This is the homepage for PHIL 4/880 – Classical German Idealism.
The class is a survey of “Classical” German Idealism, starting with Kant’s publication of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 and concluding with the first part of Hegel’s Science of Logic in 1812. Figures discussed include Kant, Jacobi, Reinhold, Schulze, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The general theme of the course concerns the question, “How is inquiry into the nature of reality—i.e. metaphysics—possible?”. In asking this question we focus on four lines of thought prominent in German Idealism—viz. Spinozism, skepticism, self-consciousness, and the relationship between the senses and the intellect.