The oldest system program of German idealism

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The oldest system program of German idealism is the title of a short text, the author of which is not certain. Since its discovery, great importance has beenattached tothe fragment for the history and interpretation of the origins of the philosophy of German idealism .

History of discovery and publication

The text is delivered on a single sheet. The manuscript in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's handwriting was acquired by the Royal Library of Berlin at an auction in March 1913 . The seller, the Leo Liepmannssohn company , was unable to provide sufficient information about the origin of the manuscript, so that the tradition breaks off here. Apparently it belongs to a longer text; However, only a double-sided sheet of paper that begins in the middle of the sentence has survived. The text was first published in 1917 by Franz Rosenzweig ; the title comes from him. From 1945 the text was deemed to have disappeared, but was found again at the end of the 1970s and examined by Helmut Schneider , who edited it critically together with Christoph Jamme .

Note on the title

The title “system program” is - according to Dieter Henrich - misleading insofar as the text only lists the objects of a treatise or a programmatic speech, but does not represent the principles from which an idealistic system should be based. In addition, the text, which was probably created in 1797, is younger than Hölderlin's fragment “Urtheil und Seyn” (1794/95), which could justifiably be called the “oldest system program of German idealism”.

Authorship

The handwriting of the manuscript can be clearly assigned to Hegel. The choice of words and content, however, according to some researchers, do not fit the philosophy of the young Hegel. It is therefore sometimes assumed that it is a copy by Hegel of the text of one of his Tübingen friends and temporary roommates, Schelling or Holderlin; authors other than these three have not yet been considered. For reasons of content, Rosenzweig believed he had to ascribe the authorship to Schelling, with whose system of transcendental idealism the fragment resonates.

In 1917 Ernst Cassirer came to the conclusion in the fourth treatise from Idea and Shape with the title "Hölderlin and the German Idealism" by comparing the system design with Hölderlin's world of thought on the one hand and the development of Schelling's philosophy on the other hand, to the conclusion that this with the system design ideas of the early Hölderlin took up from the Jena fragment of Hyperion from the winter of 1794/95 and gave them conceptual sharpness and systematics. The author of Hyperion had taken a stand here “as an artist and with the rights of the artist against Fichte's ethical religious philosophy”, for whom “nature […] itself was nothing absolute, no original and independent being that existed in itself” be, "but the goal and [...] the scope of the ought", which "is only intended to be transformed by virtue of the moral will and thus to be destroyed and abolished as this given". With this, the poet started "defense and [...] spiritual self-assertion".

In 1926 this prompted the Hölderlin researcher Wilhelm Böhm, because of the important role that beauty plays in the design, to grant Holderlin sole authorship; however, this view found no followers. But a joint production by Schelling and Holderlin has been considered several times. It was not until 1962 that Otto Pöggeler stood up for Hegel's authorship. Pöggeler's role as head of the Hegel archive, which is central to Hegel philology at the Ruhr University in Bochum, brought his arguments particular attention and successors among his numerous students. Recently, however, many Hegel researchers have withdrawn from the authorship of Hegel.

System program of German idealism

Following on from the transcendental philosophy of practical reason Immanuel Kant, the author programmatically lists the ideas of a future idealism as an ethic that should contain a complete system of all ideas of idealism.

The idea of ​​the creative ego as a self-confident being is put in front. The ego confronts nature as a creative spirit. The free man demands the disappearance of the state. In addition to the idea of ​​mankind, as well as the ideas of God, freedom and immortality, which are at home in the free spirit, the idea of beauty, with special consideration of poetry, is assigned an outstanding and binding role.

Ultimately, all ideas should aesthetically flow together in the myth of a belief in reason . This point of view points to references to romanticism .

effect

The text of the “system program” has met with strong and sustained interest since its discovery, as it clearly reveals the motives behind the philosophy of German idealism. However, these are no longer equally clearly recognizable in the developed philosophical systems. The text attracted particular attention in the early 1980s when it was discussed in connection with Friedrich Schlegel's project of a "New Mythology" and the then current considerations about the connection between aesthetics and philosophy ( Karl Heinz Bohrer , Manfred Frank , Heinz Gockel ) .

literature

  • Franz Rosenzweig : The oldest system program of German idealism. A handwritten find. in: Meeting reports of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, phil.-hist. Class Bd. 1917, 8.5. C. Winter University Press, Heidelberg 1917.
  • Ernst Cassirer : “Holderlin and German Idealism”, in: Idea and Shape. Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Kleist. Five essays. Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1921, pp. 109–152 (first in: Logos. International Journal for Philosophy of Culture 7, 1917/18, pp. 262–282 digitized ).
  • Christoph Jamme, Helmut Schneider (Ed.): Mythology of Reason. Hegel's oldest systematic program of German idealism . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1984. ISBN 3-518-28013-9 (with a critical edition of the text and reprint of the most important research articles, including by Rosenzweig, Pöggeler and Henrich)
  • Frank-Peter Hansen: The oldest system program of German idealism. Reception history and interpretation . Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989. ISBN 3-11-011809-2 (detailed description of the history of interpretation)
  • Walter Jaeschke: Hegel manual , chap. II, Section 3.1, pp. 76-80, Metzler, Stuttgart 2003

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christoph Jamme, Helmut Schneider (ed.): Mythologie der Vernunft. Hegel's oldest systematic program of German idealism . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1984, p. 21-78 .
  2. ↑ Ernst Cassirer, Idea and Shape. Goethe, Schiller, Hölderlin, Kleist. Five essays. Bruno Cassirer, Berlin 1921, pp. 109–152, here pp. 111–132, especially pp. 129–132 (first in: Logos. International Journal for Philosophy of Culture 7, 1917/18, pp. 262–282).
  3. ↑ Cassirer, Idea and Shape , pp. 120–123.

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