Truth, art, and philosophy

The complexity of the relationship between German Idealism and the arts becomes apparent if one considers the following contentions from two of its most famous texts. Hegel announced in his Lectures on Aesthetics, given in the 1820s, that “[t]he science of art is . . . in our time much more necessary than at times in which art for itself as art provided complete satisfaction.” In his 1800 System of Transcendental Idealism Schelling claimed, in contrast, that art is “the only true and eternal organ and document of philosophy, which always and continuously documents what philosophy cannot represent externally.” Some of the most important debates in modern philosophy, whose significance extends not only beyond their initial appearance in German Idealism but also beyond the narrowly conceived sphere of aesthetics, took place in the space between these positions.