Johann Georg Hamann and the Enlightenment Project

Note on Citation
Acknowledgements
Preface

PART I : Enlightenment and Hamann's Reaction



Introduction: The Enlightenment as a Historical Movement and Political Project


Enlightenment as a Contested Concept
Hamann and His Age


Transfiguring the Enlightenment: Hamann and the Problem of Public Reason


Public, Private, and the UnmUEndige: The Closed and the Open in 'Public Reason'
Bon Sens and the Impersonal Public in Public Reason
The Personal and Its Relationship to Poetry, Myth, and 'Metaschematism'
Poetry, Philosophy, and Public Discourse: AufklAErung oder VerklAErung



PART II : The Politics of Metacritique: Hamann contra Kant



Critique and Metacritique: Kant and Hamann


Metakritik UEber den Purismum der Vernunft: Exegesis


Varieties of Copernican Turn


Did Hamann Miss His Mark?
The a Priori and Language


The Ideas of God and the Person

The Divine Idea
The Soul and the Person
The Soul in Community: Dignity, Autonomy
Conclusion



PART III : Language and the City in Modern Natural Law: Hamann's Controversy with Mendelssohn



Leviathan and Jerusalem: Rights and 'the Laws of Wisdom and Goodness'


Leviathan and Jerusalem
Hamann and Natural Rights
Divine Law, Property, and Justice
Conclusion: Rights, Community and Leviathan


Faith, Inside and Out: Convictions versus Actions, Eternity versus History


The Externals
Hamann on History and Eternity, External and Internal
Liberal Peace and Illiberal Tension: Tolerance versus Tolerance


Language and Society

Mendelssohn on the Limits of Language
Hamann on the Priority of Language
Appendix: Hamann and Judaism



PART IV : Practical Reflections of an Impractical Man: Hamann contra Frederick II



The Language of Enlightenment and the Practice of Despotism: J.G. Hamann's Polemics against Frederick the Great

Enlightened Despotism
Frederick and the Politics of Enlightenment: Manufacturing Prussians
Hamann's Relationship with Royal Power
Theory and Practice
What Is to Be Done?



PART V : Aesthetics: Hamann's Anti-Artistic Aestheticism



Aesthetic, All Too Aesthetic: Hamann on the Battle between Poetry and Philosophy

Being and Becoming: Hamann's Ambiguous Relationship to Platonism
Passions, Sexuality, and the Body
Creativity and Genius
Poetic Reception: Hamann on Enlightenment Taste
'Only a God Can Save Us'
Neither Art Nor Philosophy: Assessing Hamann's Foundational Aesthetics
Conclusion


Conclusion

Bibliography