SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to challenge Fred Beiser's interpretation of Hegel's meta-aesthetical position on the future of art. According to Beiser, Hegel's comments about the “pastness” of art commit Hegel to viewing postromantic art as merely a form of individual self-expression. I both defend and extend to another territory, Robert Pippin's interpretation of Hegel as a proto-modernist, where such modernism involves (1) his rejection of both classicism and Kantian aesthetics and (2) his espousal of what one may call reflective aesthetics. By “reflective aesthetics,” I mean an aesthetic framework which sees art as a form of enquiry, one whose aim is to not merely excite the imagination but to principally focus attention on social and cultural norms. The meta-aesthetical consequences of reflective aesthetics and their Hegelian heritage have both an interpretive and philosophic value: according to me, Beiser's reading of Hegel is challenged, and my interpretation of how Hegel envisaged the future of art offers a new and engaging way of understanding one of the most notorious claims in the philosophy of art, namely that art has ended.