The philosophical ideas and thoughts ofEdmund Burke,Thomas Carlyle,Johann Gottlieb Fichte,Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling,Søren Kierkegaard,Arthur Schopenhauer andRichard Wagner have been frequently described as Romantic.[1]
Immanuel Kant'scriticism of rationalism is thought to be a source of influence for early Romantic thought. The third volume of theHistory of Philosophy edited byG. F. Aleksandrov, B. E. Bykhovsky,M. B. Mitin andP. F. Yudin (1943) assesses that "From Kant originates thatmetaphysical isolation and opposition of the genius of everyday life, on which later the Romantics asserted their aestheticindividualism."[2]
Hamann's andHerder's philosophical thoughts were influential on both the proto-RomanticSturm und Drang movement and on Romanticism itself. TheHistory of Philosophy stresses: "As a writer, Hamann stood close to theSturm und Drang literary movement with his cult of genius personality and played a role in the preparation of German Romanticism."[3]
The philosophy ofFichte was of pivotal importance for the Romantics. The founder of German Romanticism,Friedrich Schlegel, identified the "three sources of Romanticism": theFrench Revolution, Fichte's philosophy andGoethe's novelWilhelm Meister.[4]
In the words of A. Lavretsky:
In the person of Fichte, German idealism put forward its most militant figure, and German Romanticism found the philosophy of its revolutionary period. Fichte’s system in the sphere of German thought is a bright lightning of a revolutionary storm in the West. His entire frame of mind is full of the stormy energy of revolutionary epochs, his entire spiritual appearance amazes with his conscious class purposefulness. Never before or after have sounded such harsh notes of the class struggle in German idealist philosophy. This creator of the most abstract system knew how to put problems on a practical basis. When he speaks about morality, he does not convince us, like Kant, that human nature is fundamentally corrupted, but notes: “people are the worse, the higher their class.” When he talks about the state, he knows how not to ask, but to demand as a true plebeian their rights to equality in this state.[5]
Schelling, who was associated with theSchlegelbrothers inJena, took many of his philosophical andaesthetical ideas from the Romantics, and also influenced them on their own views. According to theHistory of Philosophy, "In his philosophy of art, Schelling emerged from the subjective boundaries in which Kant concluded aesthetics, referring it only to features of judgment. Schelling's aesthetics, understanding the world as an artistic creation, has adopted a universal character and served as the basis for the teachings of the Romantic school."[6] It is argued that Friedrich Schlegel'ssubjectivism and his glorification of the superior intellect as property of a selectelite influenced Schelling's doctrine ofintellectual intuition, whichGyörgy Lukács called "the first manifestation ofirrationalism".[7] As much asEarly Romanticism influenced the young Schelling'sNaturphilosophie (his interpretation ofnature as an expression ofspiritual powers), so did Late Romanticism influence the older Schelling'smythological andmysticist worldview (Mysterienlehre).[7][8]
Also according to Lukács,Kierkegaard's views on philosophy and aesthetics were an offshoot of Romanticism:
We can see, despite all Kierkegaard's polemical digressions, an enduring and living legacy of Romanticism. With regard to this, the basic problem in his philosophy, he came very close in methodology to the moral philosopher ofearly Romanticism, theSchleiermacher of theTalks on Religion andIntimate Letters on Friedrich Schlegel's Lucinde. Certainly the resemblance of the propositions is limited to the fact that, as a result of the passing of Romantic aesthetics into an aesthetically determined 'art of living' on the one hand, and of a religion founded purely on subjective experience on the other, the two areas were bound to mesh all the time. But just that was the young Schleiermacher's intention: it was just by that route that he sought to lead his Romantic-aesthetically oriented generation back to religion and to encourage the Romantic aesthetic and art of living to sprout into religiosity. If, then, the resemblance and the structural closeness of the two spheres were of advantage to Schleiermacher's arguments, the self-same factors gave rise to the greatest intellectual difficulties for Kierkegaard.[9]
Schopenhauer also owed certain features of his philosophy to Romanticpessimism: "Since salvation from suffering associated with the will is available through art only to a select few, Schopenhauer proposed another, more accessible way of overcoming the "I" -BuddhistNirvana. In essence, Schopenhauer, although he was confident in the innovation of his revelations, did not give anything original here in comparison with the idealization of theEastern world outlook by reactionary Romantics - it was indeedFriedrich Schlegel who introduced this idealization in Germany with hisÜber die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (About the language and wisdom of the Indians)."[10][11]
In the opinion ofGyörgy Lukács,Friedrich Nietzsche's importance as anirrationalist philosopher lay in that, while his early influences are to be found in Romanticism, he founded amodern irrationalism antithetical to that of the Romantics:
Nietzsche was frequently associated with the Romantic movement. The assumption is correct inasmuch as many motives of Romantic anti-capitalism — e.g., the struggle against the capitalist division of labour and its consequences for bourgeoisculture andmorals — played a considerable part in his thinking. The setting up of a past age as an ideal for the present age to realize also belonged to the intellectual armoury of Romantic anti-capitalism. Nietzsche’s activity, however, fell within the period after theproletariat’s first seizure of power, after theParis Commune. Crisis and dissolution, Romantic anti-capitalism’s development into capitalist apologetics, the fate ofCarlyle during and after the1848 revolution — these already lay far behind Nietzsche in the dusty past. Thus the young Carlyle had contrasted capitalism’s cruelty and inhumanity with the Middle Ages as an epoch of popular prosperity, a happy age for those who laboured; whereas Nietzsche began, as we have noted, by extolling as a model the ancient slave economy. And so the reactionary utopia which Carlyle envisioned after 1848 he also found naive and long outdated. Admittedly thearistocratic bias of both had similar social foundations: in the attempt to ensure the leading social position of thebourgeoisie and to account for that position philosophically. But the different conditions surrounding Nietzsche’s work lent to his aristocratic leanings a fundamentally different content and totally different colouring from that of Romantic anti-capitalism. True, remnants of Romanticism (fromSchopenhauer,Richard Wagner) are still palpable in the young Nietzsche. But these he proceeded to overcome as he developed, even if — with regard to the crucially important method of indirect apologetics — he still remained a pupil of Schopenhauer and preserved as his basic concept the irrational one of theDionysian principle (against reason, for instinct); but not without significant modifications, as we shall see. Hence an increasingly energetic dissociation from Romanticism is perceptible in the course of Nietzsche’s development. While the Romantic he identified more and more passionately withdecadence (of the bad kind), the Dionysian became a concept increasingly antithetical to Romanticism, a parallel for the surmounting of decadence and a symbol of the ‘good’ kind of decadence, the kind he approved.[12]
Even in his post-Schopenhauerian period, however, Nietzsche paid some tributes to Romanticism, for example borrowing the title of his bookThe Gay Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882–87) fromFriedrich Schlegel's 1799 novelLucinde.[13]
Pyotr Semyonovich Kogan traced most of the contents of Nietzschean philosophy to Romanticism:
The main sentiments of which [Nietzsche's] philosophy consisted, are already present in the work of many gifted figures anticipating the author ofZarathustra. The rebellious geniuses of theSturm und Drang era overturned authority and tradition with chaotic energy, longed for boundless space for the development of the human person, despised and hated social bonds. In theGerman Romantics you can find the will totransvaluation of morals, which found so brilliant substantiation in Nietzsche'sparadoxical book. Certainly the author of the bookBeyond Good and Evil would have agreed to the words ofFriedrich Schlegel: "The first rule of morality is rebellion against positive laws, against the conditions of decency. There is nothing more foolish as moralists when they accuse you of selfishness. They are certainly wrong: what god can a person worship, besides being his own god?" The dream of theSuperman already appears in another phrase of the same author: "A real person will become more and more a god. Be man and become a god - two identical manifestations." The same as in Nietzsche, contempt for the fleeting interests of the moment, the same impulse for the eternal and for beauty: "Do not give your love and faith to world politicians," said Schlegel in the 1800s. For the same Schlegel, it was worth "for the divine world of knowledge and art, to sacrifice the deepest feelings of your soul in the sacred, the fiery current of eternal perfection."[14]
Lukács also emphasized that the emergence oforganicism in philosophy received its impetus from Romanticism:
This view, that only 'organic growth', that is to say change through small and gradual reforms with the consent of the ruling class, was regarded as 'a natural principle', whereas every revolutionary upheaval received the dismissive tag of 'contrary to nature' gained a particularly extensive form in the course of the development of reactionary German romanticism (Savigny, thehistorical law school, etc.). The antithesis of 'organic growth' and 'mechanical fabrication' was now elaborated: it constituted a defence of 'naturally grown' feudal privileges against the praxis of theFrench Revolution and the bourgeois ideologies underlying it, which were repudiated as mechanical, highbrow and abstract.[15]
Wilhelm Dilthey, founder (along with Nietzsche,Simmel andKlages) of theintuitionist andirrationalist school ofLebensphilosophie in Germany, is credited with leading the Romantic revival inhermeneutics of the early 20th century. With hisSchleiermacher biography and works onNovalis,Hölderlin, etc., he was one of the initiators of the Romantic renaissance in theimperial period. His discovery and annotation of the youngHegel's manuscripts became crucial to the vitalistic interpretation of Hegelian philosophy in the post-war period; hisGoethe study likewise ushered in the vitalistic interpretation of Goethe subsequently leading from Simmel andGundolf to Klages.[16]
Passivity was a key element of the Romantic mood in Germany, and it was brought by the Romantics into their own religious and philosophical views. The theologianSchleiermacher argued that the true essence of religion lies not in the active love of one's neighbor, but in the passive contemplation of the infinite; InSchelling’s philosophical system, the creative absolute (God) is immersed in the same passive, motionless state.
The only activity that the Romantics allowed is that in which there is almost no volitional element, that is, artistic creativity. They considered the representatives of art to be the happiest people, and in their works, along with knights chained in armor, poets, painters and musicians usually appear.Schelling considered an artist to be incomparably higher than a philosopher, because the secret of the world can be guessed from his minutia not by systematic logical thinking, but only by direct artistic intuition ("intellectual intuition"). Romantics loved to dream of such legendary countries, where all life with its everyday cares gave way to the eternal holiday of poetry.
Thequietist andaestheticist mood of Romanticism, the reflection and idealization of the mood of thearistocracy, again emerges inSchopenhauer’s philosophical system "The World as Will and Representation," ending with apessimistic chord. Schopenhauer argued that at the heart of the world and man lies the "will to life," which leads them to suffering and boredom, and happiness can be experienced only by those who free themselves from its oppressive domination. Schopenhauer’s ideal human being is, first of all, an artist who, at the moment of aesthetic perception and reproducing the world and life, is in a state, whichKant has already called "weak-willed contemplation," – forgetting in this moment about his personal interests, worries and aspirations. But the artist is freed from the power of the will only temporarily. As soon as he turns into an ordinary mortal, his greedy will again raises its voice and throws him into the embrace of disappointment and boredom. Above the artist stands, therefore, theHindu sage or the holyascetic.
In the words of V. M. Fritsche, "just like the views of the Romantics, the philosophy of Schopenhauer, with its purist and aestheticist attitudes, was a product of aristocratic culture, having grown up in the middle of old pompous estates and noble living rooms, and it is not surprising that in Germany, a country so immersed in such an ideology, thebourgeois democratic years began only in the 1840s. The only one of the Romantics who lived to this era,Eichendorff, turned vehemently against democracy, and therevolution of 1848 was met by him and Schopenhauer with the same primal enmity with which theGerman nobility met it."[17]
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