We are glad to give notice of the call for papers for the edited volume Goethe und die Philosophie – historische und systematische Analysen (Goethe and Philosophy – Historical and Systematic Analyses), edited by Moritz R. Pretzsch and Jan Kerkmann, 2026.
***
From the call website:
This volume aims to analyse Goethe’s relationship to philosophy and his impact on philosophy historically and systematically. On the one hand, central philosophical influences and influencers in Goethe’s thinking and work will be examined, including Da Vinci, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hamann, Lichtenberg, Jacobi, Rousseau, Herder, Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, among others. In addition, however, the focus will also be on Goethe’s influence on 19th and 20th century philosophy. In this context, the influence of Goethe on Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Stirner, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Cassirer and Adorno will be the focus of the study. Finally, the question arises as to what extent contemporary philosophy can still benefit from Goethe’s thinking today. If, in the history of philosophy, all manifestations of culture were dragged before the judgment seat of reason, today it seems rather the other way around, as if reason, in particular as a result of the harrowing experiences of the last century, is now on trial. Even before critical theory, Heidegger, Foucault and Nietzsche, Goethe, with his organic understanding of the whole human being, had already subtly opposed the enlightened primacy of reason: For him, ‘sensuality and reason, imagination and understanding […] an exact sensual fantasy’ all have the ‘same rights’ (Goethe, Ernst Stiedenroth Psychologie zur Erklärung der Seelenerscheinungen erster Teil. Berlin 1824, 614).
Abstracts (in German or English) with historically or systematically oriented proposals (max. 500 words) can be sent to the following email addresses by 31 December 2025: moritzpretzsch@uni-kassel.de and jan.kerkmann@philosophie.uni-freiburg.de.
Responses for accepted contributions will be received by 15 January, 2026.
Final versions of the contributions (max. 60,000 characters, including spaces, Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing) should be submitted by 01 July, 2026.
The edited volume will be published in winter 2026 by a renowned English publisher, with whom a contract is expected to be signed in spring 2025.
For further details, you can visit the call for paper website.
Printable Version