Extract

This study analyses Goethe's philosophy of the daemonic. Nicholls argues that the daemonic is not simply of bibliographical significance but was a philosophical concern for Goethe which he brought to bear on a range of contemporary debates regarding the relationship between human subjectivity, reason and nature. After a first chapter on the daemonic in Ancient Greece, concentrating on Plato, and a second chapter on the influence of Hamann and Herder on Goethe, Nicholls pursues the evolution of Goethe's ideas on the daemonic against the backdrop of German Romanticism and Idealist Philosophy, with particular attention to Kant and Schelling. This evolution is demonstrated in the texts Mahomets Gesang, Werther, Mächtiges Überraschen and Urworte: Orphisch. Goethe, Nicholls argues, is not regressing to pre-Enlightenment mythical positions but shows the impossibility of completing the Enlightenment's attempted progression from mythos to logos. The author is aware of the difficulty of saying something substantially new about this topic, but his history-of-ideas approach is certainly worthwhile, and the concept of the daemonic deserves attention in our time when rationality is in crisis.

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