There is thus a tendency to characterize German Idealism as a tradition that ended in the first half of the century, and which was challenged by later schools of thought which were critical of it (Löwith 1964; Copleston 1967). Trends such as Marxism, positivism, pragmatism, scientific naturalism and analytic philosophy are often seen as negative reactions to the tradition of German Idealism. Of the members of this school, Hegel in particular is often singled out for criticism. His theory of the categories and his notions of Spirit and the Idea were regarded as abstractions that had nothing to do with the real world. Feuerbach, Bauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, Bakunin and others stood in line to criticize him on this point. This meant that they were all keen to present a new philosophical program which avoided this problem. These thinkers were educated in the repressive period leading up to the Revolutions of 1848, and their orientation was shaped to a greater or lesser extent by these conditions. They struggled with the question of the meaning of philosophy in a world where there was widespread suffering due to political oppression and economic exploitation. In this context, abstract epistemological discussions rang hollow. As an old man writing in 1888, Friedrich Engels complains of the state of German academic philosophy, which he claims is moribund and irrelevant. He argues that university philosophy, dominated by careerism and lacking any critical view of the world, had become self-absorbed in its own meaningless abstraction s (Engels 1888, p. 307; 1941, pp. 60–61). It can be argued that a century later, the feeling of empty abstraction in German Idealism was again acutely felt in the context of the World Wars and the Holocaust. These events seemed clearly to demand of philosophy something more concrete and relevant to the urgent events of the day that shocked the sensibilities of the world.
This picture can lead to the conclusion that German Idealism was simply a philosophical school that lived and died in a certain period, after which it was abandoned forever. This is the image that is conveyed in a number of studies of the history of philosophy. In a sense this is natural since such histories of ideas operate at a fairly high level of generalization. They are thus keen to paint the contours of the different philosophical directions by means of contrast. This practice can of course serve some general purpose, but it is important to be aware that it is also distorting in its details. It fails to recognize the myriad points of contact and influence of German Idealism on the individual existentialist thinkers, as is outlined and documented in the present volume. This general reading of the development of Continental philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth century presumably explains the lack of interest in comparing German Idealism and existentialism.1
However, upon closer examination, the relation between these two schools of thought is far more complex than the traditional understanding allows. It is well known that many of the leading figures of the existentialist movement, such as Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty drew great inspiration from the works of the leading figures of German Idealism. With the publication of new materials from the hand of these thinkers, such as lectures, letters and Nachlass, new information is now available about their use of the German idealists.2 Recent work has also shown how Kierkegaard, who is often regarded as the father of existentialism, in fact appropriated a number of key ideas from Hegel and other idealists in the development of his own thought (Taylor 1980; Grøn 1997; Stewart 2003, 2007b). So there is good reason to return to the broader issue of the relation of German Idealism to existentialism.
One of the problems involved in tackling this issue is circumscribing the area of study. This is a problem on both sides of the relation. While there is a standard textbook story about the development of German Idealism from Kant to Fichte to Schelling to Hegel and finally to Schopenhauer, the matter is not so simple. These thinkers mutually criticized one another, and it is not clear that they would have consented to the idea that they all should be counted as members of the same school of thought. In addition, there are other thinkers from the period such as Schleiermacher or the younger Fichte who also held doctrines that can be regarded as idealist, but who are not usually counted as members of this school. Moreover, it is little recognized that German Idealism continued well into the second half of the nineteenth century with figures such as Lotze and Trendelenburg (Beiser 2013). Thus it is by no means a straightforward issue to define which thinkers, strictly speaking, belong to the tradition of German Idealism and which do not.
On the other side of the relation, there has long been an issue of what exactly defines existentialism as a movement. Some thinkers commonly associated with it, such as Heidegger, explicitly rejected the label. Other thinkers, such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, lived well before the development of the movement as a self-conscious school, but yet are often counted as belonging to it. The nature of existentialism as a movement became so problematic during its heyday that Sartre complained that the term had come to be used to describe anything and everything (Sartre 1948, pp. 25–26). He thus felt the need to identify its key dogmas more precisely. As is well known, Sartre proposed, as the defining doctrine of existentialism, the claim that there are no fixed essences and that existence precedes essence (Sartre 1948, p. 26). Instead of resolving the problem, this definition only served to create new controversy since many of those associated with the school rejected it and hastened to distance themselves from him.
While historians of ideas are compelled to work with broad labels such as German Idealism and existentialism, it is clear that these terms always involve a certain degree of simplification and thereby distortion of the actual thought and ideas of the individual figures involved. This poses the question of how the relation between these two movements can be meaningfully explored at all. Indeed, if it is impossible to define or circumscribe either of them clearly and unambiguously, then how can it be possible to compare them?
The strategy employed in the present collection is a cautious one dictated by the demands of modern research specialization. Instead of trying to take on directly the relation of German Idealism to existentialism as a whole, the articles presented here try to approach this issue in a piecemeal fashion by exploring specific connections in the work of specific thinkers. In other words, the authors try to investigate the relation of a specific philosopher in the one school with the thought of the other. With this strategy, the hope is that a general picture of the relation between these two traditions of thought will emerge based on specific well-founded arguments and evidence concerning the thought of the individual thinkers. In this way, it is possible to talk about this relation in a meaningful way without engaging in clichés, oversimplifications and distortions.
One goal of the present volume is, among other things, to problematize the traditional understanding of the relation of these two traditions as something generally negative. The contributors have been enjoined to find positive points of overlap or contact between the leading thinkers of these schools. This involves, on the one hand, identifying specific existentialist elements in the writings of the German idealists and, on the other hand, tracing the concrete reception of the idealists in the work of specific thinkers from the existentialist tradition. However, the authors have also been encouraged to identify and articulate the important differences in the two movements in ways that are insightful and promote further study.
One of the main aims of the collection is to provide advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and scholars in philosophy, intellectual history, and related fields with a comprehensive overview that will enable new connections to be made. The goal is thus to open up new research possibilities instead of fix new interpretative dogmas that distort the mate...