Since the early 1990s, there has been a resurgence of interest in philosophy between Kant and Hegel, and in early German romanticism in particular. Philosophers have come to recognize that, in spite of significant differences between the contemporary and romantic contexts, romanticism continues to persist, and the questions which the romantics raised remain relevant today. The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on Early German Romantic Philosophy is the first collection of essays that offers an in-depth analysis of the reasons why philosophers are (and should be) concerned with romanticism. Through historical and systematic reconstructions, the collection offers a deeper understanding and more encompassing picture of romanticism as a philosophical movement than has been presented thus far, and explicates the role that romanticism plays - or can play - in contemporary philosophical debates. The volume includes essays by a number of preeminent international scholars and philosophers - Karl Ameriks, Frederick Beiser, Richard Eldridge, Michael Forster, Manfred Frank, Jane Kneller, and Paul Redding - who discuss the nature of philosophical romanticism and its potential to address contemporary questions and concerns. Through contributions from established and emerging philosophers, discussing key romantic themes and concerns, the volume highlights the diversity both within romantic thought and its contemporary reception. Part One consists of the first published encounter between Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser, in which the two major scholars directly discuss their vastly differing interpretations of philosophical romanticism. Part Two draws significant connections between romantic conceptions of history, sociability, hermeneutics and education and explores the ways in which these views can illuminate pressing questions in contemporary social-political philosophy and theories of interpretation. Part Three consists in some of the most innovative takes on romantic aesthetics, which seek to bring romantic thought into dialogue, with, for instance, contemporary Analytic aesthetics and theories of cognition/mind. The final part offers one of the few rigorous engagements with romantic conceptions science, and demonstrates ways in which the romantic views of nature, scientific experimentation and mathematics need not be relegated to historical curiosities.

Since the early 1990s, there has been a resurgence of interest in philosophy between Kant and Hegel, and in early German romanticism in particular. Philosophers have come to recognize that, in spite of significant differences between the contemporary and romantic contexts, romanticism continues to persist, and the questions which the romantics raised remain relevant today. The Relevance of Romanticism: Essays on Early German Romantic Philosophy is the first collection of essays that offers an in-depth analysis of the reasons why philosophers are (and should be) concerned with romanticism. Through historical and systematic reconstructions, the collection offers a deeper understanding and more encompassing picture of romanticism as a philosophical movement than has been presented thus far, and explicates the role that romanticism plays - or can play - in contemporary philosophical debates. The volume includes essays by a number of preeminent international scholars and philosophers - Karl Ameriks, Frederick Beiser, Richard Eldridge, Michael Forster, Manfred Frank, Jane Kneller, and Paul Redding - who discuss the nature of philosophical romanticism and its potential to address contemporary questions and concerns. Through contributions from established and emerging philosophers, discussing key romantic themes and concerns, the volume highlights the diversity both within romantic thought and its contemporary reception. Part One consists of the first published encounter between Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser, in which the two major scholars directly discuss their vastly differing interpretations of philosophical romanticism. Part Two draws significant connections between romantic conceptions of history, sociability, hermeneutics and education and explores the ways in which these views can illuminate pressing questions in contemporary social-political philosophy and theories of interpretation. Part Three consists in some of the most innovative takes on romantic aesthetics, which seek to bring romantic thought into dialogue, with, for instance, contemporary Analytic aesthetics and theories of cognition/mind. The final part offers one of the few rigorous engagements with romantic conceptions science, and demonstrates ways in which the romantic views of nature, scientific experimentation and mathematics need not be relegated to historical curiosities.

The long nineteenth-century-the period beginning with the French Revolution and ending with World War I-was a transformative period for women philosophers in German-speaking countries and contexts. The period spans romanticism and idealism, socialism, Nietzscheanism, and phenomenology, philosophical movements we most often associate with Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx-but rarely with women. Yet women philosophers not only contributed to these movements, but also spearheaded debates about their social and political implications. While today their works are less well-known than those of their male contemporaries, many of these women philosophers were widely-read and influential in their own time. Their contributions shed important new light on nineteenth-century philosophy and philosophy more generally: revealing the extent to which various movements which we consider distinct were joined, and demonstrating the degree to which philosophy can transform lives and be transformed by lived experiences and practices. In the nineteenth century, women philosophers explored a wide range of philosophical topics and styles. Working within and in dialogue with popular philosophical movements, women philosophers helped shape philosophy's agenda and provided unique approaches to existential, political, aesthetic, and epistemological questions. Though largely deprived formal education and academic positions, women thinkers developed a way of philosophizing that was accessible, intuitive, and activist in spirit. The present volume makes available to English-language readers-in many cases for the first time-the works of nine women philosophers, with the hope of stimulating further interest in and scholarship on their works. The volume includes a comprehensive introduction to women philosophers in the nineteenth century and introduces each philosopher and her position. The translations are furnished with explanatory footnotes. The volume is designed to be accessible to students as well as scholars.

The long nineteenth-century-the period beginning with the French Revolution and ending with World War I-was a transformative period for women philosophers in German-speaking countries and contexts. The period spans romanticism and idealism, socialism, Nietzscheanism, and phenomenology, philosophical movements we most often associate with Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Marx-but rarely with women. Yet women philosophers not only contributed to these movements, but also spearheaded debates about their social and political implications. While today their works are less well-known than those of their male contemporaries, many of these women philosophers were widely-read and influential in their own time. Their contributions shed important new light on nineteenth-century philosophy and philosophy more generally: revealing the extent to which various movements which we consider distinct were joined, and demonstrating the degree to which philosophy can transform lives and be transformed by lived experiences and practices. In the nineteenth century, women philosophers explored a wide range of philosophical topics and styles. Working within and in dialogue with popular philosophical movements, women philosophers helped shape philosophy's agenda and provided unique approaches to existential, political, aesthetic, and epistemological questions. Though largely deprived formal education and academic positions, women thinkers developed a way of philosophizing that was accessible, intuitive, and activist in spirit. The present volume makes available to English-language readers-in many cases for the first time-the works of nine women philosophers, with the hope of stimulating further interest in and scholarship on their works. The volume includes a comprehensive introduction to women philosophers in the nineteenth century and introduces each philosopher and her position. The translations are furnished with explanatory footnotes. The volume is designed to be accessible to students as well as scholars.

This Oxford Handbook engages with the work of women philosophers spanning the long nineteenth century in the German tradition. It investigates women's contributions to key philosophical areas such as epistemology and metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics, social and political philosophy, ecology, education, and the philosophy of nature and examines their role in the formation and development of major philosophical moments, including romanticism and idealism, socialism, Marxism, Nietzscheanism, feminism, phenomenology, and neo-Kantianism. Through thirty-one newly commissioned chapters, the volume explores how women often took philosophical premises and positions in innovative and radical directions, and thereby sheds new light on the major movements of the period and their continuing philosophical potential. As the contributors demonstrate, women were generally excluded from academic discourse and therefore had to seek alternative means by which to carry out their philosophical research — often by bringing philosophy to a wider public, and allowing fundamental existential, social, and political questions to determine their philosophizing. By investigating the works, influence, and legacy of a number of understudied and overlooked philosophers, the Handbook contributes to the ongoing effort to revise our knowledge of the history of philosophy, deepen our grasp of the philosophical potential of various arguments, positions, and movements, and critically rethink the narratives by which the discipline understands itself. This volume will serve as a crucial addition to our understanding of nineteenth-century philosophy and the movements that made it up.

In Romantic Empiricism, Dalia Nassar distinguishes and explores an understudied philosophical tradition that emerged in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, traces its development, and argues for its continued significance. Moving from the late Kant's notion of reflecting judgment, to Herder's articulation of the idea of "animal worlds," Goethe's explication of the obligations of the scientist, and Alexander von Humboldt's aesthetic science, Nassar demonstrates how these thinkers developed a sophisticated empirical approach to the natural world, which focuses on the phenomenon while also recognizing the creative role of the knowing subject and the cognitive value of art and aesthetic experience. She explores how these four thinkers worked together-sometimes as rivals, but more often than not as teachers and collaborators-and illustrates how their search for a new methodology culminated in a new, ecological understanding of the world and the human place within it. Revisiting their thought, especially their distinctive approach to the study of nature, Nassar demonstrates, has the potential to redirect contemporary environmental debates and respond to urgent ecological questions in new and productive ways.

The absolute was one of the most significant philosophical concepts in the early nineteenth century, particularly for the German romantics. Its exact meaning and its role within philosophical romanticism remain, however, a highly contested topic among contemporary scholars. In The Romantic Absolute, Dalia Nassar offers an illuminating new assessment of the romantics and their understanding of the absolute. In doing so, she fills an important gap in the history of philosophy, especially with respect to the crucial period between Kant and Hegel. Scholars today interpret philosophical romanticism along two competing lines: one emphasizes the romantics' concern with epistemology, the other their concern with metaphysics. Through careful textual analysis and systematic reconstruction of the work of three major romantics - Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, and Friedrich Schelling - Nassar shows that neither interpretation is fully satisfying. Rather, she argues, one needs to approach the absolute from both perspectives. Rescuing these philosophers from frequent misunderstanding, and even dismissal, she articulates not only a new angle on the philosophical foundations of romanticism but on the meaning and significance of the notion of the absolute itself.