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The End of Art, the Start of Reconciliation: Comedy in Hegel’s Philosophy of Art
Lumba, Meryl Fernandez
Lumba, Meryl Fernandez
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Thesis/Dissertation
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2025-08
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Philosophy
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https://doi.org/10.34944/h0yz-pq49
Abstract
My dissertation, The End of Art, the Start of Reconciliation: Comedy in Hegel’s Philosophy of Art, examines the works of the prolific nineteenth-century German philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), and his treatment of comedy. Art is purposive: It seeks to sensuously articulate a universal truth about what it means to be a free and rational human. While Hegel’s Lectures on Fine Art has fascinated both his philosophical successors and contemporary scholars, his remarks about comedy remain underexplored. For Hegel, art develops dialectically and culminates to its apex in comedy, which suggests that comedy articulates these truths in a more potent way by best reflecting essential developments within a culture. In fact, the transitional moments—the “ends”—of classical art are punctuated by comedy while modern, romantic art culminates in humor. He contends that a “deeper demand” is asked of comedy: “In a comic action the contradiction between what is absolutely true and its realization in individuals is posed more profoundly” (LFA: 1201). This elevates comedy’s status, making it distinct from other forms of art: It has the conceptual function to help us reflect on what it means to be subjective and free within a community and the social function to transgress or reconcile. While ancient comedy merely expresses the emergence of these concepts, modern comedy showcases their realization (and extremes). The discursive facet about art, however, puts comedy in a precarious situation. Hegel’s treatment of art ends with the claim that comedy is not only the telos of artistic expression, but also the cause for the “dissolution of art” itself (LFA: 1236). Despite this, Hegel’s famous declaration about art’s “end” has resulted in the underestimation of his separate claim on comedy. Yet, I take it that the largest source of tension in Hegel’s treatment of comedy lies between two issues. He wrongly brackets a discussion of its social dimension and, at the same time, rightly anticipates the genre’s main sources of significance to us today. In his own references to paradigmatic cases of comedy, Hegel neglects the implicit communal underpinnings of the genre. As a result, he cannot fully claim that comedy is reconciliatory, demanding a sensuous articulation of the truth that humans are rational and free and striving toward this knowledge through others. Further, what makes some forms of comedy appealing today is their ability to prompt understanding and recognition of oneself or to help one feel a sense of belonging in the world. For these reasons, I claim that Hegel’s treatment of comedy is dialectical, revealing (1) two functions distinct from art’s vocation and (2) a tension between resistance and recognition that results in reconciliation.
The aims of my dissertation are twofold. First, I (i) unpack the significance of Hegel’s theory of comedy for his philosophy of art through a systematic approach and (ii) address the relevance of Hegel’s treatment of comedy beyond his infamous “end of art” thesis by using an historical approach. The systematic approach draws on his larger idealism to highlight the conceptual role of comedy while the historical approach engages with Hegel’s social/political philosophy, as well as his history of philosophy, to illustrate the social role of comedy. I clarify Hegel’s position on ancient and modern comedy, which shows (i) we conceptually develop a self-understanding that we are free, rational, and subjective individuals and (ii) our reality is established vis-à-vis our mutual determinism with others. The second aim of my dissertation is to shed light on how comedy’s conceptual and social functions lead us to reconciliation. While the reconciliation in ancient comedy leads to a reunification with one’s ethical community (Sittlichkeit), modern comedy highlights the alienating effects of a modern social world. The comic hero’s self-assuredness and ability to know—in the face of self-destruction—is a kind of human agency I take to be central to comedy and laughter.
As such, my project traces the dialectic of comedy in Hegel’s philosophy of art to assert that his treatment of comedy allows us (and Spirit) to gain “immediate” knowledge (i.e., a rudimentary understanding) of what it means to be a free and rational human existing in the world. Comparing Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and “Absolute Mind” (Encyclopedia) helps provide theoretical groundwork for how comedy plays a conceptual and social role, revealing a “comic consciousness.” Within the ancient period, Hegel’s laudatory references to Aristophanian comedy showcase the emergence of comic consciousness that weaves together character action and historical context as illustrated by comic heroines. Hegel’s criticisms of New Comedy and Roman history in the Aesthetics and the History of Philosophy articulate the dialectical tension of resistance and reconciliation. At this point, comic characters display resistance against an opposing entity (e.g., tradition or changing social values). Because mutual recognition by another is a criterion of freedom, New Comedy and Roman satire do not sensuously articulate truth for Hegel. The modern period marks a progressive conceptual and historical change: the self-understanding of our reality and our world is recognized. As such, Hegel’s remarks on modern comedy parallels his concerns about modernity’s larger, cultural problem: (i) the loss of meaning caused by the (waning) relationship between art and religion and (ii) the need to create mutually recognitive communities. Hegel’s paradigmatic reference to Cervantes’ early modern comedy, Don Quixote, draws readers’ attention to this. Additionally, though it would be anachronistic to describe Shakespeare as “modern,” Hegel’s commentary on his comedies reveals how the dramaturge’s characters portray a kind of subjectivity that is distinctly modern, and his characters express universal human interests with the elevation of the everyday. It is only when art is “past” us, however, that we can understand or utilize its reflective aspects. I conclude, then, that comic consciousness elicits critical reflection, showing us comedy’s socio-cultural relevance beyond the “end” of art.
My interpretation clarifies Hegel’s larger argument that art is both purposive and necessarily of the past. Comedy is a rudimentary self-reflective medium (abstractly in ancient comedy, concretely in modern comedy). The groundwork of Hegel’s treatment of comedy—its conceptual and social functions—culminate in what is ultimately a contemporary, reconciliatory function: a coping mechanism (i.e., a brief sense of relief and intimacy) that temporarily allows audiences to feel “at home” in the world. Comedy is a kind of knowledge that expresses collective self-understanding through history. This reinstates the importance of Hegel’s treatment of comedy today.
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