ABSTRACT
In contrast to the way the aesthetic theory of Immanuel Kant can sensibly be extracted from its place in the overall Kantian philosophical schema, an understanding of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s theory of art needs to recognise at least some of the elements that constitute the vast Hegelian philosophical project as a whole. If ‘romanticism,’ ‘the end of art,’ and ‘the end of history’ can be formulated to exhibit the narrative of freedom, the assumptions that reside in art as the fulfilment of history can be extended even further to include notions of an absolute, teleological truth of humanity. However much the state is regarded as ‘an absolute and unmoved end in itself’ within Hegel’s overall philosophical position, it is still inescapably prosaic and would seem, therefore, to be in need of art. There are a number of ways that Hegel’s arguments on aesthetics can fill out Weber’s theory of the aesthetic value-sphere.
