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Novalis was a central figure in early German Romantic philosophy. Whilst the importance of both Fichte and Spinoza for the development of Romanticism is well established, the vital influence of the Platonic tradition in allowing the Romantics to synthesise these divergent philosophies merits closer attention. Essential to the development of Novalis' thought was his exposure to Plotinus. This examination first sets out the religious and philosophical problems in Germany at the close of the eighteenth century and situates Novalis in relation to this intellectual environment. Following this, a brief survey of Plotinus-scholarship at the close of the eighteenth century in Germany frames how Novalis came into contact with Plotinus through Dieterich Tiedemann. The examination proceeds to consider how Tiedemann shaped Novalis reception of Plotinus and allowed him to develop a synthesis of Spinoza and Fichte. Finally, it briefly examines the poetic realisation of this synthesis through Novalis' late poetic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides brief biographical information about several contributors to the journal Historical Materialism. The contributors come from diverse backgrounds and have expertise in various fields related to Marxist theory and political economy. Their research interests include topics such as time, money, measure, capitalist development, algorithmic systems, Marxist methodology, urban theory, and aesthetics. The contributors have published extensively in academic journals and have written books on their respective areas of expertise. [Extracted from the article]

This paper investigates the role of space in cosmopolitan education through a comparison of German philosophy, as represented by Kant, and Japanese philosophy, as represented by Watsuji. While Kant suggests that cosmopolitan education needs to be constructed by connecting with the actual spatial, geographical world, Watsuji, on the other hand, indicates that dynamic cosmopolitan education can be achieved by holding the spatial emptiness of negation. Both theories reinforce each other to produce a fruitful cosmopolitan education that cultivates our practical sense of living in the real world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Pufendorf, God implanted these faculties into the human mind to make a human being a free and law-governed creature (Pufendorf, I De jure i 1.4.1; 2.1.1-5). Pufendorf explains that the content of natural law can be demonstrated by reflecting upon "man's nature, condition, and inclinations" (Pufendorf, I De jure i 2.3.14). While all contemporary scholars agree that for Pufendorf human faculties, desires and inclinations are morally indifferent prior to being subjected to the norms imposed on them, it is open to complicated scholarly disagreements how human nature and normativity are related in Pufendorf's philosophy. [Extracted from the article]

With Rudolf Haller's death,[1] after several years of serious illness, on February 14th, 2014, in Graz, Austria, the world of philosophy has lost a highly distinguished scholar, and Austria has lost one of the most internationally renowned philosophers of the post-war period. Born in 1929 in St. Gallen, Styria, Austria, Haller studied philosophy, sociology, history and art history at the University of Graz. One core concern of Rudolf Haller's academic commitment was to generate a new beginning of philosophy in Austria - not only by introducing analytic philosophy but also by claiming that a specific Austrian history of philosophy has developed since the 19th century. [Extracted from the article]

Isaac ben Moshe Halevi (Isaac Satanow, 1732–1804) serves as an interesting example of how Jewish intellectuals offered alternative ways of entering the new era. Unlike other authors, Satanow does not explicitly concentrate on secularization or assimilation in his writing, but instead intends to revive traditional values and writing by putting them into a new cultural and intellectual framework. Satanow combines relevant topics from Jewish tradition with scientific discoveries, philosophical reasoning, and kabbalistic thought. An analysis of Satanow's unique combination of literary and intellectual corpora from various periods and backgrounds offers a more nuanced picture of European Jewish intellectual history and challenges the grand narratives of scholarship. Furthermore, an awareness of the deep impact of German philosophy and natural science on Satanow's thought provides insight into his relationship with the majority culture and his Eastern European background and also shows how his concept of modernity seeped in via complex networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hermeneutics is widely celebrated as a call for "conversation"--that is, a manner of inquiry characterized by humility and openness to the other that eschews the pretenses of calculative rationality and resists all finality of conclusions. In this, conversation takes shape in efforts to understand and interpret that always unfold in the transmission of meaning historically in language. Yet, the celebration of hermeneutics for humility and openness appears, at least, to risk embarrassment in light of claims found in Heidegger and Gadamer that conversation is always contingent on "prior accord." Critics of hermeneutics have, for some decades, interpreted this claim of prior accord to refer to a common tradition, so that the understanding achieved in conversation is restricted to those who belong to the same heritage. In this essay, the author argues that although Heidegger and Gadamer often suggest this prior accord is a matter of common tradition, crucial threads of Gadamer's thought, in particular, recommend a different view. Gadamer, in these threads, offers that "prior accord" concerns not a common tradition, but, on the contrary, the call to participate in hermeneutic transmission as such, even--and no doubt especially--when those in conversation are not familiar with the tradition or language of the other. With this, we are called to converse not first by what the other says, but by the fact that we do not yet understand, that we have already misunderstood, and that we perhaps cannot understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a detailed analysis of the function of the notion of Volk in Martin Heidegger's philosophy. At first glance, this term is an appeal to the revolutionary masses of the National Socialist revolution in a way that demarcates a distinction between the rootedness of the German People (capital "P") and the rootlessness of the modern rabble (or people). But this distinction is not a sufficient explanation of Heidegger's position, because Heidegger simultaneously seems to hold that even the Germans are characterized by a lack of identity. What is required is a further appropriation of the proper. My suggestion is that this logic of the Volk is not only useful for understanding Heidegger's thought during the war, but also an indication of what happened after he lost faith in the National Socialist movement and thus had to make the lack of the People the basis of his thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent work, Amie Thomasson has sought to develop a new approach to the philosophy of the categories which is metaphysically neutral between traditional realist and conceptualist approaches, and which has its roots in the 'correlationalist' approach to categories put forward in Husserl's writings in the 1900s--1910s and systematically charted over the past few decades by David Woodruff Smith in his studies of Husserl's philosophy. Here the author aims to provide a recontextualization and critical assessment of correlationalism in a Husserlian vein. To this end, the author presents, first, the reasons why, later in his life, Husserl himself found his earlier treatment of categories philosophically naive, and why he increasingly advocated for a more genetic-teleological account. The author then draws upon arguments made a century earlier by Schelling and Hegel, in criticism of Fichte, to point up what might remain philosophically unsatisfying about even the post-correlationalist genetic position of the later Husserl, in light of the pronounced trend in Husserl's own development, on the questions of reason and spirit, toward absolute idealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical German Philosophy belongs to the heritage of the European philosophical tradition, in which philosophical knowledge is defined as an epistemological reflection. Philosophy reflects on scientific knowledge to demonstrate its possibility. Thus objective knowledge is defined as a system whose principle is subjectivity. Since the 19th century, this concept of knowledge has been questioned as has subjectivity as such. Since then, philosophy in Germany has departed from comprehensive reflection and turned towards matters of detail or issues of application. In this paper I argue that the trend of skepticism about knowledge in modern German philosophy is associated with the radical social upheavals of modernity, but without being accompanied by a critical understanding of these upheavals. The first task is to reconstruct the classical concept of knowledge as it appeared in German philosophy, including its crucial relation to scientific knowledge and to history. The second task is to engage with the observation that this tradition of thought is in danger of being lost today. I will point out the role which the linguistic turn in philosophy has played and the means of deconstructing it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages “A Triadic Conversation” in Conversations on a Country Path. The context of this engagement is Heidegger’s account of τέχνη and φύσις in Contributions to Philosophy (Of the Event) as they are put to work in the conversation of a guide, a scholar, and a scientist. The leading questions are whether Heidegger’s thoughts of Seyn, Wesen, and Machination are helpful to understand and engage the pressing challenges to Western societies? Are those challenges primarily the devastations wrought by a culture of technology and its accompanying mind-set that, according to Heidegger, inevitably lead to war and massive types of destruction among all worldly lives? And is “A Triadic Conversation” an indication of a dangerous alienation from the everyday social and political world in which it was conceived? Stillness and silence play significant roles in the discussion of his accounts of the Wesen of humans and of nature as it brings to bear the everyday events that defined the time during which Heidegger wrote “A Triadic Conversation.” The paper concludes with a reflection on the importance of the differences between Heidegger’s approach and ones that begin by confronting the confusing, uncertain, but specific events that are taking place in the thinkers’ world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the mutual discovery between Chinese philosophy and German philosopher Martin Heidegger. He outlines that one of the ways to overcome the instrumentalist domination of modern Western metaphysics is for Heidegger to decide to pursue the phusis of Being as stemming from the origins of Greek philosophy. He also cites the adoption of method of comprehensive observation where the whole nature will be able to exercise his creative talent of doing and thinking.

I consider the intertextuality between Chinese and Western thought by exploring how images, metaphors, and ideas from the texts associated with Zhuangzi and Laozi were appropriated in early twentieth-century German philosophy. This interest in 'Lao-Zhuang Daoism' encompasses a diverse range of thinkers including Buber and Heidegger. I examine (1) how the problematization of utility, usefulness, and 'purposiveness' in Zhuangzi and Laozi becomes a key point for their German philosophical reception; (2) how it is the poetic character of the Zhuangzi that hints at an appropriate response to the crisis and loss of meaning that characterizes technological modernity and its instrumental technological rationality; that is, how the 'poetic' and 'spiritual' world perceived in Lao-Zhuang thought became part of Buber's and Heidegger's critical encounter and confrontation with technological modernity; and (3) how their concern with Zhuangzi does not signify a return to a dogmatic religiosity or otherworldly mysticism; it anticipates a this-worldly spiritual (Buber) or poetic (Heidegger) way of dwelling immanently within the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Marx e Hegel. Contributi a una rilettura, Roberto Fineschi examines the complex relation between Marx and Hegel. According to Fineschi, Marx's relation to Hegel changed over time: in the early period, Marx understood Hegel to be theorising a self-consciousness that in-itself generates reality; while, in his maturity, Marx interpreted Hegel as a more rigorous theoretician of a conceptual Darstellung based on the transition from abstract to concrete. This review-article discusses Fineschi's thesis, according to which Marx's 'materialistic overturning' of Hegel involves two aspects: the narrowing of the scope of the conceptual development, and the idea that the beginning of Capital is to be understood as being both logical and empirical. We will argue that the first element was, in some ways, also claimed by Hegel and that the second contradicts other characteristics of Marxian theoretical discourse, such as the idea that demonstrative sequences must be governed by necessity and the centrality of the logic of the presupposed-posited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discloses and furthers the rebirth of comedy in Continental philosophy in three stages. The first treats Greek comedy, bringing forth the comic contours in Plato and exploring the philosophical content of Aristophanic comedy. The second examines certain German encounters with comedy, from the staid Wieland translations of Aristophanes through the thoughtful discussions of Schiller, Hegel, and Nietzsche. The third investigates twentieth-century American comedy and its connection to American Continental philosophy, and includes a close analysis of the Marx Brothers' Horsefeathers. The latter serves as a bridge to some surprising developments regarding comedy, poetry, and philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lévinas's synopsis of Husserl's first volume of Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology in Lévinas, "On Ideen", 35. 28. "Lévinas not only worked with Husserl in Freiburg, he also discovered Heidegger." Dorian wiszniewski "THE SPACE OF COMMUNICATIVITY": LÉVINAS AND ARCHITECTURE In Language and Proximity, 1 echoing the sentiment that prioritizes the act of giving over the materialism of the gift, Lévinas makes the point that it is not what is being said that is important - it is the saying. The problem that Lévinas highlights is that phenomenology as Heidegger ultimately directed it failed to tackle the ethical dimension of Being beyond the very particular regional ontologies and intentionalities of German philosophy and culture. [Extracted from the article]

Heidegger focuses on the explanation of the primordial meaning of death in relation to time, whereas Lévinas, in reinterpreting Heidegger's point of view, emphasizes the significance of time in relation to death. Wang tangjia THE CONCEPTS OF DEATH IN HEIDEGGER AND LÉVINAS Death is not only a natural event, but also a social and cultural event as well as a psychic event. It is a characteristic of Lévinas's philosophy, different from that of Heidegger, to bring the problem of death into the discussion of ethics as first philosophy. Lévinas tells us that even though death might be connected to nothingness, nothingness in this case has a positive meaning because the contour of being presents itself by nothingness, as death drives us to fulfill our own purpose and ideal. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the Sonderweg and Historikerstreit arguments on the postcolonial histories of Germany. The idea that Germans are the ideal Aryan race, is introduced by Adolf Hitler in the book "Mein Kampf." The idea of uniqueness is also explored in the Sonderweg and Historikerstreit arguments. According to the Sonderweg thesis, the country's stain of uniqueness results from path to modernity that leads to a conservative utopia. Moreover, the Historikerstreit idea relates the issue of uniqueness into the national identity of Germany. The author also traces and the philosophy behind the events in the colonial history of the country.

Focuses on a study which argued on Georg Hegel's rejection of the Kantian thing-in-itself based on the German philosophy. Characterization of the German idealism; Triad of notions involved in the philosophy of Hegel; Definition of logic.

[Prof. Jiyuan Yu passed away on Nov. 3, 2016, after a battle with cancer. I was Jiyuan Yu's PhD student at SUNY Buffalo, completing my work in 2007. Jiyuan's teaching emphasized first and foremost the difficulty of authors like Plato and Aristotle, that the texts they left us were extremely puzzling, and you could spend your whole lifetime studying them. [Extracted from the article]