Aesthetics and modernity; aesthetics and "post-modernity". Part 1 Modern philosophy and the emergence of aesthetic theory - Kant: self-consciousness, knowledge and freedom; the unification of nature; the purpose of beauty; the limits of beauty. Part 2 German idealism and early German Romanticism: thinking the infinite; a "new mythology". Part 3 Reflections on the subject - Fichte, Holderlin and Novalis: self and other; Fichte; Holderlin; Novalis. Part 4 Schelling - art and the "Organ of Philosophy": nature and philosophy; the development of consciousness; intuition and concept; the "organ of philosophy"; mythology, art and modernity; mythology, language and being. Part 5 Hegel - the beginning of aesthetic theory and the end of art: which Hegel?; self-recognition; music and the idea; language, consciousness and being; the idea as sensuous appearance; the prose of the modern world; philosophy and art after Hegel. Part 6 Schleiermacher - art and interpretation: linguistic; the "art of disagreement"; immediate self-consciousness; art as free production: "individual" and "identical" activity; hemeneutics as art; literature and the "musical". Part 7 Music, language and literature: language and music; Hegel and romanticism - music, logos, and feeling; the "presence" of music "infinite reflection" and music. Part 8 Nietzsche and the fate of romantic thought: the old and the new Nietzsches; Schopenhauer - music as metaphysics; Marx, mythology, and art; art, myth, and music in "The Birth of Tragedy"; myth, music, and language; the illusion of truth; music and metaphysics; aesthetics, "interpretation", and subjectivity. Conclusion - the so-called "oldest system programme of German idealism".