The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism

Comprehensive and incisive, with three new chapters, this updated edition sees world-renowned scholars explore a rich and complex philosophical movement.

Karl Ameriks (Edited by)

9781107147843, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 August 2017

432 pages, 1 map
23.4 x 15.5 x 3 cm, 0.72 kg

'Each of the already strong existing essays has been updated to reflect the most recent scholarship in the growing field of German idealism and early German Romanticism. The historical arc is most impressive, from Kant and Hegel to often-neglected figures such as Hamann, Herder, Hölderlin, Jacobi, Maimon, Novalis, Reinhold, and Schopenhauer. Ameriks's collection is indispensable for all scholars of the period.' E. Millán, Choice

This updated edition offers a comprehensive, penetrating, and informative guide to what is regarded as the classical period of German philosophy. Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling are all discussed in detail, along with contemporaries such as Hölderlin, Novalis, and Schopenhauer, whose influence was considerable but whose work is less well known in the English-speaking world. Leading scholars trace and explore the unifying themes of German Idealism and discuss its relationship to Romanticism, the Enlightenment, and the culture of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe. This second edition offers an updated bibliography and includes three entirely new chapters, which address aesthetic reflection and human nature, the chemical revolution after Kant, and organism and system in German Idealism. The result is an illuminating overview of a rich and complex philosophical movement, and will appeal to a wide range of interested readers in philosophy, literature, theology, German studies, and the history of ideas.

Introduction: interpreting German Idealism Karl Ameriks
1. The Enlightenment and idealism Frederick Beiser
2. Absolute idealism and the rejection of Kantian dualism Paul Guyer
3. Kant's practical philosophy Allen W. Wood
4. Aesthetic reflection and human nature: the Kantian thread in Early German Romanticism Jane Kneller
5. The aesthetic holism of Hamann, Herder, and Schiller Daniel O. Dahlstrom
6. All or nothing: systematicity and nihilism in Jacobi, Reinhold, and Maimon Paul Franks
7. The early philosophy of Fichte and Schelling Rolf-Peter Horstmann
8. Philosophy and the Chemical Revolution after Kant Michela Massimi
9. Hölderlin and Novalis Charles Larmore
10. Hegel's Phenomenology and Logic: an overview Terry Pinkard
11. Hegel's practical philosophy: the realization of freedom Robert Pippin
12. Organism and System in German Idealism Rachel Zuckert
13. German realism: the self-limitation of idealist thinking in Fichte, Schelling, and Schopenhauer Günter Zölle
14. Politics and the New Mythology: the turn to Late Romanticism Dieter Sturma
15. German Idealism and the arts Andrew Bowie
16. The legacy of idealism in the philosophy of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard Karl Ameriks.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Western philosophy: Enlightenment [HPCD1], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD], History of Western philosophy [HPC]