Description: Hegel and the Challenge of Spinoza explores the powerful continuing influence of Spinoza's metaphysical thinking in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German philosophy. George di Giovanni examines the ways in which Hegel's own metaphysics sought to meet the challenges posed by Spinoza's monism, not by disproving monism, but by rendering it moot. In this, di Giovanni argues, Hegel was much closer in spirit to Kant and Fichte than to Schelling. This book will be of interest to students and researchers interested in post-Kantian Idealism, Romanticism, and metaphysics.
Brief description: George di Giovanni is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at McGill University. He is author of Freedom and Religion in Kant and His Immediate Successors (Cambridge University Press, 2005), editor of many essay collections, including Karl Leonhard Reinhold and the Enlightenment (2010), and editor and translator of numerous texts by Kant, Hegel and Jacobi.
Review Quotes: 'Di Giovanni's new book offers a synoptic and accessible presentation of German idealism with an eye toward clarifying under-appreciated texts in overlooked periods of this tradition, particularly the late Fichte and the late Schelling, and highlighting understudied themes of central importance within this tradition, particularly the philosophy of religion and the concept of feeling.' G. Anthony Bruno, Royal Holloway, University of London