This paper “on the logics of language” discusses the fundamental role which the reality of language plays in the thinking of Hölderlin as well as in Hegel. Common to both is the emphasis on the ‘Wirklichkeit der Sprache’ – in the double sense of this phrase: the reality language is, and the reality language has. At the same time there is, of course, the great difference that for Hegel the logic of language fulfils itself in the ‘work of the concept(s)’ (...) [“Arbeit des Begriffs”], while for Hölderlin it is fulfilled in forms of poetry or in the broader sense of poetic work. The paper explores the origins, conceptual basics and consequences of the dialectic between moving ‘from language to logics’ in Hegel and moving ‘from logics to language’ in Hölderlin. The main works of Hegel considered here are Die Phänomenologie des Geistes, Wissenschaft der Logik and some parts of the Enzyklopädie (1830); from Hölderlin the focus is on the theoretical fragments Seyn, Urtheil, …, Das untergehende Vaterland … and Wenn der Dichter einmal des Geistes mächtig ist …. One central issue treated by exploring the discussion between Hegel and Hölderlin is their respective concepts of memory and its development. Reflecting on the connection between the power of imagination and the necessity of forms of utterance is the other. The primary aim of the paper is to explain the relevance that Hölderlin’s poetic work has in philosophical perspective – a relevance which can be explained in relation to Hegel. (shrink)

This article attempts to expose an unwarranted narrowness in the study of idealism in nineteenth century philosophy, and to show that the field of idealism is much wider than usually assumed. This narrowness stems from the influence of Hegel’s history of philosophy, which saw the idealist tradition as beginning in Kant, passing through Fichte and Schelling, and then culminating in his own system. This conception of history has been disseminated by Hegel’s followers and still prevails today. I argue that this (...) conception is too narrow for several reasons. First, it ignores the romantic idealists (Hölderlin, Novalis, Schlegel); second, it excludes the opposing tradition of idealism of Herbart, Fries and Beneke, which affirmed (against Schelling and Hegel) transcendental idealism, an empiricist epistemology, the existence of the thing-in-itself and the value of the Kantian dualisms; and, third, it neglects the history of idealism after Hegel later in the nineteenth century, more specifically, the idealism of Trendelenburg, Lotze and Hartmann. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of the emotions in Edith Stein’s early work On the Problem of Empathy. After presenting her work embedded in the tradition of the early phenomenology of the emotions, I shall elaborate the four dimensions of the emotional experience according to this authoress, the link between emotions and values and the phenomenon of the living body. I argue that Stein’s account on empathy remains incomplete as long as we ignore the complex phenomenology of emotions (...) underlying her work. (shrink)