Sibbern's Remarks and Investigations Primarily Concerning Hegel's Philosophy

One of Denmark’s greatest philosophers during its greatest philosophical period, Frederik Christian Sibbern was a major figure on the landscape of the Danish Golden Age. Profoundly influenced by German philosophy, he was personally acquainted with figures such as Fichte, Schleiermacher, Goethe and Schelling. Sibbern had long been interested in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel but had never written any extended analysis of it. When Johan Ludvig Heiberg unveiled his new philosophical journal Perseus in 1837, as a part of his Hegelian campaign, he provided Sibbern with the occasion that he had been waiting for. In a series of eight installments in the journal, Maanedsskrift for Litteratur, Sibbern published an extensive critical account of Hegel’s philosophy under the guise of a review of the first volume of Heiberg’s Perseus. In the fall of 1838 he collected the first four installments of this review and published them as an independent monograph entitled, Remarks and Investigations Primarily Concerning Hegel’s Philosophy. This work represents arguably the most exhaustive, detailed and profound analysis of Hegel’s philosophy ever to appear in the Danish language, anticipating many aspects of Kierkegaard’s famous criticism.

Jon Stewart is the editor of the series, Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, Texts from Golden Age Denmark and Danish Golden Age Studies. He is the coeditor of the Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook and Kierkegaard Studies Monograph Series. He is currently a visiting scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.