La réalisation de la philosophie à l'époque du Vormärz

From 1815, with the Congress of Vienna – the beginning of an era of Restoration –, to March 1848, with the repercussions of the February Revolution in Europe, the period of the Vormärz ("before March") was characterised in the Germanic world by a particularly effervescent intellectual life.

The philosophies of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel – aiming to go beyond Kant – allowed many German thinkers to consider Germany to be philosophically ahead of its time. However, this theoretical advance contrasted with the political and social reality shaped by Metternich. The resolution of the contradiction lay, for some, in the idea that all that remained for Germany to do was to realise its philosophy.

The topic of the realisation of philosophy is investigated in particular through the prism of the divisions that occurred within the Hegelian school, and through the figures of Gans, Heine, Ruge, Feuerbach, Stirner, Strauss, B. Bauer, Hess, Bakunin, Cieszkowski, Marx, E. Bauer and Engels.