Sinngehalte der Aufklärungsidee in der Philosophie von Novalis
The Rationale Behind the Enlightenment in the Philosophy of Novalis

Summary/Abstract: Based on original/period texts, the article constitutes the reconstruction of the ways in which Novalis (a representative of the early German Romanticism) understands the term “Enlightenment”. To him, the Enlightenment is coterminous with the historical process of the history of culture (Bildungsgeschichte), the aim of which is the comprehensive development of humanity’s holistic abilities and competences. In its narrower sense, the Enlightenment may refer only to the eighteenth century, construed as “the Age of the Enlightenment”. In his research, Novalis emphasises the historical contexts that conditioned the differences between the Enlightenment in France and in Germany (among others the German Reformation and the French Revolution). He defines the beginning of the new and higher phase of the German Enlightenment as Kante’s and Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy, the Weimar Classicism of Goethe and Schiller as well as Schlegel’s Early German Romantic historical philosophy.

• Details
• Contents