The Political Dimension in Hegel's Aesthetics

In Hegel’s system, art is understood as the first form of absolute spirit, in which spirit proceeds to its accomplishment as the highest degree of self-reflection. In art's intuition, religion's representation, and philosophy's thinking humanity becomes self-conscious of its own collective practices of sense-making—and art is the first figure of this process. That art is one of the system's concluding figures thereby does not mean that, according to Hegel, art is not part of the finite reality of social-political life (what Hegel calls objective spirit). Art emerges, through world history, as the transition from objective to absolute spirit, which systematically implies that art continues—retroactively—to exert full impact on the social, political, and historical world, and that, in Hegel’s overall system, art constitutively cannot be separated from the political.

The aim of this workshop is to bring together Hegel scholars to develop a fresh perspective on the intersection between aesthetics and politics in Hegel’s philosophy.

The workshop is funded by The Mind Association.