The Historical Pivot

This work undertakes to demonstrate an emergent form of philosophy of history in German Idealism and Early German Romanticism, particularly focusing on the works of Hegel, Schelling, and Hölderlin. For these thinkers, history comes into its own as a topic of philosophical investigating. Breaking with the static historicism of the Enlightenment, German Idealist and Early German Romantic thinkers posit the idea of a constantly developing and emerging history and of the historical character of reality itself. The philosophy of history that comes out of the tradition of German Idealism as expressed by Schelling, Hegel and Hölderlin is deeply rooted in mythology, particularly the idea of a "Golden Age," which is both past and future.