Revolution, Idealism and Human Freedom, and: Hegel's Development (review)

416 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Revolution, Idealism and Human Freedom. By Franz Gabriel Nauen. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. Pp. ix+ 104) Hegel's Development. By H. S. Harris. (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1972. Pp. xxxii+ 574. $17) The subtitle---"Schelling, HSlderlin and Hegel"--is a better indication of Nauen's book than is the title. It points up the close intellectual fellowship of Schelling, H~Iderlin, and Hegel during their formative years as roommates at the Stilt in Tflbingen, and underlines the crucial role of HSlderhn in the history of German idealism. The three friends responded positively to the French Revolution and believed themselves to be a vanguard of a class of free men. Although they later "jettisoned their practical commitment to revolution," the vision of "a free and harmonious society of spiritually free men continued to inform the thought of each of them throughout his life" (p. 3). In Chapter II Nauen traces the development of Sehelling's thinking from his first publication, "On the Possibility of a Form for Philosophy" (1794), so the System of Transcendental Idealism (1801), and shows how, largely under the influence of H61derlin, Schelling came to assert that "not philosophy but art, as an expression of the fundamental unity of subject and object, was the highest form of human spirituality" (I3. 47). In Chapter III Nauen discusses the changes in H61derlin's own thinking which "played a vital role in determining the direction which German Idealist speculation took during the nineties." In the final version of Hyperion, Htilderlin made knowledge of nature, achieved through reverie, the norm "by which to evaluate ethical, social and political circumstance," and maintained that the eternal values which should inform all human acts find expression in poetry. Poetry was now seen as "an expression of the most sublime truths.., capable of emancipating mankind" (p. 67). The development of Hegel's thinking is sketched in Chapter IV. Nauen argues that "at the end of 1799 Hegel achieved the decisive insight for his entire subsequent development that a new philosophy might be a key for both the comprehension and the total transformation of German society" (p. 84); and he insists that this development of Hegel's philosophy "can be comprehended only within the context of the intellectual friendship between Htilderlin and Hegel during the crucial years" (p. 85). However, "by the close of 1799, H61derlin's faith in human nature had been shattered" (p. 95), whereas Hegel had discovered that "historical society, philosophically understood, contained within itself the key for its own rebirth" (p. 97). Nauen's book is well documented but presents a survey outline rather than a detailed study of the personal relationships and of the changes in the points of view of Schelling, H61derlin, and Hegel. It serves well, however, as a framework (as it were) for Harris's detailed and excellent study of Hegel's development during his formative years. In the "Prelude" to his book, Hegers Development, Professor Harris states: "I have tried to present all the evidence, to indicate clearly where the evidence is defective, and not to go beyond the evidence into the realm of fancy and conjecture" (xv); and he has lived up to this ideal. The points he makes throughout the book are invariably well documented. This does not mean, however, that, on occasion, when the evidence is not conclusive, he does not suggest what might be a reasonable conjecture to account for the facts. This is true, for example, when, contrary to tradition, he postulates "a fairly close friendship between Hegel and H61derlin by the end of their first year at the StifF" (p. 60). Or when he says: "Hegel is, I think, only trying to follow what he regards as the BOOK REVIEWS 417 valid argument in Kant's work" (p. 192). Again: "'My own belief is that Hegel's polemical undertaking foundered upon this difficulty" (p. 228). Or: "Thus far my hypothesis is, I think, directly supported by the evidence.... I shall now offer some further surmises... " (p. 381). The sources upon which Professor Harris depends are primarily the earliest Hegel manuscripts, Hegel's diary and letters, notably the exchange of letters between Hegel and Schelling. But secondary sources...