Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Michael Inwood (Editor), Bernard Bosanquet (Translator)

Librarian note: an alternate cover for this edition can be found here.

For Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), art almost ranked with religion and philosophy in its power to reveal the fundamental nature of existence. But although he lived in the German golden age of Goethe, Schiller and Mozart, he also believed that art was in terminal decline.

To resolve this apparent paradox, as Michael Inwood explains in his incisive Introduction, we must understand the particular place of aesthetics in Hegel's vast intellectual edifice. Its central pillars consist of logic, philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit. Art derives its value from offering a sensory vision of the God-like absolute, from its harmonious fusion of form and content, and from summing up the world-view of an age such as Homer's. While it scaled supreme heights in ancient Greece, Hegel doubted art's ability to encompass Christian belief or the reflective irony characteristic of modern societies. Many such challenging ideas are developed in this superb treatise; it counts among the most stimulating works of a master thinker.

Table of Contents
Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics Introduction A Note on the Translation and Commentary
INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON AESTHETICS

Chapter I: The Range of Aesthetic Defined, and Some Objections against the Philosophy of Art Refuted
[α Aesthetic confined to Beauty of Art
β Does Art merit Scientific Treatment?
γ Is Scientific Treatment appropriate to Art?
δ Answer to β
ε Answer to γ]

Chapter II: Methods of Science Applicable to Beauty and Art
[1. Empirical Method - Art-scholarship
(a) Its Range
(b) It generates Rules and Theories
(c) The Rights of Genius
2. Abstract Reflection
3. The Philosophical Conception of Artistic Beauty, general notion of]

Chapter III: The Conception of Artistic Beauty
Part I - The Work of Art as Made and as Sensuous
1. Work of Art as Product of Human Activity
[(a) Conscious Production by Rule
(b) Artistic Inspiration
(c) Dignity of Production by Man
(d) Man's Need to produce Works of Art]
2. Work of Art as addressed to Man's Sense
[(a) Object of Art - Pleasant Feeling?
(b) Feeling of Beauty - Taste
(c) Art-scholarship
(d) Profounder Consequences of Sensuous Nature of Art
(α) Relations of the Sensuous to the Mind
(αα) Desire
(ββ) Theory
(γγ) Sensuous as Symbol of Spiritual
(β) The Sensuous Element, how Present in the Artist
(γ) The Content of Art Sensuous]

Part II - The End of Art
3. [The Interest or End of Art
(a) Imitation of Nature?
(α) Mere Repetition of Nature is -
(αα) Superfluous
(ββ) Imperfect
(γγ) Amusing Merely as Sleight of Hand
(β) What is Good to Imitate?
(γ) Some Arts cannot be called Imitative
(b) Humani nihil - ?
(c) Mitigation of the Passions?
(α) How Art mitigates the Passions
(β) How Art purifies the Passions
(αα) It must have a Worthy Content
(ββ) But ought not to be Didactic
(γγ) Nor explicitly addressed to a Moral Purpose
(d) Art has its own Purpose as Revelation of Truth]

Chapter IV: Historical Deducation of the True Idea of Art in Modern Philosophy
1. Kant
[(a) Pleasure in Beauty not Appetitive
(b) Pleasure in Beauty Universal
(c) The Beautiful in its Teleological Aspect
(d) Delight in the Beautiful necessary though felt]
2. Schiller, Winckelmann, Schelling
3. The Irony

Chapter V: Division of the Subject
[1. The Condition of Artistic Presentation is the Correspondence of Matter and Plastic Form
2. Part I - The Ideal
3. Part II - The Types of Art
(α) Symbolic Art
(β) Classical Art
(γ) Romantic Art
4. Part III - The Several Arts
(α) Architecture
(β) Sculpture
(γ) Romantic Art, comprising
(i) Painting
(ii) Music
(iii) Poetry
5. Conclusion]

Commentary

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Nonfiction, Classics, German Literature, Theory, Art History

197 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2004

About the author

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) was a German philosopher and one of the founding figures of German Idealism. Influenced by Kant's transcendental idealism and Rousseau's politics, Hegel formulated an elaborate system of historical development of ethics, government, and religion through the dialectical unfolding of the Absolute. Hegel was one of the most well-known historicist philosopher, and his thought presaged continental philosophy, including postmodernism. His system was inverted into a materialist ideology by Karl Marx, originally a member of the Young Hegelian faction.

Reviews

[W.D. Clarke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Victorian art critic Walter Pater said that all art aspires to the condition of music. With GWF Hegel, on the other hand, one might say that all of the arts aspire to the condition of poetry, and that all poetry aspires to the Idea of the Beautiful… a-a-and that the Beautiful is but a stepping stone along the way of Geist (Mind or Spirit or both) as it reveals itself to itself, and uses art, religion and philosophy to do so.

It's all a big hierarchy, leading from the "Symbolic" arts of ancient peoples (reaching its apotheosis in architecture) to the "Classical" art of Hellenic sculpture and then to the "Romantic" arts of western European modernity: painting, music and poetry. But Hegel sees us as having passed out of the period of art's highest flowering and into a period more amenable to the reflection upon the meaning of art: art transcends itself by giving way to religion and philosophy, and after taking us part of the way to the Ideal it passes the baton to that which can complete the journey.

5*, then, not cos I agree with the Man, but because you hafta admire a work that sets out to do a thing, and then does it in high style. (OK, not a lot of actual style per se, perhaps, but with the inexhaustible thoroughness and rigor of the truly obsessed). But Hegel is just dipping a toe into the Vastness in this brief volume, en route to the voluminous sea of the Aesthetics (that I shall be bypassing for now), and I am but remarking here, on the appearance of his baby toenail as, all too briefly, it passed in front of my less than 20-20 vision.

One would really have to go back and read Kant's Critique of Judgement and Schiller's Aesthetic Education to really get this (though the exhaustive, lengthy endnotes to this addition try to help, they do presuppose more background than I currently possess)--and then, of course, you'd want to go on to the two-volume Aesthetics proper, and I hope that one day I shall have the leisure to do so.

Update: 2025-02-13
Backing up my reading notes and reviews in case I do something silly like delete all my Meta-Google-Bezos accounts (trust me, if so, GR will be the very last one to go, it being the only one I actively enjoy), and I found this already in my notes, but not here...enjoy?

What follows is not even a synopsis, perhaps approaching a kind of preliminary gleaning:

Ch 1.
Spirit is higher than nature, and art is an expression of spirit, and therefore nature's beauty is of less import than art's. Art is not about merely appealing to the senses, but doing so in the service of revealing divine spiritual truths to consciousness, of reconciling the rift between spirit and matter, the finite and the infinite. Without spiritual significance there would be no value to what the senses provide. Art, like Mind itself has progressed through history, and in the modern era has turned inward to what is most spiritual in Man.

Ch 2.
Two approaches to the study of art have traditionally been attempted: the theoretical and the historical. Past theories of art were limited by abstracting from the relatively smaller numbers of particular art works in existence in the past, but still have some relevance today (and Hegel glances at a couple German thinkers, Hirst and Meyer), though none have yet come close to showing how Beauty is the reconciliation of two drives: the drive to create sensuous unity out of a mass of particulars, and the drive of the human spirit to fully express some truth of "metaphysical universality".

Ch3.
Art is created by humans for humans, with some end or purpose that has meaning. It is neither mere nature nor merely some technique or craft. That said, there are rules and techniques which must accompany the expression of the artist's inner impulse. Above all, though Man desires to bring together the external and inner worlds into a pleasing whole that expresses our deepest and highest spiritual truths (this is shown in a discussion of Schiller and Goether, in which Hegel maintains that their talent was brought to fulfilment by practice, reflection, and maturity). The notion that art exists to provoke feeling in an audience is both true and limited, as art finds its fulfillment in ideas, and in these then being grasped by the Mind. Art is also hardly the mere imitation of nature, and making it subservient to some ulterior aim (taming the passions, didactically educating them), debases it. Art, rather,

The universal need for expression in art lies, therefore, in man’s rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into a spiritual a corresponding way realizes this his explicit self without….

(That short passage, btw, contained no fewer than six footnotes: Hegel's terminology is triply difficult, in that (1) he is responding to contemporaries and near contemporaries in terms that they used (2) he makes fine distinctions in meaning often not borne by common-sense definitions/literal translations and (3) is fond of word-play and punning like, say, Derrida). Art thus neither imitates nature, merely displays the range of human emotions, nor has a purpose ulterior to itself. Art's end is to reconcile in itself the opposites of spirit and matter in a harmonious way that reveals and resolves the contradictions of existence.

Ch4.
Hegel looks at Kant's arguments from his three major works and critiques them: I found this monumentally difficult to follow!

Ch5. Well, I did read it.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read this multiple times, I am always blown away by the clarity and force of the argumentation. This is the introduction to the must larger, multi-volume lectures on fine art. It provides a very interesting examination of the key parts of the larger work, and of particular interest are Hegel's discussion on how art is to be treated and his arguments for objectivism.

[Vampyre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shit.

[Arya · Rating 5 out of 5]

hegel ily

[Whitney Borup · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Hegel. He's a nice breath of fresh air after Kant's prose. But I don't buy this idea of history being progressive. We continually repeat past mistakes (both literally and intellectually) so we need reminders through art. I think. But I'm no Hegel.

[Mai · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of those books that makes me want to cry.

[David Withun · Rating 3 out of 5]

-

[Andrew Fairweather]

An absolutely fascinating introduction to his own larger two volume work on Aesthetics. For Hegel, the study of aesthetics is the study of the ways in which our productive energies have sought to “escape wholly from the fetters of rule and regularity." For Hegel, the study of art is none other than the study of the rational impulse which enables humankind to recognize their own consciousness as an object. This has varied from age to age (the symbolic, classical, and romantic, according to Hegel) so the character of the arts as it is present in their moment reflect the way in which the moment has achieved vivification from the “shadowland of the idea” or from natural necessity, satisfying a need for spiritual freedom.

In this way, art objects are unique as they are freed from the appetite of desire which would sacrifice the object for the sake of the perceivers own self-satisfaction, enabling the art object to subsist in freedom. Unlike other objects, the relationship to the art object is not utilitive or consumable, but uniquely theoretical insofar as the viewer aims to become “acquainted with them in their universality, [finding] their inner being and law, and conceiving them in terms of their notion." Similar to themes in the Phenomenology, Hegel says that in desiring, we are not able to separate ourselves from ourselves from our own determinateness—the consumption of objects requires only an unreflective subjectivity which takes the object for granted as for-us. Following this, art is a self-postulation of our own person which allows us to gain an awareness of ourselves as a universal, creating an ideal relationship which inspires a recognition of that which is external to him. Art is the only realm where objects are created to directly address the mind, the “spiritual appearing in sensuous shape.” It softens the savagery of desire which takes the world for granted, defacing the contradiction between the subject and object, bringing us in reconciliation with the world.

Beauty lies at the heart of this project. But what is at stake is not beauty as a simple idea, some concept identical to itself. Hegel understands beauty (and any notion, really) as capable of containing a manifold of sides which vary in emphasis from author to author, age to age. What is common to this manifold are the art object’s relationship to the way the movement of Spirit is manifest in it. In this way, what the artist produces is divine since it is only through artistic production that the idea of the Spirit is explicitly reduplicated and able to realize itself. This is another way of saying that this sort of production is not tied to necessity (which is probably why art is always commonly considered to be “useless”).

As this is an introduction, at this point Hegel only hints that the divinity of art is no longer observed in the modern world, and that art no longer satisfies “our supreme need” in the way it used to. So much for this idea—I have still not sussed out this major point of Hegel’s aesthetic theory… but this irresolution will probably clear up on its own, should I choose to read his two volumes dedicated to the subject. Hegel does, however, make a few excellent comments on irony in art (which was apparently prevalent in his day, as it is in ours) and its “perverse tendency” towards maintaining a relative cynicism towards the world, thus erasing the divine and noble in art. Hegel describes ironists as wielding a “Gold-like geniality,"detached from the world as a creator surrounded by dead matter which does not speak to him, looking down in superiority at all mankind. The ironist concentrates the I into itself and lives only for simple self-enjoyment. On the futility of the ironic standpoint, the following quote is an absolutely brilliant illustration of the deadlock achieved in irony. Note the use of the term “morbid saintliness":


“Out of this there arises misfortune and antinomy, in that the subject desires to penetrate into truth and has a craving for objectivity, but yet is unable to abandon its isolation and retirement into itself, and to strip itself free of this unsatisfied abstract inwardness (of mind), and so has a seizure of sickly yearning […] the discontent of this quiescence and feebleness—which does not like to act or to touch anything for fear of surrendering its inward harmony, and for all its craving after the absolute, remains none the less unreal and empty, even though pure in itself—is the source of morbid saintliness [WOW] and yearning. For a true saintly soul acts and is a reality. But all that craving is the feeling of nullity of the empty futile subject or person, which lacks the strength to escape its futility, and to fill itself with something of substantial value.”


If art is dead, surely this has something to do with it!

The last chapter (V) of the book introduces us to the main categories of art which will make up Hegel’s Aesthetics. There are three phases of artistic expression which attempt to realize the idea of beauty (as spiritual freedom) itself:

The first phase is the Symbolic, which finds its home in the architectural art form. Architecture is a crystallization of the symmetry of the mind. The symbolic as architecture clears a space for God, creating an enclosure which protects inhabitants from the necessity of nature and the elements. The architectural purifies the external world, placing a symmetry on it which reflects that of the mind. In the symbolic the idea behind the manifestation of the expression in reality remains foreign to and greater than the expression, thus resulting in exaggeration and distortions of natural shapes which attempt to "exalt the phenomenon to the level of the idea.” In this way, the phenomenon of expression and the idea expressed are unsuitable to one another—its aesthetic in its grotesqueness or abstraction is an expression of this incongruity of the idea with the phenomenon. A sublime current runs through these works of art in all its “aspiration, disquiet, and mystery.”

The next phase is the classical, which establishes the ideal as a concrete, realized fact. Within this temple of the mind in the aforementioned symbolic phase occur the sculptural arts. Sculpture is the “organic modeling of the material in its sensuous and spacial totality,” or, the unity of the idea with the external world. Sculpture within the perfect symmetry of the symbolic temple will no longer adhere to simple symmetry, but contain the “lightening-flash of individuality” as Hegel phrases it. In this way the classical phase unites the ideal with its bodily form and is thus at peace with itself, freed from passion and exaggeration. Nature is strained through an object where the expression is adequate to the content of the idea itself. In the classical, there are no pretensions of reaching into another world, but that the union of idea and reality is meant to reach completion. On the one hand, this phase then is the highest phase of which the sensuous embodiment of art is capable… but of course, in Hegel, whenever something is realized in its “highest” form, it is also encountering its limitations. The defect of the classical phase is revealed insofar as the classical phase remains contingent upon realizing itself in physical space and remains limited in its ability to express the inwardness of the subject (or the infinite subjectivity of the idea) as a result.

This deficiency of the classical phase brings us to the romantic phase—this phase entails the attainment of self-knowledge and inward intelligence, and finds its home in painting and music. Painting is a liberation from space and can account for a diversity of material, and is therefore able to exhibit even the most particular moments in all their particularity. Yet, it is music that is the center of the romantic phase, since it is a further refinement of this liberation from the necessities of natural phenomena, allowing a greater expression of mental inwardness. Poetry is the third romantic art form, which unites the free play of the sonorous expression in music with the concreteness of the sign, determining content for its own say into the shape of ideas. Poetry “depress[es the external medium] into complete insignificance.” Hegel’s understands poetry as the highest form of art since it is in this form that art transcends itself. In summary, the romantic phase enables the object of art as free to represent the inwardness of spirit and feeling, unchained from conforming to the outer world. Romantic art is meant to express a freedom linked to the play of the imagination (it seems to me). Standing against the symbolic temple and the bodily form of the ideal of God as manifest in sculpture, we have the community—the unity of the community, integral to the romantic phase, is not realized bodily like God in sculpture, but is purely ideal. Think—the ideal of the nation.

Yet, a contradiction remains—this premium on inward feeling is deficient as well since art as an expression requires concrete form. In the romantic phase the concrete expression is “fugitive” and unable (unlike the classical phase) to reach true reality except as an idea in itself. The romantic is similar to the symbolic phase in the distortion and exaggeration of the manifestation, except that the symbolic phase lacked the anxiety towards its concrete expression.

There’s an interesting comment towards the end of this book which asserts that poetry and its imagination bulges into the “prose of thought.” Not much is said about this development from poetry to prose. Again, maybe he gets to this in the following volumes...

On the whole, I loved reading this introduction and I hope I’ve got the stomach for Hegel’s entire ‘Aesthetics’!

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

Metaphysical discussion from German philosophers are often frustrating. The text is often full of digression-within-exception-trapped-inside-vagueness. It seems designed to unwelcome all but the most diehard fans. This is not that different and contains some very metaphysical discussion on art. The commentary in this particular book (which runs longer than the translation itself) is quite helpful in paraphrasing the main point using laymen’s language; pointing out logic problems of many arguments; and foot-noting the various translation issues (e.g., words that do not have an easy corresponding ones in English). The five chapters roughly expound the following. Any correction and/or elaboration are welcome.

1. “The range of aesthetics defined”: Art is good, at least better than vice, but can you treat it with science? (Yes). Are can have a higher reality, a more genuine existence than existence in common life. But of course only a certain circle or grade of truth can be represented by art.
2. “Method of science applicable to art”: Two ways of treating art: (1) specifics; (2) generalities (e.g., the nature of beauty). I think he’s arguing we need both, but it was very hard to follow.
3. “The conception of artistic beauty”: The “Idee” is what art attempts to express. What is the end or purpose of art. (1) imitation of nature (which is superfluous according to Hegel) but dominant in early cultures. (2) to bring feeling, inspiration & reflection (p 51, 52). (3) reflection begets moral teaching. ”Art has the vocation of revealing *the truth* in the form of sensuous artistic shape … and therefore has its purpose in itself.”
4. “Historical deduction”: Some summary of Kant etc.
5. “Division of subject”: Some argument that b/c art is about the abstract “Idea”, but art cannot grasp that “Idea” completely, at least at the beginning, hence there were different aspects or types of art (e.g., symbolism, classicism, romanticism).

[Ali Jones Alkazemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hegel's introduction to the philosophy of aesthetics also gives a good overview of his general logic of philosophy. I was especially impressed by the translator's work of giving great commentary in case of confusion, which is great for those not too familiar with Hegel's philosophy.
The most beautiful thing about this text is the clear structure in art as the introducing force of opening up for societal conceptualization and spiritual growth. His Aristotelian reading is very clear here when he describes the different levels of conceptual growth through art and the relation between form and content in the artistic production.
Great book, will be read again.

[ℰℋ ʍҽìʂէҽɾ кonstantin · Rating 4 out of 5]

G.W.F. Hegels Ästhetik des Rhythmus im Faust [1808] J.W. Goethes in Moment-Aufnahmen der Szene ‚Vor dem Tor‘ (VV.808-1177)

Vielerorts[1] wird, wenn es daran geht, Hegels Philosophie in ihren faustischen Quellen und Manifestationen zu überführen, auf ein umfassendes Strukturprinzip Rekurs genommen, bei der vornehmlich die Phänomenologie des Geistes [1807] zur Durchmusterung beider Texte herangezogen, die Makro-Struktur also systematisch gegen die Mikro-Struktur ausgespielt wird und Zugänglichkeit zu auf dieser Ebene operierenden, textimmanenteren Evidenzen erschwert – wiewohl Hegel solche sehr konkret hinter die dortige Einlassung zum Rhythmus platziert–, sodass ebendieses Instrumentarium in seiner analytischen, dramentheoretischen Tragweite unterschätzt wird bzw. gänzlich ungenutzt bleibt.

Vorliegender Essay möchte dieser Unwucht entgegenwirken, indem er drei aufeinander aufbauende Szenenabschnitte aus Faust[2] mit der Anlage ebendieser Verweisstruktur parallelisiert, also konkret in den Redeteilen der Figuren, die in wörtlichen, situativ urgenten Reaktionen auf den volkstümlichen Ton Hegels Verdacht aufscheinen lassen, der Poesie mangele es an Takt, dafür nicht an Sinn, und in der Musik verhielte es sich vice versa[3] – den inferioren musikalischen Spielraum poetisch superior buchstäblich erst in Szene setzen, mit (1) dem fiedelnden Bettler (VV.852-59), (2) den singenden Soldaten (VV.884-902) und (3) dem das summativ-monologisierenden Faust (VV.903-40). Die Verarbeitungen dieses Spannungsgefüges, in welchem Wagner ebendies statuiert[4] und Faust, ihn als Akzent inkludierend, demgegenüber versucht, eine Mittelstellung einzunehmen, die das sinnvernichtend Musikalische, den Takt, und das taktvernichtend Poetische, den Sinn, erhält, und dann „als eine Harmonie hervorgeht“[5], der Schöne denn auch folgerichtig eine besondere Rhythmik attestiert[6].

Mit diesem auf Figurenrede zentrierten Kernelement ergibt sich, wie oben mit den unterstrichenen Begriffen durchdekliniert, ein binäres Untersuchungsraster [s. Tab. 1], dazu ein Arsenal dazu orthogonal stehender, damit interagierender, rhythmusverleihender Binde- & Trennmittel [s. Tab. 2][7], mit welchem der graduelle Übergang mit Fließrichtung: Musik → Poesie durchsichtig wird, der, und hier stütze ich Hegels Verdacht[8], eine Komplexitätszunahme durch inklusive, interne Rekombinationsmöglichkeiten bedeutet. Mit anderen Worten: Das poetische Werk kann sich gestatten, für einige Verse lang auch Musik zu sein, was umgekehrt, eventuell noch in Operette und Musical statthaft, die oftmals mit schmuckloser Poesie liedlose Szenen überbrücken, nicht die Regel ist.

Tabelle 1: grundlegende Binäroppositionen der Versifikation (eigene Darstellung)

Musik: Poesie:
Takt (= außen stabil) Sinn (= innen stabil)
Ton Wort

Tabelle 2: Mittel der Rhythmusgestaltung (eigene Darstellung)

Rhythmus:
Zeitmaß Belebung Wohlklang
Von Tönen, Vokalen, Silben zur Belebung

Durch Akzent, Zäsur, Gegenstoß für Wohlklang

Reines, reimloses Tönen der Wörter in Bewegung

Wagner und vor allem Faust verhelfen demnach den über die dialogische Wechselrede en passant empfangenen musikalischen Eindrücken zu ausgereift poetischen, in Langverse gehobenen Ausdrücken. Der von dem einsilbigen und einfallslosen Gesinde, Handwerker und Dienstmädchen, mit männlichen, leicht unreinen Haufenreimen (VV.810-12), die zu beweglicheren Schweifreimen evolvieren (VV.814-19), moderat eröffnete Klangteppich der Szene Vor dem Tor geht, sobald die Schüler herbeikommen, (ab V.828) in ein munteres Paareimschema (ab V.824) über, weiblicher werdend, in Kreuzreim (ab V.832) endend; später mit vielen das Versmaß verunreinigenden Syn- (VV.868, 870) und Apokopen (bspw. V.866) unleugbar belebend akzentuieren, zudem mit paramusikalischen Exclamationes (VV. 836, 842) und Interjektionen (bspw. VV.868, 872), die ihre Virilität in den Liedern (1) & (2) dann regelrecht entladen. Markant ist dies an dem sukzessive in sich zusammenfallenden, sechsfachen Haufenreim (V.846-51) des ersten erwachsenen Bürgers zu beobachten, der daktylisch variabel einsetzt und im Verlauf seiner Rede metrisch immer jambischer deklamiert, je einengender die Verben dem Wortsinne nach geraten, vom unverbindlichen, persönlichen Geschmacksurteil[9] zur verbindlichen, unpersönlichen Steuererhöhung[10] regredierend. Auch silbisch fordern die sperrig monophthongierten, gedehnten Vokalpositionen aus V.851 [u-a-e-e-a-e-o-e] mit sich lautlich unbequem tangierenden Konsonanten, die, artikulatorisch gesehen, einen langen Weg vom velaren [n] zum bilabialen [m] („zahlen mehr“) zurücklegt haben[11]. Besonders zum Ende hin fordert dies seinen Tribut hinsichtlich des Zeitmaßes, denn ohne auflockernde Diphthonge, wie sie in V.846 [ei-e-e-ae-i-i-eu-e-ue-ei-e] eingestreut sind, fehlt die Kraft zu einem Abhilfe schaffenden metrischen Gegenstoß an die ihn subordinierende Obrigkeit, den in einer finanziellen Zwangslage wohlklingend authentisch antiklimaktisch nur der Bettler (1) auch metrisch exekutieren kann.

So wechselt sein Lied per Anapher[12] gleich in eine taktmetrisch äußerst symmetrische Gangart, die nun ganz den Halt in Silbenmaß und gleichmäßig alternierender Vokalität sucht, damit aber seine Sinnhaftigkeit bloß kontextuell erkauft, die Dramenfigur des Bettlers also pars pro toto für das vom Bürger aufgerufene Gesellschaftssystem charaktermaskiert. Er antwortet, marxistisch überspitzt ausgedrückt, positional, und liefert Erwartbares, konvergierend in Ton und Wort, wo die Oppositionen in der Emphase des Bürger noch ein fußmetrisch unruhiges Vexierspiel treiben, lebendig gegen den Wohlklang ansteuernd. Die Passivierung der Rede des Bettlers und sein Rückzug in lamentierende, wiederholt unecht reflexive Verbformen[13], der danach in obstruktive, dabei aber apersonal bleibende Egomanie abgleitet (s. VV.857-59), muss, ähnlich wie beim seinem ungleich aktiveren Widerpart[14], dem die Teichoskopie vom Hüttenbrand von Philemon und Baucis liefernden Türmer Lynceus (VV.11288-337), gleichfalls erhebliche Teile seiner Emotio mit musikalischen Mitteln schöpfen, weil die poetisch vermittelten Anliegen ein Sinndefizit ausgemachter Indifferenz offenbaren[15].

Der nächste Liedeinsatz, der der Soldaten (2) versucht, mittels Takt und Ton die sinnlose Kausalität etwa der Minimalpaare ‚Mauern – Mädchen‘, verschränkt mit ‚Zinnen – Sinnen‘ (VV.885-87), leidlich zu kaschieren, mit der scheinsubsumierenden Zäsur in V.888, die taktmetrisch besehen auf eine spondäisch-daktylisch schwankende Konstruktion überwechselt und poetisch dabei einen den Minnsesang karikierenden Kollektivsingular bemüht („Möcht‘ ich gewinnen!“), der sich im Vers darauf vom wahrscheinlichkeitsbasierten Optativ zur sicher belohnungsverheißenden, extrinsisch motivierten Fleißarbeit[16] umwidmet, also alle aufgestellten Gründe restlos kassiert. Dafür fallen nun, ein musikalischer Glücksgriff, in V.889 Tonsilben-, Wort- und Versakzent in eins, mit einem Einschnitt in der Schlusssilbe („-hen“), die der Strophenform, also dem Takt, untergeordnet und nicht apokopiert wird, um für den Strophenausklang (V.890) erneut den härtestmöglichen Hebungsprall – gegen den Wortakzent: „Herr-lich“ –, den diese Liedform eben noch dulden kann, hervorzurufen.

Mit den sich performativ selbst entlassenden Militärs (VV.901-02) setzt Faust zur ersten, entschieden poetischen Beruhigung der Szene an, sortiert die Phänomene, ohne irgendeiner äußeren Formalität, an die sich Bettler und Soldaten noch taktvoll klammerten, den Vorzug zu geben. Hegelianisch gesprochen: Mit einem Mal, durch die ausgesuchte Subjektivität von Faust, bedingen sich das Was – Worüber ist zu reden, das Allgemeine oder das Besondere? – und das Wie – Welche Mittel stehen hierfür frei? – in einer Weise, dass das Wann, der Einsatz der Techniken, dem Primat des Rhythmus, einer rein subjektiven Herzlinie überstellt wird, die sich im Modus des eigens kontrollierten Zufalls mal auf das Was, mal auf das Wie verlegt, ohne sich „den rhythmischen Regeln des Metrums direkt“[17] gegenüberzustellen. Spätestens der proverbial gewordene Schlussvers (V.940) indiziert, dass hier poetisch, mit der Zäsur nach den anaphorisch ein- und ausleitenden vier Wort- und Versakzent kongruierenden Silben, ein Grad an Musikalität erreicht wird, der buchstäblich in die Geschichte kolloquialer Mündlichkeit einging[18], also die Schwelle vergangener[19] (dramatischer) Poesie in Richtung, mit Alfred Schütz gesprochen, subkutane Musikalität der Lebenswelt verließ. Diese ist eben nur „the first, ‚immediate‘ figure of the absolute spirit’s self-knowledge“[20], wobei die Ambiguität von „figure“ – Rollen- und Stilfigur in einem – Tradition und Innovation sich plötzlich überlappen lässt. Mit diesem Selbstbewusstsein bildet sie eine rhythmische Melodik aus, die die in [Tab. 1] aufgeführte Opposition egalisiert und schon ganz rhythmisch verfasste Sprache ist, ein Schritt, den Hegel bekanntlich weder den poetischen noch den musikalischen Künsten zubilligte[21], obschon ihm das, und damit schließe ich, gerade in der Beurteilung und mehr als gelegentlichen Zitation des Faust, seine launig als „gute Autorität“[22] apostrophierte Lieblingsquelle, nicht ganz geheuer war, als er zu Papier gab, dass die Fähigkeit, „[s]ich des eigenen Einfallens in den immanenten Rhythmus der Begriffe [zu] entschlagen, […] ein wesentliches Moment der Aufmerksamkeit auf den Begriff“[23] zurückzwinge. Was aber, wenn dieser Einfall gar kein eigener ist, und auch nie war, weil er davor schon an der Kunst genauestens Maß nahm?

Gemüt hat jedermann, Naturell manche, Kunstbegriffe sind selten.[24]


[1] Genannt seien hier die Wichtigsten in knappster Form: Zuerst Poole 1968, die trotz weitschweifiger Zitate aus Faust den dramatischen Spezifika keinen Erkenntniswert abgewinnen kann, wohingegen Bubner 1978:41 jene insoweit würdigt, als er die „methodisch geordnete Stufenfolge der Erscheinungen“ für von Hegel auf Faust figural abbildbar hält, freilich ohne konkrete Textverweise. Solche liefert etwa Marotzki 1987, der aber ausschließlich, wie das Gros dieser älteren Forschung, mit der Dominantsetzung des Negationsprinzip feinere Untertöne verstummen lässt. Versuche jüngeren Datums, Alwast 2007, heben endlich auch die inhärent rhythmische „Binnendialektik der Poesie“ (37) hervor, und wie diese es dann vermag, soziale Milieus „in ästhetische Wirklichkeit zu verwandeln“ (37; s. auch Jerkic 2015:24 zu diesem Wandel), hangeln sich dann aber, die Begrifflichkeiten der hegelschen Ästhetik links liegen lassend, entlang von „Produktionsdirektiven“ (40) auf methodologisch fragwürdige weil gattungsunsensible Weise im Schnellverfahren durch das Drama (auch in Alwast 2011 unter Nichtberücksichtigung der Ästhetik Hegels). Die jüngste Forschung schließlich (Boldyrev 2011; Champlin 2011) setzt, mit Ausnahme von Lee 2013, die Hegel interdisziplinärer versteht, keine neuen Akzente und bietet lediglich Forschungsrückblicke auf die Erkenntnise von Georg Lukács und Ernst Bloch.

[2] Goethe wird zitiert nach der Frankfurter Ausgabe (Goethe 1985a-2013) mit einfacher Versangabe für den Text und mit Literaturverweis für den Kommentar Albrecht Schönes.

[3] Hegel 1964:381.

[4] VV.945-48:
Das Fiedeln, Schreien, Kegelschieben,
Ist mir ein gar verhaßter Klang;
Sie toben wie vom bösen Geist getrieben
Und nennen’s Freude, nennen’s Gesang.

Dieser hier von Wagner markierte und von Faust erst einmal unwidersprochen gelassene Dissens ist gleichfalls ein andauernd zur Disputation stehender Gegenstand von seinem Briefwechsel mit Schiller, der mit dem goetheschen Vorsatz „Alles Poetische sollte rhythmisch behandelt werden!“ (An Schiller, 24.11.1797), der unter dieser Maxime den gesamten Wallenstein-Stoff nolens volens in das o.g. Konfliktfeld von [Tab. 1], Takt vs. Sinn sowie Ton vs. Wort, zu tragen hat. Stellt sich eine dieser Achsen nämlich her, etwa wie in Robert Musils Essay ‚Literat und Literatur‘, der das übermäßig tonale, dementsprechend sinnentleerte Gedicht Hugo von Hofmannsthals anführt:

Den Erben laß verschwenden
an Adler Lamm und Pfau
das Salböl aus den Händen
der alten toten Frau

Hofmannsthal detachierte diese Oppositionen, so steht zu vermuten, in keiner Phase der Produktion wirklich, vielmehr ist diese Versifikation schon Ergebnis einer Sinngestaltung, die ihre drei Satelliten Takt, Ton und Wort synchron einpflegte, weil sie laut Musil „nach Gesetzen erfolgt, die von denen des realen Denkens abweichen, ohne die Berührung mit ihnen zu verlieren“ (beide Musil 1978:1215). Mit dieser Zuführung von Selbstbewusstsein unter Dichterkollegen erinnern sie sich der womöglich zu tief verinnerlichten Strukturierungsweisen, die aber, und das will der Essay zeigen, in ihrer Thematisierung in rhythmischer Wechselrede erst diejenige Kontur generieren, die sie sich danach, mit freien Rhythmen (s. VV.903-06), wieder versagen dürfen.

[5] Hegel 1969b-1971:59

[6] Goethe 1985a-2013:232.

[7] In einer weitergreifenden Analyse gehörte selbstredend auch der Reim als rhythmusbeeinflussendes Element in Tabellierung, was aber an umfangreichere Arbeiten delegiert gehört. Einige globale Ausdeutungen zum Reim werde ich dennoch, entbettet von dezidiert hegelianischer Terminologie, für den Einstieg der Szene vornehmen.

[8] Vgl. etwa Hegel 1964:391 et pass.

[9] Nein, er gefällt mir nicht der neue Burgermeister! (V.846)

[10] Und zahlen mehr als je vorher. (V.851)

[11] Just dieses Beispiel nutzt auch Hegel, um die Unterschiede kenntlich zu machen (s. Hegel 1964:379).

[12] Ihr guten Herrn, ihr schönen Frauen, (V.852, Hervorhebung KP)

[13] Belieb‘ es euch mich anschauen,

[…]
Laßt hier mich nicht vergebens leiern! (VV.854 & 856)

[14] Die Dopplungen sind einigermaßen ersichtlich: Beide treten jeweils als Stichwortgeber in den zweiten Szenen der das ganze Drama umschließenden Akte auf (V.852, V.11143 & V.11288 erneut), bleiben aber nament- und charakterlich anonym – Lynceus der Türmer ist schließlich kein Adels- oder Ehrentitel, sondern eine gräzisierte Tätigkeitsbeschreibung –, und verbalisieren nicht zuletzt sehenden Auges ihre Umgebung, als dessen fühlender Exponent sie dem Rezipienten eine buchstäbliche Einsicht aus zweiter Hand geben.

[15]
Ich blick in die Ferne,
Ich seh in der Näh,
Den Mond und die Sterne,
Den Wald und das Reh (VV.11292)

Kommt der musilschen Vermutung aus [Fn. 4] nahe, der dazu von Goethe meint, dass dessen Versifikationstechniken „nicht so sehr ein sinnliches Erlebnis sind wie eine der Logik entzogene Veränderung des Sinns“ (Musil 1978:1212) erzeugen, die, nähme man selbigem die Musikalität – das sinn-liche, unterschieden vom sinn-vollen – gingen womöglich beide Rhythmisierungsweisen und das Erlebnis dazu verlustig. Die Vergeistigung durch poetische und Entsinnlichung durch musikalische Kunst, hier in dramatischer Kopräsenz, schafft, so folgert Gadamer, schließlich das „sinnliche Erscheinen des Göttlichen“ (Gadamer 1986:220), weil es sich, wenigstens momenthaft, dergestalt rhythmisch von der künstlichen, hochgradig unkünstlerischen strukturalistischen Zwangstrennung des Signifikaten (Hegel: Sinn & Wort) vom Signifikanten (Hegel: Takt & Ton) entheben könne.

[16]
Kühn ist das Mühen,
Herrlich der Lohn! (VV.898-90)

[17] Hegel 1964:383.

[18] „Hegel says that music activates the self, which in turn seeks to identify itself with the temporal progression of the music, such that it experiences that temporal progression as its own“ (Johnson 1991:160, Hervorhebung im Original).

[19] Alles Kunstschöne sitzt gemeinsam unter dem Damoklesschwert des Vergessenwerdens (dazu Lohse 1985:646), das dann niedergeht, wenn es keine Vor-Stellung, geschweige denn einen Begriff von Taktfrequenz und Sinnhorizonten der Gegenwart mehr geben kann, mit anderen Worten: Kein Gefühl von Rhythmisierung mehr zulässt, oder, resonanztheoretisch ausgedrückt, man für ein „rhythmisches Aufeinandereinschwingen“ (Rosa 2016:55, Hervorhebung im Original) mehr Energie mobilisieren muss, als man systemintern je generieren könnte.

[20] Nuzzo 2007:308.

[21] „Den Werken der Muse fehlt die Kraft des Geistes, dem aus der Zermalmung der Götter und Menschen die Gewißheit seiner selbst hervorging.“ (Hegel 1969b-1971:547)

[22] Hegel 1969a-1971:19.

[23] Hegel 1969b-1971:56.

[24] Goethe 1985b-2013:74.

[John Calvelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prior to this book I read Zizek's 1000 page book on Hegel. This short and intense book was very helpful, as it embodied Hegel's thought and the dialectic in a concise form.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Art invites us into consideration of it by means of thought, not to end the stimulating art production, but in order to ascertain scientifically what art is."

[Nandini Goel · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics" by "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel" is a fine piece of work which speaks about "art", how it flourished, how it has taken different turns in the history and how its end is approaching. According to Hegel, Art can flourish the best only when it is given equal importance as compared to religion and philosophy. He believes that art is based on an Idea or a concept. He also continuously argues that the Greek art (which he calls classic art) was the period when art flourished at its peak and in the modern time after the arrival of Christian Art(which he calls the romantic art), the fervour is disappearing.
At first Hegel compares art and science. He discusses that art has doors opened for vagueness but science, which works on a specific criterion has none. He says that science is more of a technical subject but art deals mostly with beauty, which pleases the eyes. In Hegel’s time art was not considered to be a subject of prime importance unlike subjects of science, religion and philosophy. He wishes to bring the status of art at equilibrium with religion and philosophy, for he believes that art can flourish the best only when it is given an equal status.
Hegel describes art to be of 5 types, namely: sculpture, poetry, architecture, painting and music. He divides the era of art into three, namely symbolic (pre-Greek), classic (Greek art) and romantic (post-Greek).
Hegel says that it is in the works of art that nations have deposited their profoundest intuitions and ideas of their heart and fine art is frequently the key but with many nations there are no other, to the understanding of their wisdom and of their religion. This I find very true even today. When I read about the heritage and culture of various countries for instance India, it is the art of the country through which we can understand the past. What the people of a particular era thought are reflected with the art works of that time. This can be easily explained with various existing monuments in the world, they can be easily distinguished in Persian, French, Greek, Moguls Chinese etc.
Here Hegel finds the most important part of the art to be its “content”. The content of art is the Ideas and its form lies in the use of images accessible to the sense. Now, there are two requirements. The first requirement is the content, which is to be offered to the artistic representation, should show itself to be in its nature worthy of such representation otherwise it will only result in bad combination. The second requirement according to Hegel is the content should not be anything abstract in itself, it should be concrete (need not be “too specific”).
Even after giving such profound understanding about art, Hegel then discusses about the ironies. He then despairs all possibilities of art having a future. He describes it to be a thing of past. He says “That art has rather been transferred into our ideas instead of maintaining its earlier necessity in reality and occupying its higher place”. So maybe he felt that now the amalgamation of art and futuristic development of societies are not interrelated or expressed by the artist anymore.
Hegel staunchly believes, as I have mentioned earlier that art should be connected to religion and philosophy to achieve the best results. He believes “art no longer affords that satisfaction of spiritual needs which earlier ages and nations sought in it, and found in it alone, a satisfaction that, at least on the part of religion, was most intimately linked with art”. May be we need to think about it as a future Generation.**smile**
According to Hegel, the feelings, the emotions and realistic approach of life, the relationship of men with one another had been badly compromised with the coming of Christianity and romantic art. Which I fail to understand as no religion can ever be expressed without representing Human relationship with one another. It is possible in general. Artists are finding inspiration in more singular & independent subjects than a subject like religion. May be moral compulsions of religious plurality in our society and more diverse existence of communities in a given place or area.
In the introduction of this book, there were notes about end of art, according to which art has come to the phase where all significant possibilities for art to manifest have disappeared as all manifestations in art have already been made. I disagree **smile**
I don’t agree with this view of the writer as I believe human mind is meant to explore and as long as human desire, inquisition & expression exist the art would keep making its mark in the catalogue of human on this earth **smile**, new additions will always appear, not just in art, in philosophy, in science, in religion and in everything else that evolves with human endeavour and excellence.
Overall, Hegel’s Introductory Lectures on aesthetics is a good piece of work. A little difficult to comprehend. You need to give it a read two or three time, give yourself time to absorb or things to settle-in, to understand it better. Hegel indeed has a profound view although a little plutonic. His work gives the reader information with antithesis which gives you the chance to derive for yourself, the better proposition of the two.
---The End---
Nandini Goel

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Prosím, už žiaden Hegel, pretože tak veľa "ducha" a neviem čoho všetkého na jednom mieste môže ublížiť. Heglove úvodné prednášky k estetike som prečítal dvakrát, vyžadovala si to situácia a musím povedať, že aj keď je to bolestivé a ťažké čítanie, stojí za to. Hegel čitateľovi ponúka ucelenú teóriu umenia a estetiky, v ktorej hrá dôležitú podstatu spomínaný duch. Krásne umenie je podľa neho to, ktoré je vytvorené človekom a pre človeka. Vyzdvihuje umelé krásno, pretože je vytvorené duchom, človekom, vedomím. Umenie je podľa neho snaha vyjadriť abstraktné pojmy zmyslovým spôsobom a v tom spočíva jeho výnimočnosť. Nebudem tu popisovať celý obsah prednášok, sám ho ešte nemám stopercentne uchopený. Každopádne, umenie podľa Hegela musí človeka učiť, poučovať o tom, čo je dobré, usmerňovať jeho emócie a podobne, no nie je to dôvod, prečo umenie vzniká. Umenie vzniká proste pre potrebu vyjadriť nevyjadriteľné. A najlepšie sa to darí poézii. Takže asi tak.

Je to náročné čítanie, veľmi zložitý jazyk a aj Heglove myšlienkove pochody nie vždy majú priame smerovanie. Zároveň však, keď sa človek s textom potrápi, je to zážitok. Zároveň však chápem, že toto nebude čítanie pre každého, pretože kto už má čas trikrát prečítať 50 strán Heglovho uvažovania o estetike. Je to pochopiteľné a bolo by čudné, keby toto niekto čítal dobrovoľne po večeroch v posteli. Zatiaľ čo však po prvom prečítaní som bol trošku frustrovaný, na druhé prečítanie upratanie myšlienok a úspešne zložená skúška.

[Cris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I hoped for. Written to cull the support of a prince, this book spends much more time talking about Art as a tool for keeping society moral. Interesting but not what I was after. I guess the purposeful use of art as tool by a state offends me.

[Egor xS · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ennobling, lucid and radical. High Art essentially laid out in systematic fashion

[Oliver Go · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was stuck for a bit between rating this book as 3 or 4 stars. On one hand, this is a truly sweeping work for such a little amount of pages, tackling the metaphysics of beauty and the role art should play in society. Beyond just art and beauty, though, the book also ties in religion, mind, and nature to connect them (which makes sense, given Hegel's focus on absolute spirit and totality) in order to argue in favor of a scientific understanding of art through the discipline of aesthetics. On the other hand, though, there are several notable moments in the text where Hegel contradicts a point he made in the past without making any indication that he noticed it (several of these are noted in the footnotes of the Penguin Classics edition). I do believe these contradictions bring down the book to 3 stars.
Aside from the contradictions, though, Introductory Lectures is a beautiful book. I have never read Hegel or Kant before, however for some reason I felt like I had a solid understanding of both philosophers' general philosophies after reading them. It's a complex read but not too difficult for one unfamiliar with this period of philosophy (like myself) and is even a good introductory text in some aspects. Hegel is characteristically complicated in his writing here but I do think it's not too hard to understand if you put thought into translating every sentence into basic English. That's also why this book takes much longer to read than you'd expect based on 97 pages of text.
Introductory Lectures differs from other books on aesthetics because Hegel is quite clear about the importance of art to society and mankind. Art serves a specific role in Hegel's conception of the world: it is the first step up the ladder of human self-consciousness and contact with the absolute, the first thing that marks the separation of man from animal. Art is the physical manifestation of human thought and intelligence (and this is thus why nature is not art), and it serves the role of allowing man to reflect on the Idea (i.e. any thought or theme worth thinking about). Art provides the purest way for humanity to reflect on the higher thoughts on life, whether that be God, philosophy, or life in general. He then goes through the different genres of art and then the different art forms (in that order).
The book is fascinating but what is regrettable is that Hegel didn't live in the time of modern art. I would love to hear his thoughts on 1) abstract art as a genre of painting/sculpture and 2) film as an art form in general. I would imagine he would have a critique of the former for the physical manifestation of the Idea being too weak, exaggerated, or even underportrayed in abstract art. I would love to understand what he thinks about film, which is ultimately the merging of music and moving painting.

[Justin Boogaerdt]

Fine art... only achieves its highest task when it has taken
its place in the same sphere with religion and philosophy

The universe is one single organic totality. It develops out of its own conception.
The main parts into which it develops are - apart from the logical idea itself - nature and spirit or
mind. But it also develops into different levels of nature (space, time, bodies, etc.) and different
phases of spirit, the main ones being ´subjective spirit´ (roughly, individual psychology), ´objective spirit´ (social and political institutions, world history, etc.), and ´absolute spirit´ (art, religion and philosophy). (Except in the case of some phases of spirit, the development is non-temporal.)
The universe returs into itself in two senses: (i) The parts and their subdivisions are necessarily and systematically connected to eachoter: e.g. nature necessarily develops into spirit, space into time, etc.
(ii) At its higher levels, spirit, esp. absolute spirit, unifies the world into one single world of truth by
discerning these necessary connections and their source in the logical idea.
The system forms a krone, ´crown, coronal´, since it is a unified circle (the parts) with a single centre (the begriff). It is a circle in the sense not only that it is systematically interconnected,
but also that it returns to its beginning, since the climax of the system, philosophy, involves (awareness of) the logical idea with which we began. Each of the main parts is itself a circle, both in the sense that it is a relatively self-contained sphere, and in the sense that it returns to its beginning. E.g. art begins with the general concept of art, which develops into the art forms and then into the particular arts. But the last art considered, poetry, is the universal art and thus a return to the concept within the realm of the particular.
Each of these circles or spheres is connected with others. E.g. the backward out of which art
derives itself is the sphere of objective spirit, esp. its higher phases, the state and world history,
while the forward to which art impels itself is religion.
Philosophy is both the highest phase of this system and an attempt to portray the system
and its interconnections.

[Sara 🦷 · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?”
“No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself
but the reflection, by some other things.”
— Julius Caesar

so Hegel coded????

Schelling referred to architecture as “Music in space… solidified music.”

goated.

Hegel referred to art as the human attempt to manifest in absolute notion in various artistic forms, all referring back to one direction, no matter the intention, the artist is a manifestation of the absolute trying to manifest itself back to it.

Whereas the concept of beauty itself varies, and is more likely linked with perspective and the freedom of creating one’s own perspective rather than labelling one thing as absolute beauty, it can always be seen in different variations of beauty, different aspects and perhaps non beautiful.

It is all linked to the freedom one has in creating their own perspective, when a piece of art is put out there in the world, the artist must be ready for the viewer’s perspective.

The death of the artist happens at the very birth of the viewer. (re phrasing Barthes rn)

[Peyton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious when the footnotes are longer than the main text LMAO

"Indeed, in opposition to such an idea, we must adhere to the very reverse, believing that God is more honoured by what mind does or makes than by the productions or formations of nature. For not only is there a divinity in man, but in him it is operative under a form that is appropriate to the essence of God, in a mode quite other and higher than in nature. God is a Spirit, and it is only in man that the medium through which the divine element passes has the form of conscious spirit, that actively realizes itself."

+

"The universal need for expression in art lies, therefore, in man’s rational impulse to exalt the inner and outer world into a spiritual consciousness for himself, as an object in which he recognizes his own self."

[Derek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally I had read this with the Hackett Classics bundle that included The Philosophy of Religion and The History of Philosophy; however, I got impatient and wanted to jump into Phenomenology of the Spirit, so I abandoned reading the subsequent lectures.

The Aesthetics lectures were pretty boring, at least the prefatory history of aesthetics, which was about 80% of the lectures. The last lecture, where Hegel puts forward his theory of aesthetics, however, was quite brilliant, although I disagree with his conclusions and object to his Eurocentrism.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Hence the mitigation of the violence of passion has for its universal reason that man is released from his immediate sunkenness in a feeling, and becomes conscious of it as of something external to him, towards which he must now enter into an ideal relation.“

You know Hegel is onto something when all his books have unusual amounts of forwards, introductions, commentaries etc. He has a reputation for being long-winded. All the superfluous justification around his work is more than suspect. He explains some of the most profound ideas with such simplicity. Negation, art, history, projection.

[Reaksmey Oun]

I really wanna know about this book

[Jacob Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

this makes some nice distinctions and assessments but is a bit limited. p similar to schiller and kant

[Drew M Francis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aldo Rossi disproves Hegel's conclusions 150 years later but it's just brilliant.

[Tim Newcomb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty as an abstract unity of the sensual substance: Supersensuous Truth in Hegel’s ‘Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik’

To Hegel, art is an expression of Freedom that leads culture towards the union of the particular with the universal and the reconciliation of the consciousness with the material world, ultimately expressing the true freedom of the individual. There is quite a bit of Proto-Phenomenology here as he recognizes that images, symbols, and rituals have real, profound, and meta-real impacts. He demonstrates an acute understanding of the Phenomenological patterns running through art and mythology, which he describes in nearly Jungian terms through an "Unconscious Symbolism". He analyzes a vast spectrum of art, from fashion to weaponry to athletic movement and even comedy, which he sees as a very advanced art form. Hegel is not only analyzing beauty of the eye, but beauty of the mind such as we see in literature and storytelling writ large. He understands the character in a narrative as "an inner but unformed totality" and is deeply indebted to Schiller on his understanding of the intertwining of Truth & Beauty and quotes from him directly throughout his works. And Goethe, not surprisingly, Hegel has great admiration for.

A pathos of 'totality of Spirit' runs through all great art, and thus, Beauty is intricately tied to Truth, which is the object of religion. So to Hegel, Beauty cannot be separated from Theology. To this end, Hegel muses on Greek Mythology, Zoroastrian scriptures (the Avesta), Hindu epic poems, Islamic poetry and art, religious architecture throughout history and puritanical Dutch simplicity. To throw in a Dostoevsky line here- "beauty is the battlefield upon which God and the Devil do battle". Hegel writes:

The real sublimity, on the other hand, we have to look for in the fact that the whole created world at all appears as finite, limited, not self-supporting and bearing itself and for this reason can only be regarded as glorifying accessory to the praise of God.

We have a "Sense" of beauty which bears opposite meanings simultaneously. We encounter the objects with external, physical contemplation through the bodily senses, and at the same time approach them with the full idea of their conceptual existence. This idea of their conceptual existence, which is necessary to observe them sensually, is the focus of his lectures of aesthetics. In the Philosophy of History, he writes “By the term ‘Ideal’, we also understand the ideal of Reason, of the Good, of the True. Poets, as e.g. Schiller, have painted such ideals touchingly and with strong emotion, and with the deeply melancholy conviction that they could not be realized.”

To Hegel, the sensuous, aesthetic experience of beauty, when properly understood, leads us to the supersensuous experience of consciousness. Art is the expression of the Idea; it reflects back the “pure I’s” understanding of itself. Art is pragmatic; beauty is pragmatic- it develops the Subject’s self-consciousness and corrects it’s metaphysical relationship to the Object.

Here in Ästhetik he muses:

Beauty and art, no doubt, pervade all business of life like a kindly genius, and form the bright adornment of all our surroundings, both mental and material, soothing the sadness of our condition and the embarrassments of real life, killing time in entertaining fashion, and where there’s nothing to be achieved, occupying the place of what is vicious, better, at any rate, than vice.

Dasein is the Otologic Being of personal reality. Dasein literally translates "To be there" but it is a purely philosophic concept of Being which maintains within itself an antinomy of finitude-infinity. Hegel defines Dasein in his Encyclopedia as a specific type of Being: “the unity of being and nothing in which the immediacy of these determinations and thus their contradiction in their relationship has disappeared - a unity in which they are only moments". In modern Existentialism, it is correlated to Qualia. Dasein experiences itself through Beauty: “Now when truth in this external existence [Dasein] is present to consciousness immediately, and with the concept remains immediately in unity with its external appearance, the Idea is not only true but beautiful. Beauty is determined as the sensible shining of the Idea”

Beauty is realized through the particularization of the Universal, and the highest form of this paradox is the divine. Art is instantiating the General in the specific. Goethe and Shiller, Hegel muses, was a genius in his storytelling precisely because he understood this- because he "narrowly limited particularity from the life of the present, but at the same time, as a background and as the atmosphere in which this circle moves... the broadest, most powerful world events." This contrast generates sublimity.

Slavoj Žižek and Hegel

A couple of notes on today's most famous self-described Hegelian. Žižek is not a pure Marxist nor a pure Hegelian; he's much more of an intellectual provocateur who is so pervasively cynical he is nearly a comedian. His philosophy is certainly "radical" in that there are no groups who are safe from his criticism- he talks about Marx but he diatribes brilliantly about what is wrong with Marx; he hates conservatives and yet manages to hate liberals even more. He is a Communist only in a philosophical sense because it "draws a line" as any good concept does. He is a "communist with no delusions" of the dangers of Egalitarianism and Utopianism. He calls himself a Marxist, but he fundamentally disagrees with Marx's solutions to the problems of Capitalism. He calls Capitalism "the most dynamic productive system in the history of humanity... Marx was too naive... he thought he had a theory of historical development; he thought that we could see, in nearly a theological way, and that we could act accordingly, but Hegel would never accept such a view".

He really only agrees with the accuracy of Marx's initial criticisms and descriptions of Capitalism, which virtually all intellectuals do to varying degrees; it is a brilliant piece of socio-economic commentary that launched an entirely new field of Economics. But he really only calls himself a Marxist because he likes pushing people's buttons. His body of work is quite unique, eclectic, and sometimes contradictory- it's difficult to pin down a thinker like this into a specific lane. Especially one who is so deeply cynical, negative and aggressively deconstructivism.

In a 2015 lecture titled "Is Hegel Dead—Or Are We Dead in the Eyes of Hegel?" He said "I remain a Marxist/ Communist [because] I don't think in the long term today's Capitalism will be able to deal, resolve or even cope with its antagonisms. But I don't attempt to propose a positive formula... and this is the Hegelian view... any formula we propose will be caught in the process".

He is a "Leftist" but only in a revolutionary sense. He passionately decries modern Progressivism, social equity movements, PC culture, and the censoring of free-speech by Left-wing tech companies... the list goes on and on. He decries Trump only because Trump is a "centrist liberal" who practices a form of paradoxical moral relativism that is further Left than any other politician in the Democratic party. His primary target is Liberals; he hates them perhaps more than any other group.

He is a Hegelian in the sense that he tries to chart a path under the seemingly opposing ideologies of the world and resigns himself to the Hegelian Historical model. He sees many of the supposed "problems'' in society as merely surface-level phenomena that are utilizing false dichotomies. He has scathing criticisms of Liberals- he tears into Feminism, Post-Modernism, and all of the pseudo-egalitarian social justice movements- as equally as he despises Neo-conservativism. He does not see much difference between the mainstream Liberals and Conservatives.

His critical analysis of Hegel is also very unorthodox to the point of being criticized as a legitimate reading. His re-reading of Hegel through Post-Kantian Lacanian psychoanalysis and his reconstruction of a Hegelian-Lacanian subject has been attacked as being anachronistic. He has resurrected obscure notes from early Hegelian writings and re-interpreted them through a pre-Freudian proto-psychoanalytic lens. Personally, I think his re-reading emphasizes the Negativity of the Subject beyond the actual influence of this aspect of Hegelian thinking on the rest of his Metaphysical model. In other words, it does not seem to me that this proto-Existentialist "dark night of the world" of the Subject has sufficiently driven the substructure of Hegelian Anthropology to explain away the problems of his Socio-political frameworks. I don't have such a generous reading of Hegel as Žižek does- I still hold his Metaphysiks as underpinning part of the problem of Western culture, not the antidote. But I agree with Nietzsche’s critique against Schopenhauer's "unintelligible rage against Hegel" (as well as Bertrand Russell's, Ayn Rands' and other major intellectuals) who did not spend enough time with Hegel to see the brilliance in his intricately balanced Philosophic Ecosystem.

But Zizek stands opposed to Hegel in a handful of ways too.

Hegel was very much so a philosophic pragmatist- he viewed the Tautological ramifications of a philosophic stance as its own judgment. So if someone describes themselves as a Hegelian but does not put forth solutions, only criticisms, they are betraying an intrinsic element of Hegelian thinking. We really only should listen to those who have solutions; all others who do not chart a way forward are proving that they have a flaw in their model of metaphysics, Hegel would say. In this sense, Hegel wouldn't approve of someone who is so open about not having a solution to any problems as Žižek is.

In reference to Religion, Žižek again has a jagged relationship to Hegel. Hegel criticized de-mythologized religion and its effect of stopping individuals from processing their existence; Zizek reiterates the same criticism of Religion deluding people into a life where they do not think about their own morality and ethical models. This field of Ontotheology is a line of thinking which Kant birthed. Hegel and Kant saw cognitive freedom- the ability to think at all- as a Theological issue and without the encounter with a knowable transcendent Being, reason is dead. Kierkegaard would later break out this dependent correlation beautifully. More on that in my Phänomenologie notes.

Žižek also has a critical view of religion, being a dogmatic Atheist, but he praises the Judeo-Christian frameworks which gave rise to the concept of individual freedom. He wrote the forward to a Slovak translation of G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown novel, a staunch Roman Catholic Theologian, interestingly enough. But I would criticize his inconsistent definition of Religion, which seems to be a moving goalpost. He oddly refers to the Soviet Atheists as Religious fanatics, despite their formal, institutionalized Atheism- in Dostoevskian fashion, he infers this type of Fanatical Atheism is itself a Religion. But this seems to be a cheap cop-out to avoid the fact that Atheistic governments killed more people in the 20th century than Slavery, Colonialism, and all of the religious wars in Europe across 2,000 years. Who is to say when Atheism constitutes a religion and when it's just a negation of belief? This is moving the goalposts- it's a convenient dodge to try to prop up his belief that Atheism is a moral good. Hegel and Kant, however, both believed that Atheism was 'Intellectual death' and that Theism was locked in a critical sustaining paradox that sustains Reason and Logic. The field of Theology is not separate from Reason in Kantian and Hegelian thought; God is an "Idea" in Kantian Epistemology; a pure, elemental concept generated by Reason through the Manifold of Consciousness. But Žižek believes that religion is a necessary field of human philosophy and psychology that cannot be ignored, and on this Zizek tracks with Hegel.

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Hegelian Welt:
1. Jenaer Schriften/ Jena Writings (1801-1806):
https://bit.ly/3NMLSY7
2. Phänomenologie des Geistes/ The Phenomenology of Spirit (1807):
https://bit.ly/3vkt5tI
3. Wissenschaft der logik/ The Science of Logic (1812)
https://bit.ly/3oS0fwo
4. Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse/ Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817)
https://bit.ly/3awanWC
5. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts/ Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1820)
https://bit.ly/3v4V80f
6. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte Lectures on the Philosophy of world-history (1770–1831)
https://bit.ly/3w6GBBP
7. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik/ Lectures on Aesthetics (1818 -1829)
https://bit.ly/38V7VJj
8. Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion/ Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (1821-1831): https://bit.ly/3yInPo7
9. Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie/ Lectures on the History of Philosophy (1805-1831): https://bit.ly/3LqoRYs

[Kariem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written with astonishing lucidity compared to all else I’ve read, a weirdly good introduction. But he makes arguments that appear extremely funny considering it was written in the high age of German renaissance

[james · Rating 4 out of 5]

- in this antithesis between natural production as a divine creation and human activity as a merely finite creation, we at once come upon the misconception that God does not work in man and through man, but limits the range of his activity to nature alone. this false opinion is to be entirely abandoned if we mean to penetrate the true conception of art. indeed, in opposition to such an idea, we must adhere to the very reverse, believing that God is more honoured by what mind does or makes than by the productions or formations of nature. for not only is there a divinity in man, but in him it is operative under a form that is appropriate to the essence of God. […] the divine element, as it makes itself known in the work of art, has attained, as being generated out of the mind, an adequate thoroughfare for its existence.’

- ‘the theoretic contemplation of things has no interest in consuming them as particulars, in satisfying itself sensuously, and in preserving itself by their means, but rather in becoming acquainted with them in their universality, in finding their inner being and law, and in conceiving them in terms of their notion. […] the artistic interest, as distinguished from science, does not act thus. artistic contemplation accepts the work of art just as it displays itself qua external object, in immediate determinateness and sensuous individuality clothed in colour, figure, and sound, or as a single isolated perception, etc., and does not go so far beyond the immediate appearance of objectivity which is presented before it, as to aim, like science, at apprehending the notion of such an objective appearance as a universal notion. […] the interest of art distinguishes itself from the practical interest of desire by the fact that it permits its object to subsist freely and in independence, while desire utilises it in its own service by its destruction. on the other hand, artistic contemplation differs from theoretical consideration by the scientific intelligence, in cherishing interest for the object as an individual existence, and not setting to work to transmute it into its universal thought and notion.’

//

yeah, I mean, if I were to detail every point in this volume that fundamentally changed the way I conceive of & interact with graphic arts, I'd have to transcribe half the book.

like, that the graphic arts reveal an element of the 'absolute' (i.e. the world, the cosmos, as it has organically sprouted from its core-most laws of creation) which is particularly able to be revealed by the means at the graphic arts' disposal & that the very nature of the element of the absolute revealed by these means must necessarily differ from those elements revealed by literature, science, philosophy etc. – in the way that a sense of taste is 'revealed' by means of the mouth while a sense of sight is 'revealed' by means of the eye, and neither mouth nor eye can hope to reveal the sense particular to the other faculty – is such an aha! moment.

& while hegel's conception of beauty is obviously Idealist, & his notion of human Spirit endeavouring to reveal itself to itself via the means at its disposal (& in this way acting as a 'thoroughfare' for the divine) is entrenched in – & propped up by – his wider theories from the phenomenology of spirit, I find both extremely compelling. & the ideas expressed here echo out through a whole hose of disparate european aesthetics throughout the rest of the 19th century

[Uğur · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think Hegel is the name that deals with and evaluates the aesthetic phenomenon in the most correct way. Hegel has a very correct point of view, especially from the point of view of visual aesthetics. In addition, Hegel, while not denying that there can be such a phenomenon as beauty in nature, believes that beauty in art is much superior... Because he says that artistic aesthetics is directly the product of the spirit and sees the spirit above nature (although I don't agree with this part). that's why he tries to limit his attention only to the beauty in art.

There is a constant comparison of Kant when talking about Hegel, but this is inevitable. because almost every topic on which they express an opinion is the same, but the ideas are opposite, like black and white. While Hegel makes the transformation of existence into a work of art superior to nature, Kant says that the naturalness of nature gives birth to aesthetics. I can only say that I think Hegel is right in this respect. a person who looks at the world with aesthetic concern's understanding of beauty is partially dependent on nature at this point, since it is a matter of the effect of what is natural on the brain and the spirit to design a work of art with this effect.

Kant thinks that pleasure cannot be obtained from a work of art because it is a sensation that can be shaped according to the artist's mistakes and wishes. Juno Kant Juno Kant thinks that pleasure cannot be obtained from a work of art. Hegel, on the other hand, says that what is important is not the work of art, but its birth from a spirit. he leaves the tip of the pen open on the subject of Jun. for people like me who have stendhal syndrome, Kant is quite wrong, while Hegel is partially wrong.

I noticed in the book that Hegel was a klaisk art lover. because classical art meant sculpture, and through sculpture, which was the art of the early ages, man gave place to divine figures, and the formation of this happened thanks to spirit. That's exactly what I like about Hegel. the fact that he evaluated the magic in art, aesthetics in detail, especially through sculpture, was the part that appealed to me. but he connected it to religion... I can't really confirm that part of it. because the main substance is tin is here. then the most religious person should have been expected to be the most creative sculptor. tin is something else, I think.

Hegel connected aesthetics and art with the philosophy of religion and brought the subject to the philosophy of religion. this part was pretty bad. Although sculpture was deified in the societies of polytheistic periods, the philosophy of religion does not have a close relationship with the aesthetic theory and the philosophy of art. Although Hegel has gone a little out of the subject here, Hegel is a book that is quite rich in discussion points.