This study aims to investigate the place of ugliness in the process of the manifestation of the Absolute Spirit in art, and its relation to beauty and truth within Hegelian aesthetics. The central problem of the present research is to explicate how beauty and ugliness are interconnected and codependent in achieving the Idea/Truth and the appearance of Spirit. Accordingly, the research questions are: first, based on which classifications and emphases can we best comprehend ugliness in Hegel’s aesthetics? Second, how is the relationship between ugliness and beauty expounded in Hegel’s philosophy, and what implications does it reveal? This study is conducted via an analytical-hermeneutic method, relying on Hegel’s primary texts. To this end, following an inquiry into the modes of realization of the Absolute Spirit in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), it examines the condensed paragraphs of the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830), and subsequently traces their detailed elaboration in the Lectures on Aesthetics (1835-1838). The findings indicate that in Symbolic art, ugliness is the product of the cleavage between form and content and the inability to fully manifest Spirit; in Classical art, ugliness remains a marginal and contained element within the ideal unity of the Idea and its concrete shape; and in Romantic art, it emerges as an immanent and necessary element for expressing the inward depth of Spirit, the experience of suffering, and individuality. The results of the research demonstrate that Hegel interprets ugliness as a “negative beauty” and a stage of negation within the process of sublation (Aufhebung), wherein contradictions are not annihilated but rather absorbed and elevated. Thus, for Hegel, art as the appearance of beauty is a dialectically produced sphere that renders contradictions, suffering, and ugliness not into obstacles, but into mediating agents for the representation of truth and the self-showing of the Absolute Spirit. A Although Hegel does not guarantee the autonomy of ugliness within aesthetics, this degree of significance afforded to ugliness establishes a groundwork that proves influential for its subsequent conceptualization by later thinkers, such as Rosenkranz, and for independently understanding modern and contemporary works of art.
mahdiannasab, Z. and Afarin, F. (2026). Study and Analysis of the Constitutive Elements of Ugliness in Hegel’s Aesthetics with Emphasis on Dialectic. Journal of Philosophical Investigations, (), -. doi: 10.22034/jpiut.2026.72334.4503
MLA
mahdiannasab, Z. , and Afarin, F. . "Study and Analysis of the Constitutive Elements of Ugliness in Hegel’s Aesthetics with Emphasis on Dialectic", Journal of Philosophical Investigations, , , 2026, -. doi: 10.22034/jpiut.2026.72334.4503
HARVARD
mahdiannasab, Z., Afarin, F. (2026). 'Study and Analysis of the Constitutive Elements of Ugliness in Hegel’s Aesthetics with Emphasis on Dialectic', Journal of Philosophical Investigations, (), pp. -. doi: 10.22034/jpiut.2026.72334.4503
CHICAGO
Z. mahdiannasab and F. Afarin, "Study and Analysis of the Constitutive Elements of Ugliness in Hegel’s Aesthetics with Emphasis on Dialectic," Journal of Philosophical Investigations, (2026): -, doi: 10.22034/jpiut.2026.72334.4503
VANCOUVER
mahdiannasab, Z., Afarin, F. Study and Analysis of the Constitutive Elements of Ugliness in Hegel’s Aesthetics with Emphasis on Dialectic. Journal of Philosophical Investigations, 2026; (): -. doi: 10.22034/jpiut.2026.72334.4503
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