The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century

by Michael N Forster

  Schlegel’s rejection of the first principle and of the transcendental method lead him to the conclusion that a different manner of thinking is necessary for the construction of a system of fragments—one that can grasp individual fragments, follow their development, and discern the necessity in their relations. Such a manner of thinking must not proceed through conceptual subsumption, that is, through the sequential cancelation of a lesser moment in a higher (more universal) one. Rather, it must be able to behold difference, without forsaking unity—it must, in other words, be able to grasp unity in difference.

  In his Paris Lectures on the History of European Literature (1803–4), Schlegel claims that it is only through developing a ‘living, intuitive [anschauliches] picture of the whole’ that we can grasp ‘emergence and development’ (KFSA 11, 12).42 What does he mean by a ‘living, intuitive picture’, and how does it differ from the transcendental method? In turn, how can it construct a system of philosophy that is ‘through and through historical’ (KFSA 12, 93)?

  4.6 A NEW KIND OF THINKING

  In a letter from the fall of 1793, Schlegel speaks of a ‘kind of thinking [Denkart]’, which he was developing through reading history: ‘for the last few months, my favourite recuperation has been to follow the great puzzling path of historical events, and from out of that, a kind of thinking [Denkart] began to develop in me’ (KFSA 23, 144–5). A few years later, he remarks that only a historical method can adequately grasp organic unity and reciprocal relations (KFSA 18, 21, no. 36). And, in the Cologne Lectures, Schlegel claims that a historical perspective is alone capable of grasping the ‘emergence and character of what is living [des Lebendigen]’ (KFSA 12, 422).

  In contrast to the deductive procedure, Schlegel’s claim is that the historical method understands a thing (or a part) in terms of both its development and its multifaceted relations. From this perspective, the part is not construed as either cause or effect, and is thus not grasped as one thing opposed to another. Rather, the historical method focuses on its continued genesis in its multiple relations. A shift in attention thus occurs—from static objects, to dynamic processes—such that what is known is not an isolated thing, or a proof that can only be determined in relation to a chain of proofs, but connected individuals and their dynamic relations (KFSA 12, 307).43

  Schlegel associates the historical method with ‘organic thought’ and the imagination (Einbildungskraft) (KFSA 18, 139, no. 213). For Schlegel, the imagination does not imply fantasy or falsehood, but is an apprehending capacity that ‘is free from the dominance of the thing’ (KFSA 12, 359). The imagination, he argues, is able to grasp the changing character of an object and thus discern the transitions in its development. To return to the example of music: what is necessary to experience a musical work is, first, a capacity that can apprehend the individual as individual—the particular chord. As such, however, it must not be fixated on an object—on this particular chord. Rather, it must be able to grasp the individual as it develops within the whole. The apprehending capacity must thus be able to move with the movement of the music, and thereby grasp the relations and transitions between the chords.

  The relations between the chords are twofold: on the one hand, they harmonize simultaneously; on the other, they succeed one another. The imagination must therefore behold the unity of the different chords at any particular moment as well as discern the necessary (and hence unified) development of the chords in succession. It must, in other words, grasp the unity of the whole in and through (temporal) differences. Otherwise, the work would collapse into an unrelated heap of musical chords.

  The key is the agility of the imagination—its ability to extend beyond fixed objects while at the same time grasping individuals and discerning their relations and development. In this way, the imagination grasps the unity within the multiplicity, the whole in and through the relations of its parts, and sees the parts in and through their connections to one another and the whole. The imagination, then, is the necessary hermeneutic tool through which thought is able to grasp the particular, without, however, losing sight of the whole. Through the imagination, Schlegel maintains, the individual—historical realities, particular persons, and views—comes to life (KFSA 12, 112). Through the imagination, moreover, relations between individuals are discerned, and a unity emerges: a differentiated, dynamic unity.

  In the years 1799 and 1800, Schlegel turned his attention to the imagination more concretely, composing a novel (Lucinde) and a dialogue (Conversation on Poetry), both of which offer lengthy ruminations on the nature of artistic presentation and imagination. It was also during that time that Schlegel began to formulate his notion of an encyclopedia and spoke of his ‘bible project’ to Novalis (KFSA 24, 207). For Schlegel, the goal of the encyclopedia was not only to develop a theory of art, but also be a work of art (KFSA 24, 205). As he saw it, it is only in a work where both form and content are determined by the plasticity of the imagination that insight into reality, life, and history can be achieved. It is, in other words, only in such a work that the division between thought and praxis, theory and empiricism, can be overcome.

  4.7 CONCLUSION: SCHLEGEL’S PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE

  In recent years interest in Schlegel’s philosophical contributions has peaked, and scholars have come to regard Schlegel’s thought to be particularly relevant for contemporary discourse. More specifically, Schlegel’s ideas have been designated as proto-postmodern, evidencing scepticism toward systematic philosophy and absolute knowledge, and affirming irony and the infinite struggle to grasp an (inherently unknowable) absolute.

  However, in spite of Schlegel’s affinity to certain postmodern views, it would be mistaken to regard his critique of transcendental philosophy as a critique of all kinds of systems, or to interpret his notion of the fragment as an affirmation of absolute alterity or infinite contradiction. Rather, Schlegel’s critique of system was always coupled with a different conception of systematic unity—a unity that emerges in and through difference and transformation. Moreover, Schlegel’s conception of the fragment and the system of fragments did not amount to a random compilation of infinitely opposed fragments. Rather, in his collection of fragments, Schlegel was at pains to achieve a harmony that he likened to that of a work of music, and at times described as a ‘symphonic harmony’. Finally, Schlegel’s critique of foundationalist systems (such as Fichte and Schelling’s) was not merely a critique of first principles, but also a critique of a way of thinking—one that is based on the ahistorical model of mathematical construction. The true system, as Schlegel saw it, was a historically rich, concrete system, which sought to locate unity and meaningfulness within the phenomena and their relations, rather than beyond them. Only in this way, he repeatedly argued, can philosophy surmount the gap between theory and practice, and thus become a philosophy that ‘is for life and from life’ (KFSA 8, 60).

  These ideas, I think, illustrate Schlegel’s significance and his continuing relevance. It is in his search for a philosophy that can truly speak to the empirical human being, and which can meaningfully disclose empirical phenomena—without, however, becoming mere empiricism—that Schlegel’s distinctive contributions lie.44

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Behler, Ernst. Friedrich Schlegel. Hamburg: Rowoht, 1966.

  Behler, Ernst. ‘Einleitung’ to vol. 8 of Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe, ed. E. Behler, J. J. Ansett, and H. Eichner. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1958–.

  Behler, Ernst. ‘Unendliche Perfektabilität—Goldenes Zeitalter: die Geschichtsphilosophie Friedrich Schlegels im Unterschied zu der von Novalis’, in Geschichte und Aktualität, ed. Klaus-Detlef Müller, 138–58. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1988.

  Behler, Ernst. ‘Zum Verhältnis von Hegel und Friedrich Schlegel in der Theorie der Unendlichkeit’, in Studien zur Romantik und zur idealistischen Philosophie 2, 119–41. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1994.

  Beiser, Frederick. Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism: The Genesis of Modern German Political Thought, 1
790–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992.

  Beiser, Frederick. German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

  Beiser, Frederick. The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

  Breazeale, Daniel, ed., Fichte’s Early Philosophical Writings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

  Chaouli, Michel. The Laboratory of Poetics: Chemistry and Poetics in the Work of Friedrich Schlegel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

  Dilthey, Wilhelm. Leben Schleiermachers, ed. M. Redeker. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970.

  Eichner, Hans. Friedrich Schlegel. New York: Twayne, 1970.

  Fichte, J. G. Sämmtliche Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte. Berlin: Verlag von Veit und Comp, 1845.

  Fichte, J. G. Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, ed. R. Lauth, H. Jacob, and H. Gliwitzky. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann, 1962–2012.

  Forster, Michael. German Philosophy of Language: From Schlegel to Hegel and Beyond. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  Frank, Manfred. ‘“Alle Wahrheit ist relativ, alles Wissen symbolisch”: Motive der Grundsatz-Skepsis in der frühen Jenaer Romantik (1796)’, Revue International de Philosophie 50, March 1996: 403–36.

  Frank, Manfred. Einführung in die frühromantische Ästhetik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1989.

  Frank, Manfred. ‘Unendliche Annäherung’: die Anfänge der philosophischen Frühromantik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1997.

  Frank, Manfred. The Philosophical Foundations of Early German Romanticism, trans. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert. Albany: SUNY, 2004.

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Sämtliche Werke, Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche [Frankfurter Ausgabe]. Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1999.

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Goethes Werke [Weimarer Ausgabe] hrsg. im Auftrage der Großherzogin Sophie von Sachsen. Weimar: H. Böhlau, 1887–1919.

  Hardenberg, Friedrich von [Novalis]. Schriften. Die Werke Friedrich von Hardenbergs, ed. Richard Samuel, H.-J. Mähl, Paul Kluckhorn, and G. Schulz. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1960–88.

  Haym, Rudolf. Die romantische Schule. Berlin: Gaertner, 1870.

  Hegel, G. W. F. Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik Band 1, Sämtliche Werke, vol. 12, ed. H. Glockner. Stuttgart: Frommann, 1953.

  Heiner, Hans-Joachim. Das Ganzheitsdenken Friedrich Schlegels. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971.

  Helfer, Martha B. The Retreat of Representation: the Concept of Darstellung in German Critical Discourse. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996.

  Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe and Jean-Luc Nancy. The Literary Absolute: The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism, trans. Philip Barnard and Cheryl Lester. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988.

  Millán-Zaibert, Elizabeth. Friedrich Schlegel and the Emergence of Romantic Philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008.

  Nassar, Dalia. The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy 1795–1804. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.

  Richards, Robert. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

  Schelling, F. W. J. von. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. H. M. Baumgartner, W. G. Jacobs, and H. Krings. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann, 1976–.

  Seyhan, Azade. Representation and its Discontents. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992.

  * * *

  1 All references to Schlegel’s work will be in the body of the text and made to the Kritische Friedrich Schlegel Ausgabe, ed. Ernst Behler, Jean-Jacques Anstett, and Hans Eichner (Paderborn: Schöningh, 1958–). I will refer to the edition as KFSA followed by a volume number, a page number, and, if available, a passage or fragment number.

  2 Hans Eichner writes in the Introduction to volume 18 of the KFSA, ‘While August Wilhelm Schlegel was devoted primarily to philology, Novalis and Tieck to poetry, and Schleiermacher to theology, Friedrich Schlegel could say that since 1790 metaphysics was the primary occupation of his life’ (‘Einleitung’, KFSA 18, ix). Similarly, Frederick Beiser writes: ‘If any single figure could claim to be the leader of the romantic circle, it would indisputably be Friedrich Schlegel. His energy, enthusiasm, and enterprise were the creative forces behind the Athenäum, the journal of the group; and his thinking laid the foundation for the aesthetics of romanticism. It was indeed Schlegel who formulated the concept of romantic poetry, from which the movement took its name and much of its inspiration’ (Frederick Beiser, Enlightenment, Revolution and Romanticism, 245).

  3 One of the earliest critics to recognize the significance of Schlegel’s contribution to the philosophy of history and to Lebensphilosophie was Wilhelm Dilthey. See Wilhelm Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers, 262.

  4 G. W. F. Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik Band 1, 103.

  5 Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Sämtliche Werke [Frankfurter Ausgabe], vol. 39, 395. For Goethe’s relationship to the Romantics, see Robert Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life, 457–63.

  6 Schelling, Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe [hereafter cited as HKA], 3/2, 271.

  7 HKA 3/2, 272.

  8 Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik Band 1, 103.

  9 Beiser, The Romantic Imperative, 2–3. Beiser’s point concerns Romanticism in general, and not just Schlegel; however, I think it is an apt characterization of the recent reception of Schlegel in particular.

  10 Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, The Literary Absolute, 12. See also Azade Seyhan, Representation and its Discontents and Martha B. Helfer, The Retreat of Representation.

  11 Although Manfred Frank’s interpretation is philosophical, it focuses on Schlegel’s use of literary devices—wit, irony—as a means by which to suggest or point to the absolute. See Frank, Unendliche Annäherung, 933–46, and Einführung, 291–7.

  12 Frank argues that Schlegel’s notion of ‘relative truth’ relies on an ‘absolute’ that retains its integrity outside of or beyond consciousness. In ‘“Alle Wahrheit ist relativ, alles Wissen symbolisch”’, Frank contends that for Schlegel (and the romantics in general) philosophy is inherently tied to a longing for a non-relative absolute, an ‘independent actuality’ (even if the absolute is beyond knowledge), which alone provides the basis for distinguishing truth and falsity. Thus Frank writes, ‘if there were no orientation toward a non-relative one, then the different allusions [Andeutungen] that have appeared in history would not have appeared as contradictions to one another and as such destroyed one another’ (Frank, ‘“Alle Wahrheit ist relativ, alles Wissen symbolisch”’, 434–5).

  13 For a recent philosophical interpretation of Schlegel as an epistemologist, see Millán-Zaibert, Friedrich Schlegel.

  14 From the end of 1795 through 1796, Novalis was occupied with studying the Wissenschaftslehre, and his notes from that time, the so-called ‘Fichte-Studien’, evidence both his deep interest and understanding of Fichte’s philosophy, as well as the beginning of some very significant critiques of Fichte’s methodology. In letters to Schlegel from 1796, Novalis similarly illustrates an awe of Fichte as well as a caution towards him. Thus, in July of that year, he writes that ‘I owe my excitement to Fichte; he is the one who woke me up and keeps my intellectual fires burning’, but then adds that he is also reading Spinoza and Zinzendorf, ‘who have grasped the infinite idea of love and have divined the method of realizing themselves for it as well as realizing it for themselves on this speck of dust. I am sorry that I have not yet been able to see anything of this vision in Fichte’ (Novalis, Schriften 4, 188). In July of 1797, Novalis’ critique of Fichte becomes more articulate and direct. He writes to Schlegel: ‘Fichte cannot come out of the Wissenschaftslehre, at least without an internal shift [Selbstversetzung], which appears impossible to me’ (Schriften 4, 230).

  15 Before going to Jena Schlegel composed a review of Jacobi’s novel Woldemar. In recent years
, this review has been hailed as Schlegel’s first critique of Fichte and transcendental philosophy. However, upon its publication, the review was considered to be very much in line with Fichte. Thus Ernst Behler relates that ‘for many contemporaries the review was understood as a judgment following Fichte. At that time Fichte and Schlegel were in close personal contact, and J. F. Reichardt, in whose journal Deutschland the debate appeared, had at first offered the review of Woldemar to Fichte’ (Behler, ‘Einleitung’, KFSA 8, xxxiv). Rudolf Haym (who considers Schlegel to be a follower of Fichte in general) sees the review as an elaboration of Fichtean principles, and argues that Schlegel’s notion of a Wechselerweis (alternating principle or reciprocal proof) is nothing other than the Fichtean positing of I and not-I. See Die Romantische Schule, 219–32. Indeed, there is reason to agree with Haym’s interpretation, as Schlegel himself explains that the Wissenschaftslehre is based on two fundamental premises and not one. The first is that the I should posit itself, the second is that the I posits itself. They are irreducibly different, but nevertheless one is not higher than the other. For this reason, he writes in 1796 that the Wissenschaftslehre is based on a Wechselgrundsatz (KFSA 18, 36, no. 193). In contrast to Haym’s interpretation, Manfred Frank writes:

  the appearances of the Wechselerweis are indeed many, but unclear. A possible interpretation can be of a fragment in which the self-positing alternating [wechselseitig] statements are presented as follows: ‘The I posits itself’ (or, the absolute positing = Being: ‘I am’) and ‘The I should posit itself.’ If one of them were evident for itself, it would need no Wechselerweis (or ‘Wechselgrundsatz’). That means that Schlegel does not agree with Fichte’s positing of a singular ground statement ‘The I posits itself absolutely’; for this statement does not support itself.