Abstract
This chapter discusses Hegel’s account, in his aesthetics, of India and of the Sanskrit epic, the Mahābhārata. Previous chapters have shown that Hegel is one of the creators and enablers of the discourse of modern Eurocentrism, articulating it at its highest level, not only in his politics and the philosophy of history but also in his thinking about art and literature, which is closely tied to his overall historical scheme. This chapter extends the book’s argument into the important domain of Hegel’s aesthetics, and indicates the kind of reception, use, and opposition they have evoked in postcolonial theory. In order to do this, it outlines Hegel’s vision of the evolution of art through its symbolic, classical, and Romantic forms, and then focuses on one exemplary portion of his aesthetics, namely his treatment of Indian poetry.
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- 1.
See, for example, the valuable introduction to Hegel: On the Arts, introd. and trans. Henry Paolucci (Smyrna, DE: Griffon House, 2001), pp. x–xi.
- 2.
G.W.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art: Volume I, trans. T.M. Knox, Vol. I (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 9–10. Hereafter cited as Aes, I.
- 3.
G. W. F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume II, trans. T. M. Knox (Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 973. Hereafter cited as Aes II.
- 4.
Some critics interpret this to mean that Hegel is talking about the end of art as such; Terry Eagleton sees this low status as testifying to the fact that Hegel “gravely underestimates the ideological force of sensuous representation,” Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), pp. 142, 144, 150. However, Carl Rapp argues that what Hegel sees as the end of art, the dissolution of Romantic art, is actually an indefinite process, and that the condition described by Hegel as Romantic irony was proleptic of the conceptions of subjectivity in modern literature, a subjective focus maintained in the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Richard Rorty, “Hegel’s Concept of the Dissolution of Art,” in Hegel and Aesthetics, pp. 15–21. Jere Surber also sees Hegel’s aesthetics as anticipating modernist developments and specifically as opening the way for art to express philosophical issues and perspectives, “Art as a Mode of Thought: Hegel’s Aesthetics and the Origins of Modernism,” in Hegel and Aesthetics, p. 46.
- 5.
For a detailed account of Hegel’s philosophy of art and its influence on literary theory, I might refer the reader to my chapter “Hegel’s Aesthetics and their Influence,” in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Vol. VI: The Nineteenth Century c. 1830–1914, ed. M.A.R. Habib (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 251–273.
- 6.
For example, what Hegel finds “most excellent” in Proclus is “the more precise definition of the idea in its three forms, the τριάς, the trinity,” Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825-6: Vol. II: Greek Philosophy, ed. Robert F. Brown, trans. R.F. Brown, J.M. Stewart, and H.S. Harris (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006), pp. 341–342. Hereafter cited as LHP, II.
- 7.
This point is made in considerable detail by Aakash Singh Rathore and Rimina Mohapatra, who explain in their superb study of Hegel and India that much of Hegel’s thought and his philosophical self-understanding was anticipated by ancient Indian wisdom, Hegel’s India: A Reinterpretation, with Texts (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 79–81. Hereafter cited as HIR.
References
Brown, Robert F., ed. 2006. Lectures on the History of Philosophy 1825–6: Vol. II: Greek Philosophy. Trans. R.F. Brown, J.M. Stewart, and H.S. Harris, 341–342. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Eagleton, Terry. 1990. The Ideology of the Aesthetic, 142, 144, 150. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hegel, G.W.F. 1975a. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art: Volume I, vol. I, 9–10. Trans. T.M. Knox. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1975b. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, Volume II. Trans. T.M. Knox, 973. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2013. Hegel’s Aesthetics and their Influence. In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism: Vol. VI: The Nineteenth Century c. 1830–1914, ed. M.A.R. Habib, 251–273. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Paolucci, Henry, introd. and trans. 2001. Hegel: On the Arts, x–xi. Smyrna, DE: Griffon House.
Rapp, Carl. 2000. Hegel’s Concept of the Dissolution of Art. In Hegel and Aesthetics, 15–21. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rathore, Aakash Singh, and Rimina Mohapatra. 2017. Hegel’s India: A Reinterpretation, with Texts, 79–81. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Surber, Jere. 2000. Art as a Mode of Thought: Hegel’s Aesthetics and the Origins of Modernism. In Hegel and Aesthetics, 46. Albany: State University of New York Press.
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Habib, M.A.R. (2017). Hegel and India: The Aesthetics of Eurocentrism. In: Hegel and Empire. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68412-3_7
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