8/10/2019 Reading Guide for Hegel

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Reading uide for Introduction to Lectures on the Fine rts by G. W. F. Hegel

Hegel is one of the most notoriously difficult writers in the Western philosophical canon.

Fortunately for us, the text we are reading is considered one of Hegels most accessible. Even still,

I believe that the texts complex rhetorical structure makes comprehending the texts argument

unnecessarily difficult. With that in mind, I offer the following less as a summary than as a roadmap. My hope is that you will be able to make sense of Hegels Introduction to his Lectures on

Fine Artsif you read the text according to the breakdown I provide instead of as a single steady

stream of thought.

Note: Hegel uses the words science and scientific in a way that bother the modern readers ear.

We balk at the notion of a science of art as well as at the notion of a philosophical science. It might

help, then, to keep in mind that Hegel translates scientificity loosely as rationality. When Hegel

speaks of the possibility of a science of art, try reading him as speaking of the possibility of rational

discussion, or knowledge, about art.

Pages 4-5:Explanation of preference for philosophy of art over aesthetics; explanation of

philosophy of art and its object

Next, Hegel considers two arguments against the very possibility of scientific philosophy of art.

Pages 6-7 1): The first objection is that art is unworthyof rational investigation. Art has no

real use; art is superfluous, a luxury. Additionally, art, confined to the realm of appearance,

is ultimately a kind of illusionor so the argument goes.

Pages 8-9 2): The second objection is that rational (scientific) investigation of art is

impossible. This objection maintains that comprehending art makes use of a differentfaculty than the intellect. This objection also maintains that the freedom of art implies that

it is outside the scope of science, which deals with what is necessary, rule-governed,

whereas it seems that arbitrariness and lawlessness seem to be specially at home in the

artworld.

Although Hegel believes that these two arguments contain a grain of truth (9), he dismisses both of

them.

Pages 10-15 a):Against those who say that art is unworthy of rational investigation, Hegel

insists that art is not too low tothink about. Along with religion and philosophy, art is one

of the ways in which humans can come to know what Hegel calls the Absolute. What he

means by this, put most simply, is that art can express our most profound beliefs about the

universe as a whole. However, art is distinct from religion and philosophy, Hegel says, in

expressing these deeply held convictions in a sensible form rather than in the mythological

or dogmatic form of religion or the thoroughly rational, discursive form of philosophy (10-

11). Hegel acknowledges that art deals with appearances, but he disagrees with those who

say that this makes art unworthy of study; for appearance is a part of reality (11). Besides,

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