Description
Book SynopsisPremised on the assumption that the mind is fundamentally active and self-determining, the German Idealist project gave rise to new ways of thinking about our dependence upon culturally transmitted models of thought, feeling, and creativity. Receptive Spirit elucidates the ways in which Kant, Fichte, Schlegel, and Hegel envisioned and enacted the conjunction of receptivity and spontaneous activity in the transmission of human-made models of mindedness. Their innovations have defined the very terms in which we think about the historical character of aesthetic experience, the development of philosophical thinking, the dynamics of textual communication, and the task of literary criticism.
Combining a reconstructive approach to this key juncture of modern thought with close attention paid to subsequent developments, Marton Dornbach argues that we must continue to think within the framework established by the Idealists if we are to keep our bearings in the contemporary intellectual
Trade Review
"Receptive Spirit is a finely argued and erudite rereading of what is arguably the most important period in modern philosophy, the early reception of Kant's critical philosophy, when the timeless now of Kantian cognition met a great challenge in the historical mind that came onto the scene." -- -Paul North Yale University
Table of Contents
Introduction: Idealism and Finitude 1. Kant on the Formation of Taste 2. Kantian Revisionism and Revisionist Kantianism 3. Esoteric Enlightenment in Fichte 4. Friedrich Schlegel on Textual Communication 5. Exoteric Enlightenment in Hegel Conclusion: The Afterlife of a Distinction Notes Bibliography Index
