The Origins of German Idealism: A Brief Application to The Systemised Self & Hollow Absolute

Abstract

This essay traces the origins, development, decline, and remaining significance of German Idealism. We begin with the philosophical genealogy preceding Kant, including Platonism, Cartesian subjectivity, rationalism, empiricism, Rousseau, and Newtonian science. Kant’s Introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason is subsequently examined as the decisive intervention through which the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, the active subject, and the limits of metaphysics are reformulated. The essay follows the post-Kantian development through Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, with particular attention to the Greek, Kantian, Fichtean, and Schellingian origins of Hegel’s dialectic. It then considers the movement’s transformation through Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, phenomenology, existentialism, and critical theory. The conclusion argues that German Idealism did not simply disappear but continued by proxy through the problems it bequeathed to later thinkers. Its dialectic remains useful for understanding contradiction, mediation, recognition, and development, including the speculative theoretical concept of the Systemised Self (Galu & Kairos, 2026).

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