Abstract

This thesis examines how Hegel's accounts of aesthetic judgment, beauty, and art history, stated in his Lectures on Aesthetics, are grounded in his logical treatment of value judgment and the form/content distinction given in his Science of Logic. It further shows how these latter two notions derive from Hegel's concept of a concept, and traces the foundations of Hegel's aesthetic theory back to Hegel's notion of the concept, which itself stands at the basis of his metaphysics. ;The influence of Kant's, Schiller's, and Schelling's views on Hegel's aesthetic theory is discussed, and I show how Kant's analysis of judgments of taste and judgments of perfection illuminates Hegel's account of aesthetic judgment, in so far as Kant's analysis prefigures and articulates Hegel's account. ;My central criticism of Hegel's accounts of aesthetic judgment and beauty is that his view yields an implausible analysis of cases of perceptually equivalent objects having radically different etiologies. Hegel's view entails that two perceptually equivalent objects can sharply differ in aesthetic value solely on the basis of their different origins. I thus find that Hegel's position conflicts with the ordinary sense of the term "aesthetic". ;In the final chapters, some broad structural relationships between Hegel's Science of Logic and his Lectures on Aesthetics are addressed. I point out how the tripartite structure of Hegel's discussion of the logical idea in the former work is reiterated in Hegel's threefold division of art history into the symbolic, classic and romantic periods. In light of this isomorphism, I suggest a reformulation of Hegel's discussion to accommodate the idea of beauty. ;I conclude with a discussion of some themes characteristic of Hegel's aesthetic theory as a whole. These are: an understanding of beauty as the expression of metaphysical knowledge, an emphasis upon aesthetic evaluation in terms of inner character as opposed to outer appearance, a strong regard for authenticity in appearance, and an emphasis upon the role of conceptual activity in aesthetic experience