Abstract

Open any recent, reasonably complete edition of Hegel’s works and you will find a two-page fragment entitled Das älteste Systemprogramm des deutschen Idealismus. Examine any comparable edition of Schelling’s works and you will find the same title, the same fragment. Finally, peruse, as though on holiday, your edition of the great poet Hölderlin and once again you will discover “The Oldest Program Towards a System in German Idealism.” What is this fragment which the editors of Hegel’s, Schelling’s, and Hölderlin’s works are so keen to ascribe to their respective paragons?