Short description:

This Handbook explores the complex relations between two great schools of continental philosophy: German idealism and existentialism. While the existentialists are commonly thought to have rejected idealism as overly abstract and neglectful of the concrete experience of the individual, the chapters in this collection reveal that the German idealists in fact anticipated many key existentialist ideas. A radically new vision of the history of continental philosophy is thereby established, one that understands existentialism as a continuous development from German idealism.

Key Features

Operates at both the macro-level and micro-level, treating both the two schools of thought and the individual thinkers associated with them
• Explores the relations from shifting perspectives by examining how the German idealists anticipated existentialist themes and how the existentialists concretely drew on the work of the idealists
• Meticulouslyuncovers and documents many little-known points of contact between the German idealists and the existentialists
• Includes often neglected figures such as Jacobi and Trendelenburg

This Handbook is an essential resource for researchers and advanced students interested in thinking critically about the broad development of continental philosophy. Moreover, the individual chapters on specific philosophers contain a wealth of information that will compel experts in the field to reconsider their views on these figures.

Long description:

This Handbook explores the complex relations between two great schools of continental philosophy: German idealism and existentialism. While the existentialists are commonly thought to have rejected idealism as overly abstract and neglectful of the concrete experience of the individual, the chapters in this collection reveal that the German idealists in fact anticipated many key existentialist ideas. A radically new vision of the history of continental philosophy is thereby established, one that understands existentialism as a continuous development from German idealism.

Key Features

Operates at both the macro-level and micro-level, treating both the two schools of thought and the individual thinkers associated with them
• Explores the relations from shifting perspectives by examining how the German idealists anticipated existentialist themes and how the existentialists concretely drew on the work of the idealists
• Meticulouslyuncovers and documents many little-known points of contact between the German idealists and the existentialists
• Includes often neglected figures such as Jacobi and Trendelenburg

This Handbook is an essential resource for researchers and advanced students interested in thinking critically about the broad development of continental philosophy. Moreover, the individual chapters on specific philosophers contain a wealth of information that will compel experts in the field to reconsider their views on these figures.

Table of Contents:

Part I: Anticipations of Existentialism in the German Idealists.- 1. The Stumbling Block of Existence in F. H. Jacobi; Paolo Livieri.- 2. Kant and Existentialism: Inescapable Freedom and Self-Deception; Roe Fremstedal.- 3. Fichte and Existentialism: Freedom and Finitude, Self-Positing and Striving; Steven Hoeltzel.- 4. Schelling as a Transitional Figure from Idealism to Existentialism; Zoltán Gyenge.- 5.?Return to Intervention in the Life of Human Beings?: Existentialist Themes in the Development of Hegel?s Social and Political Philosophy; C. Allen Speight.- 6. The Existentialist Basis of Schopenhauer?s Pessimism; Robert Wicks.- 7. An Early Ally of Existentialism? Trendelenburg?s Logical Investigations in the Mirror of Kierkegaard?s Literary Project; Heiko Schulz.- Part II: The Existentialists' Use of the German Idealists.- 8. Kierkegaard: A Transitional Figure from German Idealism to Existentialism; Jon Stewart.- 9. ?The Honeymoon of German Philosophy?: Nietzsche and German Idealism; Daniel Conway.- 10. Buber and German Idealism: Between Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Religion; Peter Šajda.- 11. Historicism, Neo-Idealism, and Modern Theology: Paul Tillich and German Idealism; Christian Danz.- 12. ?The Last Kantian?: Outlines of Karl Jaspers?s Ambivalent Reception of German Idealism;  István Czakó.- 13. Beyond the Critique of Judgment: Arendt and German Idealism; Matthew Wester.- 14. Heidegger and Kant, or Heidegger?s Poetic Idealism of Imagination; David Espinet.- 15. Heidegger and German Idealism (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel): Subjectivity and Finitude; Sylvaine Gourdain and Lucian Ionel.- 16. Jacques Maritain: A Thomist Encounters Existentialism; Lee C. Barrett.- 17. The Ethics of Resistance: Camus?s Encounter with German Idealism; Thomas P. Miles.- 18. Merleau-Ponty and Hegel: Meaning and its Expression in History; David Ciavatta.- 19. Hegel and Sartre: The Search for Totality; Bruce Baugh.- 20. Women, Jews, and Other Others: The Influence of Hegel on Beauvoir and Levinas; Claire Katz.