Postscript

Nicolai Hartmann wrote the first complete sketch of Aesthetics in the summer of
1945 in Babelsberg near Potsdam. He began the manuscript on the 9th of March,
and completed it on the 11th of September. This was the time of the destruction of
Potsdam, the encirclement and conquest of Berlin, and, in general, of hunger,
uncertainty, and confusion. On the other hand, the complete severance form the
outside world favored concentrated work. In the midst of this collapse he wrote
his pages, day by day.
The completed manuscript served as a basis for his first lecture in Göttingen
in winter 1945/46, and was once again worked over for this occasion. In confor-
mity with his lifelong practices in preparing his work, a second manuscript was to
be taken up, after an appropriate pause, and this version would then be destined
for publication. The first years after the war were nonetheless so filled by the
pressure of new tasks and difficulties that the work could not be begun before
early 1950; and the summer, too, was burdened by the necessity of reworking a
course of intended lectures, as all the lecture manuscripts had been burned.
Nicolai Hartmann was not able to complete the final manuscript of Aesthetics.
It breaks off with the words, “Ideas in Poetry,” the heading on page 196. Accord-
ingly, one third of the work is in the form that the author specifically intended for
publication. From page 196 to the end, this edition follows the first manuscript,
which, so far that one can compare the two versions, contains only insignificant
deviations.
The editor would like to give special thanks to Professor Heinz Heimsoeth for
his help in the comparative revisions of the two versions and in preparing the
manuscript for publication.

Göttingen, June 1953

Frida Hartmann

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Download Date | 12/4/19 3:09 AM
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Download Date | 12/4/19 3:09 AM