Bubner Rüdiger. The Innovations of Idealism

Cambridge University Press, 2003. — 274 p.Originally published in German in 1995, this collection of essays has been written by the foremost representative of the hermeneutical approach in German philosophy. Offering a novel interpretation of the tradition of German Idealist thought - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel - Rüdiger Bubner insightfully reviews the philosophical innovations in the complex of issues and aspirations which dominated German intellectual life from 1780 to 1830. His major question is: In what way did the Idealists change philosophy, reformulate traditional issues, and, especially, reinterpret traditional figures? His answer involves focusing on the literary and cultural spirit of the time, thus broadening the question of philosophical innovation and locating it within the wider framework of innovations and continuities of the Western intellectual tradition itself. Professor Bubner thus pays due attention to Plato and Aristotle, Rousseau, Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and Goethe.