Tang Chun-I Visiting Professorship Departmental Seminar: Hegel on Ancient Tragedy
Prof. Michael N. Forster |
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4:30 – 6:30 pm |
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Room 101, Fung King Hey Building (with synchronous online broadcast) |
Joining the Face-to-Face Talks (Please register by 18 September 2025): https://cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.php?id=13714393
Joining the Talks Online (No registration is needed):
Zoom Meeting ID: 957 6360 6173
Link: https://cuhk.zoom.us/j/95763606173
For inquiries, please email to philosophy@cuhk.edu.hk
Abstract:
I argue that Hegel developed his mature theory of tragedy, beginning in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) and then continuing in the Lectures on Aesthetics (from the 1820s), in light of a radically anti-Aristotelian account of the nature of ancient tragedy that the Schlegel brothers had developed in the immediately preceding years, which served him as a sort of anti-Aristotelian deck-clearing. On the basis of this cleared deck he developed two new theses, (1) a highly original anti-Aristotelian thesis of the centrality of moral contradictions in tragedy and (2) a less novel quasi-Aristotelian thesis that the function of tragedy lies in “reconciliation.” These theses are not only original and interesting but also genuinely illuminating of the nature of ancient tragedy.
Conducted in English
All are welcome