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- Hi All,
On looking up Hegel literature recently, I discovered that the first biography of Hegel (1844), by Karl Rosenkranz (1805-79), was recently translated into French by Pierre Osmo (Vie de Hegel, Paris: Gallimard, 2004). The second, by Rudolf Haym also appeared in the same year (also Gallimard). Osmo's translation has 731 pages, an index of names and appendices by Marheineke, Foerster and Hotho. I gather it was put into Italian shortly before that. It is interesting that the Latin languages are still ahead of English in this respect, perhaps because of the proximity of these countries to Germany and cultural interactions within Europe.
I've now had a change to look through the introduction by Osmo. I find that Rosenkranz was not actually a direct pupil of Hegel, though he associated with him and his family quite closely in Berlin in his early years and was taught by Leopold von Henning, Hinrichs and Hotho, who were students of Hegel. However, he went on to teach in Koenigsberg (a successor to Kant and contemporary of Herbart) and said this gave him a sense of distance in writing about Hegel, who had lived in Berlin. He had the co-operation of Hegel's family and different levels of co-operation from other people in writing his biography.
By background, Rosenkranz was a Calvinist (that is, Reformed church, as opposed to Lutheran). The general line he takes was influenced by Marheineke, who edited Hegel's Lectures on Religion - in other words, he contradicts the Left Hegelian line (of D Strauss, Feuerbach, etc) that Hegel was in some way an Atheist or Secular Humanist, who merely expressed himself in religious imagery to disguise the real content of his thought from himself or others. However, Rosenkranz does address Hegel's interest in pagan Greek literature in the early parts of the biography. Rosenkranz also edited Kant's Works - it is fair to say that he focuses on the transition from Kant to Hegel and acknowledges as much, saying that it was inevitable in Koenigsberg!
He also uses other perspectives (e.g. the Pantheismusstreit and influence of Spinoza) of a theological nature, that perhaps helps to explain why the early reception of Hegel in English from the 1850s takes Hegel so seriously as a theologian. Rosenkranz was also a critic of Schleiermacher - in which he follows Hegel (roughly speaking).
The volume concludes with Rosenkranz's reply to Haym (1858). The book is obviously the source of much that has since become commonplace in biographical writing on Hegel. Osmo discusses the biographical writings on Hegel of Jacques D'Hondt and the recent German work of Horst Althaus in this respect.
There may be more to follow from me on this, but I'm afraid I may get distracted, as I did with Hegel's 1831 Lectures on Logic.
You may also be interested to know that Hegel's review of Hamann has recently been translated into English by LIsa Anderson.
All the best
Stephen Cowley
PS - French review of Osmo's translation from Le Figaro:
[my version] "The translation of Karl Rosenkranz's book which today appears is an event. The author was chronologically the first biographer of Hegel. He followed the courses of the thinker [this appears not to be true] and knew him personally. It was at the request of Hegel's family that he wrote his book, published in 1844. Rosenkranz was a singular Hegelian, as Pierre Osmo shows in his excellent preface.
[The book] is the most serious witness of a contemporary of the thinker, neither an exalter nor a detractor. Certainly, he did not know everything and did not say all that he knew, but he keeps his distance with regard to the neo-hegelians who fratricidally attacked each other speedily after the death of the philosopher. Later, when the latter was no longer fashionable, he took up his defence in his Defence of Hegel against Dr Haym, who followed his biography.
This biography reminds us that Hegel was deeply religious, which we tend to forget nowadays. He never rejected his Protestant upbringing, which was not so gentle with the Catholics and the Jews. He thought that the Church and State were the two pillars of society. "Religion constitutes the most intimate unity of man, who comprehends everything under it." At the end of his life, Hegel wrote a work devoted to the proofs of God's existence. "It is the determination of God that is at the origin of the creative activity of the world" - of which the philosopher describes the history in The Phenomenology of Spirit."
"La traduction du livre de Karl Rosenkranz qui para�t aujourd'hui est un �v�nement. L'auteur fut chronologiquement le premier biographe de Hegel. Il suivit les cours du penseur, le connut personnellement. C'est � la demande de la famille de Hegel qu'il r�digea son livre publi� en 1844. Rosenkranz �tait un h�g�lien singulier, comme le montre Pierre Osmo dans son excellente pr�face. C'est le t�moignage le plus s�rieux d'un contemporain du penseur, ni chantre ni d�tracteur. Certes, il ne sait pas tout et ne dit pas tout ce qu'il sait, mais il garde ses distances � l'�gard des n�oh�g�liens qui s'entre-tuent all�grement apr�s la mort du philosophe. Plus tard, alors que ce dernier n'�tait plus � la mode, il prendra sa d�fense dans son Apologie de Hegel contre le docteur Haym, qui suit sa biographie... Cette biographie nous rappelle que Hegel �tait profond�ment religieux, ce que l'on a tendance � oublier aujourd'hui. Il n'avait jamais reni� son �ducation protestante, peu tendre avec les catholiques et les juifs. Il pensait que l'Eglise et l'Etat �taient les deux piliers de la soci�t�. �La religion constitue l'unit� la plus intime de l'homme qui comprend tout sous elle.� A la fin de sa vie, Hegel �crivait un texte consacr� aux preuves en faveur de l'existence de Dieu. �C'est la d�termination de Dieu qui est � l'origine de l'activit� cr�atrice du monde� dont le philosophe d�crit l'histoire dans La Ph�nom�nologie de l'esprit...."
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] - Some additional remarks on some aspects of Stephen's mail:
Rosenkranz' Hegel bigraphy appeared as supplement to the Hegel works. It was first planned that Eduard Gans (who was together with Marheinecke the de facto leader of the Berlin Hegelians after Hegel's deatch) was to write this Hegel Biography. Only after Gans died so early, Rosenkranz was choosen. Rosenkranz ws not among the oroginal list of publishers of Hegel's work, and it was mostly because he had enough time that he was choosen (for Hegel's wife, it was also important that Rosenkranz made a polite and not radical impression, so would not bring Hegel into a bad light in his biography). So officialy selected by the Hegel family and the editors, Rosenkranz could get full support, including full access to Hegels letters and notes.
Many of these have been lost since that time (in 19th century, people had the habit of asking for original writings of people they honoured, just like today they ask for signatures, and so many papers were given away that way, also the family gave a lot of these Hegel papers which they considered unimportant to a paper mill, also probably all/most of what was in Koenigsberg has been destroyed in WW2). So what Rosenranz tells us out of these papers lost is the only acount we have of the content of these papers and so in this respect, his biography is unsurpasable. So you will find that about 90% of the content of ordinary Hegel biographys is taken from Rosenkranz biography and as well as from the collection of letters, personal papers and remarks of otehr people on Hegel published at Meiner Verlag, Hamburg.
Haym's biography was the second biography to be published on Hegel, and it was done at a time when the memory of Hegel was almost lost. In that bibiography, he publsihed some material not mentioned in Rosenkranz' work, but it has been mainly lasted as the single most important source of bad mouthing Hegel in the German history of philosophy as wella s public opinion (its aproach to Hegel is similar in tendency to Russel and Popper).
BTW, Haym (later a middle-right liberal) was a stduent of of right Hegelian Erdmann in Halle. AQccording to Erdmans biograph Glockner, Erdmann was very proud in the freedom of science and so wanted to motivate his students to only study for truth, not for authorities by granting them that they would pass his exams whatever they say. Haym successfuly tested Erdmann by passing Erdmans exams without knowing anything.
Regarding Schleiemracher, it is true that Rosenkranz published a critique of Schleiermacher 1836. However, Rosenkranz, like most students of Berlin university studied also at Schleiermacher and was - again like most students (including Hegelians) of his time - influenced by Schleiermacher. So the general picture, that Hegelians were just enemies of Schleiermacher is not completly true.
Judging from the biographies of the time I wrote as well as from the number of hearers and the reports from the Berlin university, beside studying under the professors of the Hegel school, a student interested in Hegel's philosophy in the Berlin of the 1820's and 1830's would also hear lectures e.g. from Ritter (Geography), Schleiermacher (Religion), Savigny (law) and others (for example Marx heard lectures on Histroy of law both from Gans and from Hegel enemy Savigny).
HTH, All the best
Kai
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Kai Froeb, Muenchen
http://kai.froeb.net
http://wiki.hegel-system.de
http://hegelwerkstatt.de