Enrolment is now closed! But you can download the syllabus for our upcoming Hegel course here.

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“Nature is visible Spirit. Spirit is invisible Nature” 

- Friedrich Schelling

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The philosophical movement known as German Idealism is arguably one of the most important periods of all modern philosophy. 

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German Idealism begins with Kant’s critique of reason and finds its culmination in Hegel’s philosophy of spirit.

The study of this period as a whole is pivotal for anyone wishing to understand Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Hölderlin. But it is also crucial for anyone wishing to achieve a more grounded understanding of Marxism, 20th century continental philosophy, and accelerationism.

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Thinkers like Marx, Husserl, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, Kojevé, Deleuze are not only heavily influenced by German Idealism. Their projects would have been impossible without it.  

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German Idealism is not grey theory. It depicts rather an epoch in which the dimension of the human stands revealed most fully in all its spiritual glory. 

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Thus, to study German Idealism means to delve into the cosmic-spiritual dimension of the human being and his Spirit.

A reawakening of Spirit brought about by Kant’s critical philosophy, which was nothing short of an earthquake. 

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In the course we will learn about the following:

 

• Kant, his time and his predecessors. This will include Descartes, Leibniz, Baumgarten, and Hume. 

• Kant’s Critical Philosophy, his transcendental idealism and its aftermath (Reinhold, Maimon, Fichte)

• Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature and Absolute Idealism

• Hölderlin on the Ether and Absolute Idealism

• Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, Nature, and Being

• Human Freedom, Spirit and our Place in Nature

• Readings will include excerpts from Kant's First Critique, Fichte's Doctrine of Science, Hölderlin's poem Leisure, Schelling's essay on freedom, and excerpts from Hegel's Science of Logic

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