In this admirable book, Dalia Nassar examines the various conceptions of the Absolute developed by Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling between the years 1795 and 1804. Although commentators generally agree on the importance of the Absolute to early German Romanticism, there exists wide disagreement over how exactly the early German Romantics conceived of the Absolute. One of Nassar’s main aims is to mediate between epistemological and ontological interpretations of early German Romanticism. To this end, she argues that the early German Romantics regarded the Absolute as both ‘a cognitive ideal and an existential reality’ (2). Nassar illustrates and defends this thesis by providing clear and detailed interpretations of an astonishingly wide range of texts from Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling. Throughout the book, Nassar addresses a wide range of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, morality, aesthetics and the philosophy of science. Moreover, she attends to the relationships between the early German Romantics and a large cast of characters, including Kant, Fichte, Hemsterhuis, Jacobi, Spinoza, Hegel and (especially) Goethe. This is a significant book that will undoubtedly be required reading for scholars of early German Romanticism, but should also appeal to a broader array of readers interested in the period.

The book consists of an introduction, three main parts (on Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling), and a brief conclusion. In the introduction, Nassar identifies three interrelated questions that, she tells us, ‘encompass the most important issues in romanticism’ and thus set the agenda for the rest of the book. These three questions concern the relation between mind and nature, the one and the many, and the infinite and the finite (2).

Nassar maintains that each of these questions concerns both epistemological and ontological aspects of the Absolute (2). In this regard, she contrasts her interpretation of early German Romanticism with the well-known interpretations of Manfred Frank and Frederick Beiser, which Nassar singles out as leading examples of the epistemological and ontological interpretations respectively (8–12). In the introduction, Nassar also rejects teleological narratives of early German Romanticism (10f.). Consequently, Nassar resists the urge to argue that any particular figure represents the culmination of early German Romanticism. Instead, she outlines how Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling responded in their own distinctive ways to the three basic questions of early German Romanticism referred to above. Throughout the book, Nassar pays careful attention to the various philosophical pressures that led Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling to their various conceptions of the Absolute, while also attending to the ways in which these three thinkers’ conceptions of the Absolute shifted and developed over time.

In Part 1 of the book (chapters 1–4), Nassar argues that Novalis conceives of the Absolute in terms of mediation. She writes:

Nassar takes this conception of the Absolute to be especially obvious in Novalis’s later writings. Indeed, she downplays the importance of his early Fichte-Studien, which have played a large role in many recent interpretations of Novalis. In contrast to such interpretations, Nassar claims, ‘any interpretation of the Fichte-Studien should be solely preparatory for reading Novalis’s later writings’ (23). However, she does maintain that the Fichte-Studien contain the initial seeds for Novalis’s mature view of the Absolute. Nassar defends this claim by suggesting that prior commentators have failed to recognize a distinction in Novalis’s notes between Being and Mere Being. On Nassar’s interpretation, Being includes ‘difference, negation, nonbeing and consciousness’, while Mere Being does not (28). Nassar illustrates Novalis’s conception of Being with an image from note #445 of the Fichte-Studien, where Novalis compares the whole to a circle of people sitting on each other’s knees. As Nassar writes regarding this example, ‘the whole is neither something that precedes the individuals, nor is it something independent of them’ (29). Moreover, she contends that Being has an ontological status in the Fichte-Studien (while Mere Being does not) and that Novalis’s later writings develop his concept of the Absolute in terms of Being (rather than in terms of Mere Being) (28). In discussing this development, Nassar stresses the influence of Hemsterhuis, Kant, and––in particular––Goethe on Novalis’s thought. Much of Nassar’s analysis of Novalis’s later writings focuses on Novalis’s suggestions that nature should be raised to spirit––through knowledge and art––and that spirit should be lowered to nature––through moral action. According to Nassar, Novalis’s views of art and morality in the Fichte-Studien largely parrot Fichte, whereas his later writings develop conceptions of art and morality consonant with his own conception of the Absolute in terms of mediation. Moreover, in contrast to earlier views of Novalis as an other-worldly poet, Nassar argues forcefully for the importance of nature and empirical observation to Novalis’s later writings. As she sees it, Novalis drew from Goethe’s scientific writings that nature is self-productive and that knowledge of nature’s self-production requires a mutually reinforcing process of both observation and reflection that is capable of providing an intuitive insight into nature’s productivity (53–65).

In Part 2 of the book (chapters 5–8), Nassar focuses on Friedrich Schlegel’s conception of the Absolute. Here Nassar poses three goals for herself: (1) ‘to explicate Schlegel’s relationship to and critique of transcendental philosophy’, (2) ‘to explicate Schlegel’s statement that philosophy must become the history of philosophy, and his related claim that philosophical methodology must achieve a historical perspective’, and (3) ‘to consider the coherence and unity of Schlegel’s diverse projects’ (86f.). Against predominantly epistemological interpretations of Schlegel, Nassar argues that Schlegel also has an ontological conception of the Absolute (156). According to the latter, the Absolute is not an unconditioned principle but, instead, consists of two mutually conditioning components. For Schlegel, Nassar writes, ‘this absolutely necessary ground is not an unconditioned principle but two reciprocally conditioning Urfakta––the infinite and consciousness’ (155). Nassar notes that Schlegel initially introduced the notion of two mutually conditioning principles in his review of Jacobi’s novel Woldemar, where he rejects foundationalism on the grounds that there cannot be an unconditioned first principle (91). In place of a single unconditioned principle, Schlegel introduces the conception of a Wechselerweis (reciprocal proof), where two principles mutually condition one another. According to Nassar, Schlegel develops this idea more fully in his Jena lectures on transcendental idealism, which identify the two mutually conditioning principles as the infinite and a universal consciousness. Nassar describes Schlegel’s position in these lectures as ‘hermeneutic idealism’ (114). More specifically, the relationship between the infinite and consciousness entails that reality and truth ‘are determined by sense, meaning, and understanding’ (114). Moreover, Nassar explains that the infinite actualizes itself in the finite through a historical process of Becoming that has neither a beginning nor an end (122). Finally, she addresses the relationship between Schlegel’s conception of the Absolute and a variety of other issues in Schlegel’s writings, such as Schlegel’s view regarding freedom and morality, his concept of a system of fragments, his theory of intellectual intuition, the view that nature and art are both instances of the same productivity, and the role of mythology.

In Part 3 of the book (chapters 9–12), Nassar examines Schelling’s various conceptions of the Absolute. Here Nassar, once again, sets three goals for herself: (1) ‘to examine Schelling’s development in relation to Fichte’, (2) ‘to shed light on one of the most significant, yet least considered (in this context), influences on Schelling, namely Goethe’, and (3) ‘to examine Schelling’s conception of the absolute, how he came to it, why he considered it an essential feature of his philosophy, and the difficulties that he encountered in articulating it’ (159f.). In regard to Schelling’s relationship with Fichte, Nassar explains how Schelling’s earliest writings, such as ‘Of the I’, aim to develop a position between Fichte and Spinoza (161). Rather than reading these early works as primarily Fichtean treatises, Nassar claims that Schelling’s early works are comparatively ‘more Spinozist than Fichtean, in spite of their use of Fichtean terminology’ (159). In particular, she maintains that Schelling’s conception of intellectual intuition in ‘Of the I’, is heavily indebted to Spinoza’s own conception of scientia intuitiva, although she also maintains that Schelling’s view of the self prompts him to maintain, contrary to Spinoza, that ‘intellectual intuition must be active and productive’ (185). According to Nassar, Goethe was a major influence on Schelling’s philosophy of nature and on Schelling’s accompanying break with Fichte between 1799 and 1801 (193–209). In particular, Schelling’s attribution of productivity to nature, rather than to the self, grew out of ‘Schelling’s appropriation of Goethe’s understanding of nature as metamorphosis’ (193).

Finally, Nassar considers in detail the various twists and turns that Schelling’s conception of the Absolute, and his accompanying views regarding intellectual intuition, took during the 1790s and early 1800s. Throughout this part of the book, Nassar argues that Schelling’s various changes of mind during this period primarily resulted from Schelling’s desire to find an adequate conception of a non-objective Absolute. Nassar writes, ‘from his earliest work to his last, Schelling was clear about the nonobjective nature of the absolute, and each of his writings evidence another attempt to articulate the absolute as absolute’ (257; italics in original). Accordingly, Nassar maintains that Schelling’s changes of mind are often less drastic than they might initially appear and that they are not arbitrary but, instead, took place for good philosophical reasons. As she writes, ‘it would be wrong to exaggerate the extent to which his [Schelling’s] views altered. His entire career, it could be said, was shaped and motivated by the desire to articulate the absolute’ (257). For example, Nassar contends that Schelling’s famous shift from the System of Transcendental Idealism to the Identity Philosophy represents a natural transition in Schelling’s thought. On her account, ‘the System should be perceived as the point of transition from the philosophy of nature to the philosophy of identity––with transition here not implying a break or rupture’ (214). In particular, Nassar argues that the System of Transcendental Idealism regards art as a conscious presentation of the identity of the conscious and the unconscious and thus establishes ‘the foundations for a philosophy of identity’, even though the Identity Philosophy ultimately prioritizes intellectual intuition over art and aesthetic intuition (214).

As this brief outline illustrates, Nassar’s book covers a vast amount of territory. However, her discussions of the various issues and texts addressed in the book are consistently detailed, focused and clear. Indeed, the book’s detailed interpretations of particular texts and its careful considerations of particular historical relationships––such as that between Goethe and the early German Romantics––are some of the book’s greatest strengths. Nevertheless, there are some surprising omissions. For example, although the book discusses the moral views of Novalis and Schlegel, it says little about the political thought of early German Romanticism stressed by commentators like Beiser. Additionally, the book focuses on Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling but does not provide any particular reason for not discussing the many other important thinkers who belonged to the circle of early German Romanticism. Finally, and more importantly, the book could have done more to evaluate their philosophical views. For example, although the book does a good job of explaining the early German Romantics’ objections to other authors such as Fichte and Kant, it tends not to consider what resources might be available for replying to these objections. Similarly, the book does a good job of outlining the different positions of Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel and Schelling, but one wishes that the book might have done more to assess the relative philosophical advantages and disadvantages of their different conceptions of the Absolute. However, these omissions do not take away from the quality of the highly interesting discussions that Nassar’s book does, in fact, provide. There can be no doubt that this book represents a significant contribution to the study of early German Romanticism.Footnote ¹