20th Century German Philosophy

Der Band fragt nach geistigen Phänomenen, die von überindividueller Art sind oder sich in Hervorbringungen menschlichen Handelns manifestieren. Auf je verschiedene Weise thematisieren die Autor:innen, wie ein so verstandener objektiver Geist zu denken ist. Im Anschluss an klassische Autoren wie Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georg Simmel oder Nicolai Hartmann sowie in Bezug auf aktuelle Debatten der "philosophy of mind" und Sozialphilosophie wird erläutert, dass objektiv Geistiges in einem nicht-metaphysischen Sinn verstanden werden kann. In Auseinandersetzung mit Vorstellungen wie "institutional reality" (John (...) Searle) oder "mental commons" (Annette Baier) sollen streng individualistische Konzeptionen des Geistes korrigiert werden. Behandelt werden Fragen zu Hegels Begriff des objektiven Geistes, zur Kulturphilosophie, zur Sozialtheorie, zur analytischen Sozialontologie und zur Philosophie der Kognition. (shrink)

This short article is an introduction to Blumenberg's philosophical metaphorology. Metaphorology is presented as an idiosyncratic variant of a conceptual history that draws attention to the fact that what intellectual historians examine as historically influential “concepts” are less clearly defined ideas than a kind of - pragmatically effective - images. Blumenberg calls these background images “metaphors.”.

Hannah Arendt’s politics is aesthetic rather than practical, motivated by enjoyment rather than well-being, and so it should be rejected. I begin with an account of aestheticism as the doctrine according to which seemingly non-aesthetic things are actually aesthetic, parts of a whole dimension of reality that we might simply call “the aesthetic.” We access it by taking a disinterested attitude, one that affirms things for their own sakes, and there are four ways of doing this: disinterested appreciating (e.g., of (...) beautiful art), fun playing, fantasizing, and putting on shows or spectacles. While Arendt’s politics takes a classical republican form that is like a competitive game, an analysis of her conceptions of acting and judging reveals that the modes of disinterested showing and appreciating are also present. Her philosophy has another motivation, however, alongside enjoying the aesthetic: the need to escape the reality of evil. (shrink)

We live in times of an increasing polarization in which the margins of the political spectrum begin to dominate our social imagination again. While the neoliberal iteration of the capitalist project suggests an extreme individualism as the normative default position, the devastating impact of the globalized economy on many has reignited the pursuit of socialist alternatives. In this constellation, Simmel’s social theory of modernity can be a useful resource to undercut the return of the old battle between opposite economic systems. (...) This paper argues that two kinds of pluralism can be derived from his conceptualization of the social effects of the money economy. In contrast to one-size-fits-all concepts of freedom, Simmel embraces a social pluralism which acknowledges a plurality of cultural spheres as relevant for the self-actualization of modern individuals, attributing different combinations of independence and embeddedness to them. Moreover, he rejects the social extremes of socialism and individualism, since they fail to properly integrate individual freedom into the social whole without undermining it. Instead Simmel gives us the vision of a pluralist economy in which democratic worker’s cooperatives are combined with an overall liberal market to satisfy both the longing for community and the strive for individual distinction. (shrink)

In the paper, I first consider how his theory of social norms is connected to his theory of social evolution by examining the importance of learning in his theory of both social norms and social evolution. Then I turn to David Owen and Amy Allen's critiques of Jürgen Habermas. My aim is to develop their critique of Habermas by elucidating an important but neglected distinction between the developmental logic and the developmental dynamics in Habermas's theory of social evolution. Drawing on (...) this distinction, I claim that Habermas's theory is problematic in that he underestimates the importance of the developmental dynamics. By introducing the distinction between individual learning and social learning, I also question his account of progress as accumulative experience of learning. This is because, unlike cumulative culture at the level of phylogenesis, individuals ontogenetically experience a kind of non‐cumulative social learning. Unlike cumulative culture, each individual has to undergo a kind of non‐cumulative social learning. The problem is that Habermas conceives the learning process too narrowly such that learning does not guarantee social evolution. (shrink)

This volume brings together essential essays by an important but neglected thinker in early twentieth-century German philosophy, Edith Landmann-Kalischer. As the first English translation of her writings, this volume represents a landmark step in the effort to restore to its rightful place her philosophy and, in particular, its methodologically unified approach to aesthetic, moral, and epistemic value. The three essays translated - “On the Cognitive Value of Aesthetic Judgments: A Comparison of Sensory Judgments and Value Judgments” (1905), “On Artistic Truth” (...) (1906), and “Philosophy of Values” (1910) - demonstrate a philosophical mind at home with the then emerging disciplines of phenomenology and psychology during one of the most fecund eras of philosophy in German-speaking lands. -/- Drawing on the ferment of this period and engaging with its leading thinkers (e.g., Brentano, Husserl), Landmann-Kalischer crafts a unique and powerful contribution to aesthetics, the philosophy of art, and value theory. And far from speaking simply to the concerns of her day, in these essays she tackles questions that remain as pressing for us today as they were in her time. Are beauty, goodness, and truth real or merely subjective? How do we experience these values? Does our experience of value lead to judgments that can be true or false? Can those experiences lead to knowledge? Is a science of value possible at all? In Landmann-Kalischer's essays, we find rigorously argued and compelling answers to these questions. (shrink)

The beginning of Agnes Heller’s philosophic career is marked by a sincere respect for and fascination with Habermas’ work. Indeed, in "The Positivism Debate as a Turning Point in German Postwar Theory," first published in 1978, Heller praised Habermas for his defense of the authentic concerns of everyday life--including human needs, sufferings, and motivations- - and for his critique of the separation between science and ethics. After these early developments, however, the philosophic history between Heller and Habermas unfolded into an (...) unmistakable dissensus. While the explication of the dissensus between them could be analyzed by considering Heller’s additional articles on Habermas, as well as Habermas’ strenuous critique of Heller’s early book, Everyday Life, I show in this article, rather, the ways in which their contrasting positions open up into two domains in which these two great thinkers come closest to each other: namely, the domains of intersubjective liability and corporeal injurability. I highlight the manner in which intersubjective liability and corporeal injurability have impacted their respective ethical theories. The goal of my analysis is to demonstrate why it is important to engage Heller and Habermas today in this missed dialogue. This goal can be realized, above all, in the analysis of lived experience in the everyday life of the corporeal self as it intersects with the contemporaneity of the eternal present in the temporal composition of historical materialism. (shrink)

As Foucault has argued persuasively, human sciences carry in themselves not only the danger of anthropologization, but, precisely because of their epistemic instability and hybridity, also the potential for its criticism. This criticism is all the more important in the current turn to the human being as living, sentient and affective being, which takes place under the sign of life- and brain-sciences. Thus, it serves as the starting point of the medial anthropology and its focus on the medium of the (...) game that this paper presents. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the relationship between phenomenology and metaphysics by reassessing the relationship between phenomenological and metaphysical transcendence. More specifically, I examine the notion of phenomenological transcendence in Husserl and the early Heidegger: Husserl defines transcendence primarily as the mode of givenness of phenomena that do not appear all at once, but must be given in partial profiles; Heidegger defines transcendence primarily as Dasein’s capacity to go beyond entities toward being. I argue that these divergent understandings of phenomenological (...) transcendence have resulted in a significant difference in reception among French phenomenologists of religion. These thinkers assert that phenomenology, when properly conceived and utilized, can make room for the divine and its revelation, i.e., for a metaphysical transcendence. I further argue that these thinkers prefer Heidegger’s phenomenology to Husserl’s because they understand Heidegger’s transcendence as the subject’s openness to being, while they understand Husserl’s transcendence as a limit, as the inability to capture worldly objects. I take up Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of givenness as a “case study” to illustrate this point. Finally, I argue that this preference for Heidegger over Husserl is misplaced and should be reversed. A close reading of Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Religious Life shows that Dasein is confined to its own possibilities and cannot be open to a relationship with the divine. By contrast, Husserl’s phenomenology provides the radical openness necessary to welcome revelation. While Husserl cannot envision a “worldly God,” the structures of horizonality and temporality characterize a subject capable of an authentic openness to revelation. (shrink)

The essay departs from a detailed discussion of Jakobson’s description of the »poetic function.« It comes to the conclusion that the distinctive feature of poetic language, defined by Jakobson as the production of paradigmatic similarity, cannot be understood as a result of the projection of the paradigmatic axis of language onto its syntagmatic axis. Furthermore, the semantic effect of these similarities does not consist exclusively in a production of ambivalence; frequently, they produce coherence, as can be shown with reference to (...) examples of metaphors, metonymies and allegories. In a second step, the essay turns to a detailed interpretation of the 8th sonnet of Petrarch’s Canzoniere, which examines its intertextual relations to other son- nets of this cycle as well as those to scholastic theology and Platonic philosophy. This interpretation further develops the idea that poetic language produces coherence; for, precisely those lines that at first seem incomprehensible can be understood as implicit propositions and coherencecreating statements. In its concluding section, the paper characterizes the implicit production of coherence as the specific feature of poetic language and discusses the necessity of a hermeneutics of literary texts. (shrink)

Vorwort von G. v. Mutius.--Einleitung des Herausgebers.--Die Unzulänglichkeit des Nur-menschlichen.--Der höchste Wert--Das religiöse Verhältnis.--Das religiöse Leben.--Wahrheit und Leben müssen sich decken.--Persönliches.--Nachweise.

This chapter contains sections titled: Chronos and Kairos Chronos and Scientific Time Climate and Garden Aesthetics Subjective Time Objective or Shared Time Cyclical Time The Garden's Times Moving Through the Garden Experiences of Time in the Garden Notes.

Karl Jaspers was one of the greatest European philosophers and humanists of the twentieth century. He demonstrated a broad range of philosophical thinking that makes his work relevant for the twenty-first century. Coming to philosophy from medicine and psychiatry, Jaspers's views encompass a vast and creative range of empirical, philosophical, social, historical, and poltical ideas. Hannah Arendt described Jaspers as one of the greatest interpreters of Kant in the German tradition. In the 1950s, Jaspers spoke of his "philosophy of reason" (...) and his debt to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Weber, and others. His philosophy, however, has often been misunderstood by Anglophone readers and interpreters, both with respect to his so-called existentialism, as well as to the originality, creativity, depth, and scope of this thinking and method. The contributors to this fascinating volume offer fresh expositions and interpretations of Jaspers's philosophy. All are prominent experts in Jaspers research from three continents (Europe, North America, and Asia). Six major parts reveal the significant contribution of Jaspers's thought to the philosophy of psychiatry and science, philosophy of history, metaphysics, philosophy of education, philosophy of humanity, philosophy of politics, philosophy of religion, and intercultural philosophy. Key concepts of Jaspers's philosophy are highlighted and interpreted from a fresh and timely perspective: "boundary situations," existential communication, existential truth, transcendence, philosophical faith, the axial age in world history, new politics and the role of a moral and political conversion, the idea of the university, and Jaspers's fascination with and interpretation of Asian thought. The accessible essays will help readers overcome the intimidation often felt when faced with the work of a major German philosopher. The editors introduce and summarize Jaspers's published works, while offering an overview of his basic themes and concerns. New readers and researchers alike will find this collection instrumental in understanding recent developments in the interpretation of Jaspers. (shrink)

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.

In der neueren Philosophie wird der Realismus in verschiedenen Debatten kontrovers erörtert. Dies hat sich inzwischen in einer Vielzahl realistischer und antirealistischer Positionen niedergeschlagen. Der vorliegende Band vereint 17 Beiträge, die sich unter verschiedenen Blickwinkeln (Erkenntnistheorie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Moralphilosophie) mit der Realismusproblematik auseinandersetzen. Neben der Einführung in die Realismusdebatte und der Entfaltung einer Reihe neuer Argumente und Positionen soll damit insbesondere der Vielfalt des philosophischen Realismusbegriffs Rechnung getragen werden.

Ce mémoire est une étude à la jonction des études germaniques et de la phénoménologie, et s’efforce de reconstituer la problématique de l’interrogation et de la définition de l’homme à partir de l’oeuvre de Martin Heidegger (1889-1976). Prenant une perspective à la fois historiographique et philosophique, l’ambition de cette étude consiste à reconstruire un moment du corpus de Heidegger afin d’en exposer la pertinence et l’actualité philosophiques. Cette étude est divisée en trois chapitres. Le premier chapitre reprend et analyse le (...) « programme onto-phénoménologique » déployé dans Sein und Zeit, afin de comprendre comment l’« homme » était analysé de façon nouvelle par l’auteur. Le second formule l’hypothèse historiographique d’un « Heidegger III » (1959-1976), autrement dit d’un dernier Heidegger, avec l’ambition d’exposer comment la définition de l’« homme » entreprise par Heidegger s’est peu à peu modifiée afin de répondre à des difficultés d’ordre thématique et méthodologique, lesquelles furent rassemblées sous l’intitulé d’un « problème du corps » (Leibproblematik). Cette hypothèse doit en outre expliciter le statut fondamental du « corps » (Leib) dans la dernière période de l’oeuvre de Heidegger, en mettant en lumière l’importance d’un « Nietzsche matriciel » dans la réélaboration d’une interrogation et d’une définition de l’« homme » fondées sur la corporalité (Leiblichkeit). Enfin, le troisième chapitre s’attarde à comprendre et évaluer la portée et les conséquences philosophiques de cette définition heideggérienne de l’homme à partir du « corps » (Leib), notamment dans la distinction de l’homme du reste du vivant et dans la caractérisation de la « culture ». (shrink)

From the daily life, how to get the access to philosophy, what is the approaches to philosophy? Regarding the big topics /big affair in the world, are they related to the philosophy? what and how shall the philosophy do? About some concept, word, have we already fully confirmed their meaning? What shall the philosophy do to make their meaning clear and confirmed? Refers to the philosophy itself, have we already confirmed its study object? What is Philosophy? what is the main (...) study object for the philosophy? It is the pity that till now, for the whole world philosophy field, the main study object for the philosophy have not been confirmed. There are various kinds of answer, this means philosophy, from the past one hundred years, till now, has not work out the state of downturn and confusion. Since the philosophy itself is not clear, then no wonder from the late of 19 century to now, philosophy seems did litting achievement for the human being, for the civilization, for the progress, its glory looks gray, compared with Science, which is in fact born by philosophy although. So, before the philosophy could work well for the civilization, firstly, we should make the philosophy clear, confirm the main object of philosophy, target the correct object for philosophy! Only after this firstwork, we could expect philosophy do well on its tasks and function. For my this paper, its essential point is to present an answer for the target object belongs to the philosophy. Through demonstrate as per scientific logic and philosophy’s whole history, this answer, namely, the only target object belongs to philosophy is the Ontology and Cognition. Let philosophy go back to its correct place, its correct way. then, it could move ahead. only after we get new progress on the study of Ontology and Cognition, and with the help of this new achievement of Ontology and Cognition, we can get progress on the study of the fields related to the human being and progress of civilization. As far as what is the Ontology and Cognition, which kind new achievement of Ontology and Cognition we could expect, that is the next step. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Religionsphilosophie evangelischer Theologie" verfügbar.

Moritz Geiger (1880–1937) in Phänomenologische Ästhetik paper postulates aesthetics to become an autonomous science. The new science is intended to analyze aesthetic values and to discover the rules of their regulations. It tends to be separated from aesthetics as the sub-discipline of philosophy (especially under the influence of metaphysics) and aesthetics as a field of applying other sciences (mainly psychology). It may be achieved by the usage of a phenomenological method.

Christian existence is permanently faced with the challenge of streng- thening the affective link between the experience of Faith and the truth of Faith. This paper tries to face this challenge through a dialogue between that peculiar human cognitive force that is empathy, and the verification that this is precisely the epistemological focus in which Gospel hermeneutics updates the meaning and salvific transcendence of the Person of Christ (dead and risen) for the witness of any time who meets Him.

Einleitung : Zur Entstehung der Schrift ; Zum Kontext der Schrift ; Zur Wirkung der Schrift ; Die zentralen Themen der Schrift -- Hinweise zur Edition -- Siglen und Kurztitel -- Bibliographische Angaben -- Karl Leonhard Reinhold : Ueber das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens nebst einigen Erläuterungen über die Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögens. Vorrede -- Uever das Fundament des philosophischen Wissens -- Die in 26sten Stück der A.L.Z. von 1791 enthaltene Beurtheilung der Reinholdschen Elementarphilosophie -- Des Herrn Hofrath und Professor Schwab (...) Gedanken über die Reinholdsche Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögens. Im 2ten St. des 3ten Bandes des Eberhardschen Magazins. Geprüft von M.F.C. Forberg -- Anhang : Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung 26/27. 28. Januar 1791, 201-208; 209-214 [Rezensent A. W. Rehberg] (Beyträge zur Berichtigung bisheriger Misverständnisse der Philosophen. Erster Band) ; Philosophisches Magazin. Hg. von Johann August Eberhard. Dritten Bandes zweytes Stück. Halle 1790, 125-147 (Ueber den Reinholdischen Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermögens, non J. C. Schwab). (shrink)

Résumé Je n’étais jamais allée en banlieue et je n’avais jamais eu de contact avec une population ouvrière auparavant. J’étais dans une position de découverte complète, sociale et imaginaire. J’avais vingt-cinq ans et les femmes que j’interviewais avaient trente-cinq à quarante ans. C’était un type de rapport social que je n’avais jamais connu. Au tournant des années 1960-1970, il y avait un immense désir de l’ailleurs et l’autre était survalorisé.

The article presents the sources and definitions of the concepts «system» and «lifeworld», emphasizing how the colonization of the lifeworld by the system appears as a pathological process, in the presence of which a critical stance must be maintained. Facing the increase of the systemic complexity, it is necessary to ensure the symbolic reproduction of the lifeworld through communicative action. Although we share with Habermas the meaning of his critique of the colonization, we present some objections to the dichotomous opposition (...) of both spheres, inasmuch as it confers the economical and administrative systems with an ontological status that ultimately safeguards them from any possible critique. (shrink)

"In the first study of its kind, David W. Johnson's "Watsuji on Nature" reconstructs the astonishing philosophy of nature of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), situating it in relation both to his reception of the thought of Heidegger and to his renewal of core ontological positions in classical Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. Johnson shows that for Watsuji we have our being in the lived experience of nature, one in which nature and culture compose a tightly interwoven texture called "fūdo". By fully unfolding (...) Watsuji's novel and radical claim that this is a setting that is neither fully external to human subjectivity nor merely a product of it, this book also sets out what still remains unthought in this concept, as well as in the relational structure that underwrites it. Johnson argues that what remains unarticulated is nothing less than the recovery of a reenchanted conception of nature and an elucidation of the wide-ranging implications of a relational conception of the self for questions about the disclosive character of experience, the distinction between fact and value, and the possibility of a place-based ecological ethics. In an engagingly lucid and deft analysis, "Watsuji on Nature" radically expands our appreciation of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy and shows what it has to offer to a global philosophical conversation"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The aim of the following paper is to discuss Jaspers' disappointement of politics and his confession about the powerlessness of the Spirit, expressed at the end of his life. This confession may seem to contradict some of his earlier statements and positions. Yet, by analizing the evolution of his views about the complex relation between philosophy and politics, the autor claims that Jaspers' philosophy is an emblematic illustration of a tension, inherent in contemporary philosophy, namely that between the faith in (...) Reason and the scepticism about its potentialities to achieve a substantial changement of human nature and society. (shrink)

Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) has been called ‘the undisputed father of analytic philosophy’ and ‘the most important logician since Aristotle.’ Even if his impact on philosophy were to extend no further than his decisive influence on leading early twentieth-century thinkers of the stature of Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap, that alone would assure him a notable place in the history of modern philosophy. Nevertheless, there are other areas of Frege’s intellectual activity that have largely escaped the attention of his (...) commentators. One of these is his seldom-noticed attempt late in life to write about political theology. In this reconstruction of Frege’s view, based on a context-sensitive close reading of his fragmentary writing on theology, I document Frege’s commitment to a highly politicized conception of theology’s public role. This conception is infused with the ideology of Germany’s Far-Right völkisch (pan-German ethnic-nationalist) movement and steeped in the political strife of early Weimar-era Germany. Frege’s interest in theology was evidently rooted not so much in conventionally spiritual concerns as in the decidedly innerweltlich desire to help turn the tide in German politics in favor of the ultranationalist Far Right. His theology was, accordingly, a political theology of völkisch, antisemitic, and anti-socialist nationalism. (shrink)

Cette étude entend analyser la thèse heideggérienne d’un « privilège ontologique » de l’humain sur les autres étants. Par le recours à une « lecture anthropologique » de Martin Heidegger, nous voulons montrer l’actualité, la pertinence et la légitimité d’une telle thèse en nous appuyant notamment sur Être et Temps (GA2) et les Concepts fondamentaux de la métaphysique (GA29/30), œuvres dans lesquelles Heidegger déploie des concepts et des arguments permettant de distinguer ontologiquement l’humain du reste du vivant en s’intéressant aux (...) types de relations qu’ils entretiennent respectivement avec ce qui est ; de cette manière, et en évaluant la portée de cette distinction par le recours à l’activité anthropique mieux connue sous le terme de « domestication », nous pourrons analyser en quel sens il y a « privilège » et de quelle façon ce que nous définissons comme « culture » devrait être réinterprété. (shrink)

The publication of the two volumes of the Logical Investigations at the turn of the 20th Century constituted, according to their author, the first breakthrough of an entirely new and original philosophical undertaking, which gave birth to the phenomenological movement. However, before Husserl’s later attempt to systematize the content and provide a unified interpretation of the methods of phenomenology, the strength of this breakthrough rested mainly on the new, though sometimes divergent, paths of investigation that phenomenology was able to open. (...) The purpose of this chapter is to present an overview of the main discoveries that gave rise to this phenomenological breakthrough and to provide a faithful account of its original philosophical claims – an account that resists the temptation of projecting onto the Logical Investigations an a posteriori interpretation based on a later stage of Husserl’s philosophical thought. The chapter will highlight the tensions inherent to Husserl’s phenomenological project, born from an original attempt to combine the resources of Brentano’s psychology with the logical expectations inherited from Bolzano’s philosophy and Frege’s antipsychologism. These tensions clearly appear if we pay attention to Husserl’s failed attempts to edit and rewrite the first edition of the Logical Investigations after he completed the first volume of the Ideas, which provides a transcendental and much more systematic framework for the phenomenological method. The chapter focuses in particular upon the ambiguities of Husserl’s early theory of meaning and points out the transformations of his conception of indexicals (or “essentially occasional expressions”) in order to shed some light on the tensions inherent to the Logical Investigations that the transcendental move towards a form of phenomenological idealism was expected to overcome. (shrink)

Heidegger: Bibliography of addresses and courses he took and taught: German and English / By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2022. All rights reserved. Copyright materials. Request permission for use from Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs. CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. March 2022. Pages 1-49. -/- 1. Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976. 2. Heidegger, Martin, -- 1889-1976 -- Indexes. 4). Metaphysics. 5). Philosophy, German. 6). Philosophy, German – Greek influences. 7). Ontology. I. Ferrer, Daniel Fidel, 1952-. Language: English (Preface and Introduction). (...) Includes many bibliographical references in German and English. Bibliography some of the standalone address (es) – Vortrag. -/- Table of Contents Motto (page 3) Introduction (pages 4-6) Heidegger about the nature of Teaching (pages 7-8) Some general examples about Heidegger’s courses (The Tour) (pages 9-10). Bibliography Master List (pages 11-14) Martin Heidegger Courses taken and teachers (pages 15-25) Other Heidegger documents (pages 26-27) Martin Heidegger Sound Recordings (pages 28-29) After GA 102. “Megiston" and "Grundworte” (pages 30) Heidegger Addresses --- Vorträge (pages 31-47) End quotes (pages 48-49) -/- . (shrink)

Gadamer claims that an essential form of truth is disclosed in the search for, and discovery of, a shared language in and through which the matter at issue between the participants in a conversation can come to presentation. He maintains in this regard that the thing itself is given in language. This contention is grounded in his account of the “belonging together” of word and thing. To help us understand this idea I turn to his discussion of the image, since—in (...) a comparison that Gadamer explicitly makes—here, too, the image “gives” the thing. (shrink)

At the beginning of his philosophical production, Habermas notes a collapse of religious conscience that leads to mass atheism. With the shift to modem thought, the religious world interpretations were depreciate in its categorical system, and its character as unifier seal on the whole of social integration was gradually undermined and replaced by reason. Purposes of the texts of the 1980s, we find a new direction on the treatment given to the philosophical issue of religion, with the record of its (...) legitimacy, unique form and recognition of its right to coexist with post-metaphysical thought. At texts of this Century, Habermas admits that the root of his thought is nourished by the Christian héritage, and that Christianity is not only a precursor figure to modernity normative self-comprehension, because the egalitarian universalism which arose ideas of solidarity living, conduct o f independent living and emancipation, human rights and democracy, is an immediate inheritance of Jewish ethics and Christian ethics of love. At this work, it's first exposed the gradual structuring of that thought, then it’s seek, at the later Habermasian diagnosis, what has changed. There would be a theological construction within Habermas thought? (shrink)

Martin Luther famously called Reason the Devil's most lovely whore. This volume shows how Luther's skepticism about reason actually opened up new ways of doing philosophy by tracing his own philosophical work and that of Lutheran philosophers including Leibniz, Kant, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. The third section of the book explains new paths for philosophy using some of Luther's propositions about about the use and abuse of reason.

The aim of this article is to provide a philosophical conceptual framework to understand the theoretical roots and political implications of the interpretations of Plato’s work in Jaeger’s Third Humanism and Krieck’s völkisch-racist pedagogy and anthropology. This article will seek to characterize, as figures of localitas, their conceptions of the individual, community, corporeality, identity, and the State that both authors developed departing from Platonic political philosophy. My main hypothesis is that Jaeger’s and Krieck’s interpretations of Platonic paideía shared several core-elements (...) based on a modern conception of State sovereignty and human will, whose fundamental ground is the subjectivist-technical metaphysics. The “production” of a human type (spiritual and/or racial) and a unitary State political community appears in both authors mediated by a theory of political education, that I define as «State typohumanism», that sought its sustenance in Plato’s political philosophy, mainly by means of a distorted understanding of the notions of týpos and ē̂thos, and that, I argue, played a key role in the intellectual legitimization of völkisch-racism. This would be broadly translated into a programmatic and literal understanding of the Platonic Republic which assumes that the inherent function of any State is to produce subjectivities based on national identities grounded on homogeneous characteristics. In these varied characterizations similar appropriations of humanitas have been expressed both in Jaeger and in Krieck. (shrink)

The essay “Was ist der Mensch?” appeared for the first time in December 1944 in the German magazine with a hundred years of tradition edited by the publisher J. J. Weber Illustrierte Zeitung Leipzig [Illustrated Magazine Leipzig]. This special cultural edition, entitled Der europäische Mensch [The European Man], which was distributed exclusively abroad, was to be the last volume of the magazine after its final regular issue in September 1994 (No. 5041). Only in 1947, the text was republished, with the (...) same pagination, in a compilation made by J. J. Weber, Vom Wahren, Schönen, Guten. Aus dem Schatz europäischer Kunst und Kultur [On the True, the Beautiful, the Good. From the Treasury of European Art and Culture]. The publisher was expropriated in 1948, and three years later the company was finally removed from the German commercial registry. “Was ist der Mensch?” has never been released in any of Gadamer’s books or separately published in a journal; it also does not appear within the 10 volumes of his Gesammelte Werke [Collected Works]—the only exception is an Italian translation included in a volume devoted to Gadamer’s views on education and the notion of Bildung (cf. Gadamer 2012). The aim of this translation is to make accessible this Gadamer’s quest for the occidental interpretations of human self-consciousness, which has until now been almost unknown and in which, for the first time, Gadamer shows, from a theoretical standpoint, not only his early—although implicit—keen interest in Max Scheler’s anthropology (particularly Scheler’s considerations on the basic historical types of the occidental man’s self-perception in accordance with the basic and underlying concept of human history that still have powerful effectiveness in modern times), but also—at the historical threshold of the imminent ending of World War II—his own concern regarding possible philosophical answers to the question: “What is man?” Cf. especially Scheler 1926 (GW 9, 120–144); 1928 (GW 9, 7–71); 1929 (GW 9, 145–170). All commenting annotations to Gadamer’s text are authored by the editor and translator. (shrink)