ABSTRACT
As in G. W. F. Hegel's system, its role is structural in Walter Pater's philosophy, and is structural precisely according to its utility, to the way in which the philosophy of death seeks to harness the power of death, to use it to drive the economy. Aestheticism, then, is both a philosophy of death and, at the same time, and by the same remit, a philosophy of the impossibility of death. It is a philosophy of death in that Pater's theory of the greater reason faithfully reproduces Hegel's restricted economy. Pater's identification of Hegel's 'radical dualism' is post-Hegelian rather than merely anti-Hegelian. The requirement which underwrites Pater's theory of subjective immortality is that the movement of the Hegelian Aufhebung be perfect. Pater's identification of Hegel's 'radical dualism' cannot be reduced to either his initial reading or to his 'reconsideration' of Hegel, for both of those readings were dialectical.
