Romanticisms as an Epistemological Alternative Introduced by Kant's Critique of Judgement

Abstract

The aim of the article is to show how German romanticism, which laid the philosophical foundations for the Romantic Movement, understood the shift toward lived subjectivity not as a deviation from knowledge, but as another form of knowledge. Romantic inwardness finds its counterpart in the experience of the world, which is granted deeper meaning by art than it is by rational philosophy or science. This new view of knowledge is applied to both nature and human spiritual reality. The article notes that, besides the legacy of Spinozism, another importance source of romantic epistemology was the thoughts Kant put forth in his Critique of Judgement. This link is traced in particular in the philosophy of art of F. W. J. Schelling. At the same time, the article pursues a line of argument that critically confronts the subjectivistic interpretation of romanticism espoused by H.-G. Gadamer, what unveils the epistemological reach and current relevance of the topic. The German romantics' embrace of Kant's Critique of Judgement is manifested not so much in a tendency to subjectivize aesthetics as in their attempt to aestheticize the knowledge.