Hegel's 'Aesthetics': On Irony and the End of Art

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One of the most notorious claims by Hegel, which is often cited, but rarely understood, is that art has ended. Yet, in what sense has art ended and what is the chance and task of art today?
I also consider Hegel's diagnosis of irony as a phenomenon of our epoch and what its cold distancedness to the world implies.

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[JohannesNiederhauser]

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This is the definitive Hegel Course on the Internet. 7 exclusive video lectures, 9 group seminars on the Logic of Hegel's thought, the philosophy of right, questions on freedom, history and art are all addressed.

[O.G.Rose.Michelle.and.Daniel]

That was wonderful. Art that isn’t sincere isn’t art, so “ironic art” is self-negating. Yes, art can use irony, but it mustn’t ultimately be ironic. Only an artist can know if they are striking the right balance.

I sometimes wonder if Kierkegaard made an enemy of Hegel because he didn’t want people to realize how indebted his thinking was to Hegel (perhaps an example of Bloom’s “anxiety of influence”?). The phrase “infinite absolute negativity” is one Kierkegaard used that came from Hegel, and if I understand Kierkegaard correctly, I associate the IAN with “eternal regression” and the idea that irony can always ironize irony, ironize ironizing irony, etc., as cynicism can be cynical about cynicism, cynical about cynical cynicism, etc., as anti-politicians can be against anti-politicians, against anti-politicians who are against anti-politicians, etc. and so on. As the death of God can unchain the earth from the sun and send us flying into the abyss, so “unchained irony” can do the same.

It seems Hegel realized the same problem, and the rise of irony in modernity seems to have made Hegel realize a desperate need for “true thought.” What is that exactly? Well, if I were to speculate based on your other lecture, it seems to be thought that isn’t “thought about x” but “thought that is about thought (without making thought an x).” You note that “thought about itself” is real philosophy, versus say “philosophy of medicine” (to use your example), and perhaps it’s the case that “philosophy” can stop irony but not “philosophy of?”

To use a different lexicon, perhaps “pure thought” versus “x thought” can stop irony, because where there is an x, irony will just ironize it, hurl the x into IAN, and then the “x thought” will go down with it. But if irony tries to ironize “pure thought, ” “pure thought” will prove invincible, because there is no x present which irony can ironize. Thus, “pure thought” will not descend into IAN.

If this is the case, then the only way we can survive irony (and perhaps achieve the “new sincerity” David Foster Wallace discussed) is by learning how to philosophize again, to engage in “pure thought.” But is “pure thought” possible? Is that “pure reason, ” which Kant pushed across the noumenon, or something else? How can we think and avoid “thinking about?” To use language from “Deconstructing Common Life, ” it’s almost like what is needed is thought that can provide its own “ground, ” “truth, ” and/or “axioms” (I’m not sure the best term), which Hume would call “autonomous rationality.” If “autonomous rationality” is not possible, we might be unable to escape irony, but as argued in that paper, “autonomous rationality” can be very problematic. Perhaps though what Hegel wants here is something like “complete thought, ” which is different from the instrumentality of “autonomous rationality.” I’m not sure. This seems important…I’ll have to think on it…

I like the connection of the ironist with the classic idea of the philosopher as someone who is “never part of the world, ” and I especially like the idea that, for the ironist, everything is just imagination. Everything is an idea, but ideas are just things to laugh at. Thus, the ironist exists in a distant, disembodied state. If for Descartes it is the case that “I think, therefore I am, ” for Hegel “thinking is, ” then perhaps for the ironist “thinking is(n’t)”—a thought. I found the line beautiful that, in real art, we see “a world rising up.”

Wonderful work!

[mariaaaa]

Aesthetics is always so interesting to contemplate~

[jacobckhippy]

Loving the distinction between Irony and Humor-one leaning into the horror of reality and the other denying it in a muffled scream

[sacredgeometrymusic]

wow I listened to this video again, because there are so many layer to discern!! when watching again this sentence came into my mind: "OMNIS DETERMINATIO EST

[camillococcia]

My fourth time watching this and its still fantastic

[IgboKezie]

Hegel, Fichte & Schelling. Kant & Hegel I have dabbled with 'here and there' but Fichte & Schelling are names that I have only ever heard from via Nietzsche & a lesser degree Heidegger. Thank you for the introduction to German Idealism, amazed to see how much preparation goes into this video production and I definitely will listen to this presentation again Johannes. I do think though having listened to this I understand more why from Nietzsche forward the idea of Existential (I know Nietzsche didn't use this term) engagement with the world and making your life the expression of your philosophy became a seductive antidote to this asinine version of ironic wisdom.

[camillococcia]

I always felt the ironic spirit finds a home in irreverence. That it degrades history and the world as it consumes itself, and as Kierkegaard would say, can never fully be null. The subject then is so far from death as it realises it can never die but always be dying. Maybe this is the despair we all face.

[BizRasam]

"Art" is no longer an agreed concept within modernity. Modernity allows for the unending openness of art, rendering it null.

[sacredgeometrymusic]

hi johannes I wrote you on instagram!! if you don't chek it can you please tell me a place where I can write you to talk you privately?