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Distributed for Museum Tusculanum Press

Heiberg’s Perseus and Other Texts

The poet and part-time philosopher Johan Ludvig Heiberg published the first issue of his review Perseus, Journal for the Speculative Idea in June of 1837 as a part of his long-standing campaign to convert his Golden Age contemporaries to G.W.F. Hegel?s philosophical system. The journal was created in large part as a result of a dispute that Heiberg had with the editorial board of the prestigious Maanedsskrift for Litteratur about an article that he had submitted. Feeling unfairly persecuted, Heiberg retracted his submission and resolved to found a new philosophical journal of his own, in which his controversial piece could be published. Thus Perseus was born. In his prefatory address to the journal?s readers, Heiberg calls upon the Greek hero Perseus to be the champion for the cause of Hegelian idealism and to do battle with the pernicious Medusa of realism and empiricism. Although Heiberg?s Hegelian review only appeared in two issues in 1837 and 1838, it was widely read and discussed among Danish students and intellectuals of the time. It was reviewed at length by the philosopher Frederik Christian Sibbern and satirized by Søren Kierkegaard in Prefaces. There can be no doubt that Heiberg?s Perseus represents a landmark in Golden Age culture.

416 pages | 6 x 9 1/4 | © 2011

Philosophy: General Philosophy


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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: The Origin and Influence of Heiberg’s Perseus

Negotiations with the Editorial Board of the Maanedsskrift for Litteratur
      Johan Ludvig Heiberg
Perseus, Journal for the Speculative Idea by Johan Ludvig Heiberg
    To the Readers
    Review of Dr. Rothe’s Doctrine of the Trinity and Reconciliation
        I. Introduction
        II. The Infinite and the Finite
        III. Philosophy and System
        IV. Ideality and Idea
        V. Spirit and Immortality
        VI. The Revelation
Review of Perseus, Journal for the Speculative Idea
      Pseudonymous: Oi
Preface VIII (from Prefaces)
      Søren Kierkegaard

Explanatory Notes
Bibliographies
Indices

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