 The notion of the Athenaeum writers establishing a unified philosophical group is due, in part, to their call for a shared philosophizing (Symphilosophie)—their envisioning philosophy as a progressive, collective enterprise, rather than a set of solitary contributions of the system-building variety—and the accompanying critique of the idea of intellectual authorship that would encourage the adoption of pen-names and countless anonymous publications, which also, conveniently, minimized the impact of censorship on individual academic careers and allowed the movement’s female companions to publish and distribute their work. Furthermore, from Hegel onwards, the critics of romantic philosophy have typically favored sweeping claims and totalizing rejections rather than careful analysis of particular contributions and arguments. (I return to this point in Section Eight.) However, the group in question had rather porous and flexible boundaries. The Athenaeum philosophers were all part of the larger intellectual life in Germany. And the romantics not only responded to the most well-known philosophical schools of the time, such as those of Kant or Fichte, but were also influenced by a whole host of writers and intellectuals whose work, at least within the Anglophone world, have long been forgotten outside the circles of historically minded German scholars and experts on late eighteenth-century European thought. Rather than falling in rank under one unifying program, the contributors to the Athenaeum stand forth as diverse with regard to philosophical orientations and insights as well as the historical-philosophical resources on which they draw.