller’, philosophy was dominated by Kant's philosophy and its post-Kantian variations. A problem with traditional philosophical histories of this period is the overwhelmingly Hegelian reading of it, a reading that subsumes all of the so-called minor figures under the shadows of the great system builder, Hegel. Richard Kroner's influentialVon Kant bis Hegelof 1921 set the tone for this reading. Silenced by such narratives are the voices of the early German Romantics, a group of thinkers whose impudence created problems for them, and whose work posed hermeneutical challenges that continue to plague a proper understanding of the movement and the worth of its contributions. As we shall see, Hegel himself began to prepare the ground for a history of philosophy that would dismiss the contributions of the early German Romantics, a dismissal that is unfair and unfortunate: unfair because it is based on false characterisations of the movement, and unfortunate because such misreadings lead us to overlook the wealth of insights offered by the early German Romantics.

Millán Brusslan focuses upon “Life Force or the Rhodian Genius: A Tale,” an essay Humboldt wrote for Schiller’s journal, Die Horen, to demonstrate that both thinkers are propelled by a life force (Lebenskraft) to the aesthetic realm. In Concerning the Sublime (1801), Schiller’s presentation of nature takes place as the limits of our cognitive faculties (the powers of apprehension) are balanced with that which is beyond mastery, taking us to the realm of freedom, where the ideas of the sublime and of beauty find their home. Millán Brusslan argues that Schiller and Humboldt define this home for beauty and the sublime in distinct ways. Humboldt’s realm of freedom is nature itself, whereas Schiller’s idea of freedom is rooted in the human subject, a subject which eclipses nature.

The guiding metaphor of Tuttle's study is borrowed from one of Ortega's uncompleted works and is intended as a contribution to his unfinished philosophical project. It is, then, devoted to an analysis of what it means to think human life as historical existence and to develop a thought-form adequate to this new Being. The thought of Wilhelm Dilthey, Martin Heidegger and Jose Ortega y Gasset is the context within which Tuttle carries out his philosophical delineation and critical analysis of historicality. This structure gives us an illuminating view of historicality as well as fresh insight into the unique project of each philosopher. The book is divided into three parts: "Wilhelm Dilthey and the Historicality of Human Life," "Martin Heidegger's Reformulation of Human Life and Historicality", and "Ortega y Gasset's Reaffirmation of Human Life and Historicality." Tuttle admirably presents the complex thought of these figures in a clear way, fusing good intellectual history with rigorous philosophical analysis.

In this study I have presented Early-German Romanticism as a philosophical movement and Friedrich Schlegel as its major philsopher. The central philosophical problem which concerned this movement was the problem of philosophy's beginning. Schlegel's skeptical view led him to reject both Reinhold's foundationalism and Jacobi's irrationalism. This skeptical position distinguishes Early-German Romanticism from Fichte's idealism. ;Schlegel's rejection of Fichte's solution to the problem of philosophy's beginning led to a unique solution: the Wechselerweis. This involves the claim that philosophy cannot begin with any single principle, but only with the interaction between at least two principles. This interactive model involves an ever-changing dialogue between the knowing subject and the world. For Schlegel, philosophy cannot be understood without an understanding of change. Therefore, history becomes a central part of the activity of philosophizing. According to Schlegel's view, philosophy never begins with a point of absolute certainty but always in the middle