Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T11:56:15.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Romantic philosophy and religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

Nicholas Saul
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access

Summary

'Romanticism' has often been regarded as being impossible to define in a clear manner, and there is very little agreement on what characterises philosophers who, even just in a German context, can be specifically termed 'Romantic'. Some commentators restrict the term 'Romantic philosophy' to the 'early German', 'Jena' Romantics, Friedrich Schlegel and Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis) and, sometimes, F. D. E. Schleiermacher and K. W. F. Solger, whereas others include Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche and others. If we look at a characteristically provocative remark by a philosopher and writer who helped to bring the term Romantic into common usage, we can both elucidate the issue of definitions and get a sense of how one self-styled Romantic philosopher regards the task of philosophy. Friedrich Schlegel talks of the 'Ungeheurer Irrthum, daB von jedem Begriff nur Eine Definition möglich sei' ('Massive mistake, that only One definition is possible of every concept'), and he suggests that we should rather seek 'Unendlich viele ... reale synthetische' ('infinitely many ... real synthetic [definitions]'). In the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781, second, expanded edition 1787; Critique of Pure Reason) Kant is also overtly suspicious of the idea that concepts can be strictly defined. He claims that definition is really only possible for mathematical axioms, and that 'meine Erklärung kann besser eine Deklaration (meines Projekts) als Definition eines Gegenstandes heiBen' ('my explanation [of a concept] can better be termed a declaration (of my project) than a definition of an object').

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×