Goethe on Hegel

CONTRADICTIO EST REGULA VERI
"Contradiction is the rule of the true."—G.W.F. Hegel
Post Reply
>
User avatar
YoungHegelian
Posts: 7
>

class="first">Goethe on Hegel

Post by YoungHegelian » Thu Oct 29, 2020 9:04 pm

I know this isn't strictly dialectical, but it offers an interesting personal perspective on Hegel:
After a visit from Hegel, Goethe wrote to [Karl Ludwig von] Knebel that the conversation had aroused in him the desire to be together with Hegel at more length, "For what in the printed communications of such a man appears to us abstruse and unclear, because we cannot utilize it immediately for our own needs, immediately becomes our own in the course of live conversation, because we perceive that we are in agreement with him in basic thoughts and ideas, and mutual development and elucidation of them could probably lead to rapprochement and agreement."
At the same time, Goethe was conscious of Hegel's approval: "Your gracious approval of the major trends of my thought confirms me all the more in the same; and I believe that I have made notable progress in many areas, if not in terms of the whole, then for me and my soul. May all that I am yet capable of achieving always be built upon what you have established and continue to develop."
Image
—Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche: The Revolution in 19th Century Thought, p. 9-10

Post Reply