Andrew Bowie is Chair of German at Royal Holloway University of London

Preface
Introduction
Aesthetics and modernity
Aesthetics and 'post-modernity'

1. Modern Philosophy and the Emergence of Aesthetic Theory: Kant
Self-consciousness, knowledge and freedom
The unification of nature
The purpose of beauty
The limits of beauty

2. German Idealism and Early German Romanticism
Thinking the Infinite
A 'new mythology'

3. Reflections on the Subject: Fichte, Holderlin and Novalis
Self and Other
Fichte
Holderlin
Novalis

4. Schelling: Art and the 'Organ of Philosophy'
Nature and philosophy
The development of consciousness
Intuition and concept
The 'organ of philosophy'
Mythology, art and modernity
Mythology, language and being

5. Hegel: the beginning of Aesthetic Theory and the end of Art
Which Hegel?
Self-recognition
Music and the Idea
Language, consciousness and being
The Idea as sensuous appearance
The prose of the modern world
Philosophy and art after Hegel

6. Schleiermacher: Art and Interpretation
Linguistic
The 'art of disagreement'
Immediate self-consciousness
Art as free production: 'individual' and 'identical' activity
Hemeneutics as art
Literature and the 'musical'

7. Music, Language and Literature
Language and music
Hegel and Romanticism: music, logos, and feeling
The 'presence' of music
'Infinite reflection' and music

8. Nietzsche and the Fate of Romantic Thought
The Old and the New Nietzsches
Schopenhauer: Music as Metaphysics
Marx, mythology, and art
Art, myth, and music in 'The Birth of Tragedy'
Myth, music, and language
The illusion of truth
Music and metaphysics
Aesthetics , 'interpretation', and subjectivity

Conclusion
The so-called
'Oldest System Programme of German Idealism'

References