Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- 6 Hegel's Critique of “Those Plant-like Beings”
- 7 Schopenhauer's Justification for Good
- 8 Nietzsche's Inability to Escape from Schopenhauer's South Asian Sources
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Hegel's Critique of “Those Plant-like Beings”
from III - Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: History Is Personal
- Prologue: Original Attributes, 425 B.C.–A.D. 1765
- I L'Âge des Ombres, 1765–1790s
- II Textual Salvation from Social Degeneration, 1790s–1808
- III Alternate Idealizations, 1807–1885
- 6 Hegel's Critique of “Those Plant-like Beings”
- 7 Schopenhauer's Justification for Good
- 8 Nietzsche's Inability to Escape from Schopenhauer's South Asian Sources
- Epilogue: Destinies Reconsidered, 1885–2004
- Conclusion: The Intersection of the Personal, the Philosophical, and the Political
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
I called up the devil and he came;
I looked him over wonderingly. …
His diplomatic skill is great,
And He talks very nicely on Church and State.
He's somewhat pale — no wonder, I vow,
For he's studying Sanskrit and Hegel now.
— Heinrich Heine, “The Homecoming” (1823–24)THE HOCH- AND SPÄTROMANTIKER did not share the same zealous fascination with India as did the Frühromantiker, yet between 1808 and mid-century, Indology in Germany and France began to become a legitimate area of study, particularly due to the efforts of figures such as the linguist Franz Bopp and the philologist and Orientalist Max Müller. Only shortly after the publication of works such as Schlegel's On the Language and Wisdom of the Indians, developments in continental philosophy, German nationalism, and evolutionary biology began presenting theories and associations that would largely determine views of origins and destiny through the end of the nineteenth century. The generation that followed the Early Romantics would be neither overzealous Indomaniacs, nor would they finally come to reject Indian thought as degraded down to a form of nihilism.
In 1807, immediately preceding the publication of Schlegel's text and Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation, Die Phänomenologie des Geistes (The Phenomenology of Spirit) appeared. This work, which traces the development of mind or spirit from primitive to “absolute” knowledge, was the first major work by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who would both criticize the Early Romantics and incorporate much of their thought into his own system.
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- The Indo-German IdentificationReconciling South Asian Origins and European Destinies, 1765–1885, pp. 131 - 141Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010