Mourning Memory
Mourning Memory
The “End” of Art or, Reading (in) the Spirit of Hegel
Beginning with a consideration of G. W. F. Hegel’s critique of John Locke’s empiricism, this chapter goes on to explore the efforts Hegel makes in the Aesthetics to recuperate a ’past’ object in speculative philosophy. Taking up the notorious ‘end of art’ thesis, the chapter considers the influential interpretations given by Stephen Houlgate, Arthur Danto and Berel Lang, and asks whether there is an interpretive standpoint that falls outside of the historicist rubric offered by those interpretations. Following the work of Catherine Malabou, Eva Geulen, and Jacques Derrida, the chapter generates a complex reading of the ‘end of art’ wherein the ‘pastness’ of thought’s object is inseparable from the future of its provenance. The chapter captures the sense in which the necessity of a complex temporal dynamic within a representation of the past points to the contingency of the representation which that dis-unified temporality informs. Further, it elucidates how this contingent representation in turn points to a necessary-and necessarily indeterminate-plurality of representations or interpretations.
Keywords: G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel’s Aesthetics, Catherin Malabou, “End of art” in Hegel, Historicism, Stephen Houlage, Berel Lang, Poetry and philosophy
Fordham Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
