Tramonto dell’imitazione e filosofia dell’arte nella Vorlesungsmitschrift di Adolf Heimann

Abstract

The article aims to analyse the concept of imitation within the Hegelian aesthetic, in particular in the light of the recently published Vorlesungsmitschrift by Adolf Heimann. On one hand, the overcoming of the abstract concept of imitation as a simple copy of nature is highlighted; on the other hand, this will lead to no longer giving space to the analysis of natural beauty, transforming aesthetics into a philosophy of art in its historical development. The connection between these two moments is found precisely in Heimann’s Vorlesungsmitschrift, where Hegel analyses the Kantian theory of beauty. The reflective judgment, as it is theorized by Kant in the Critique of judgment, is seen by Hegel as the place in which the abstract contrast between reality and concept, between particular and universal, is overcome, thus anticipating – according to Hegel himself – the notion of Aufhebung.