Treffpunkt Philosophie – serie

Die Art, wie die Geschichtsphilosophie Giambattista Vicos Reflexionen über Rechtsformen, Naturrecht und Sprache verknüpft, bietet Anstöße für die heutigen Debatten um Rechtsstaatlichkeit und kulturelle Verschiedenheit. Die hier vorliegenden Beiträge kreisen um Vicos sprachbezogene Methode, beziehen die Diskussionen seines Zeitalters zu verschiedenen Gebieten ebenso ein wie Bezüge zu aktuellen Problemen. Inhaltlich liegt ein Schwerpunkt bei der Rechts- und Naturrechtsthematik, da ein erheblicher Teil der Texte zunächst bei der internationalen Tagung «Giambattista Vicos De Universi Juris Uno Principio, et Fine Uno im Kontext der europäischen Naturrechtstradition und Vicos Bedeutung für die heutige Debatte», die 2015 in Halle stattfand, zur Diskussion gestellt wurde.

In this publication, the author attempts to develop an aesthetic theory from Heidegger’s phenomenological concepts. She analyzes Heidegger`s concepts of truth, world, space, and related concepts and establishes a formal, contextual and material method of analysis for the purpose of examining works of art. This new method of analysis is applied to three pieces by the artist Joseph Beuys as a case study.

This book is above all an example of philosophical reflection in Africa, refuting traditional commonplaces concerning the continent. The texts comprising this volume disprove the misconceptions that Africa has never understood itself and has never contributed to the enrichment of knowledge, the development of rational thought, philosophy, the arts, science and technology as well as civilization. For the members of the recently established network Africa In-The-World, the contributions dealing with musical rhythms, dances and the continental humanist philosophy confirm that Africanisation is a process that continues unabated to this day. The multiple and significant African contributions are often difficult to see because they have long since been adopted and integrated into the heritage of humanity. Africa In-The-World is working toward the construction of a universal humanity – one conceived in terms of a "give and take mentality."

This volume offers an interdisciplinary approach to some pivotal topics of (de-) colonization. It examines the early modern debate on just war, transatlantic conquest and slavery, followed by the shift of the debate in the 18th and 19th centuries towards assertions of racial hierarchies based on supposed matters of fact, and finally the philosophical discussion regarding decolonization. Two central themes emerge: first, the political circumstances and the exploitation of the available terminology resulted in the production of new meanings or "translations" during the 17th and 18th centuries, and second, the adoptions of established justifications of colonial activities and enslavement brought about models of natural science that increasingly developed a momentum of their own.

This volume collects chapters dedicated to finding affinities and disagreements between Marx and Wittgenstein. It aims at integrating different ways to address Marx(ism) and Wittgenstein from multiple philosophical vantage points and from their philosophical attitude and their critical method of thinking. The volume explores different ways in which the relationships between Marx(ism) and Wittgenstein can be fruitfully investigated. The historical connections and the heritage of Marx’s and Wittgenstein’s thought are indeed analyzed in its vividness by considering new sources and new interpretations.

The project examines the reasons for the many philosophical difficulties, and the failures, that Nietzsche sensed when he had concluded The Birth of Tragedy. The subsequent philosophical decision he made, on the way to reconceiving the classical ideas of tragedy, destiny, and martyrdom, allowed him to begin to conceive of what he would identify as a thinking devoted to affirmation. Everything he commits himself to writing after 1872, including the unpublished notes on myth from the Philosophenbuch, is a response to the disillusionment of his belief in Dionysos and the false promise of tragic affirmation. The Greek god had become a problem and an obstacle. Sustaining him, as a philosophical idea, was going to prove to be highly mixed; the struggle would become relentless. The Greek god is, in many ways, impossible to believe in as an ideal, in antiquity or for the present; and for a specific reason: the connection between the institution of the Dionysian festival and the religious ritual of sacrifice could not be ignored by Nietzsche. His sense of a "Dionysian nausea" has been overlooked. Tragedy and sacrifice are a binding relation in the Greek polis. Nietzsche seems to recognize the fact and commits himself to directly confronting the tragedy/sacrifice relation in all his subsequent works and with the intent on being a unique, individual resource for the truth of his self-revelations. He identifies himself with a new conception of the martyr (the witness) in order to provide an alternative to the classical martyr as the victim of violence and death and who, moreover, is executed by the state. Socrates and Jesus are omni-present for him. Nietzsche presents himself as new world-historical alternative and the self-revelations of a witness for the individuals he will often call (especially in Thus Spoke Zarathustra) his friends and neighbours and disciples. Is the whole of his philosophical enterprise successful? Do his self-revelations lead to the creation of the free spirit and therefore give him some assurance about the future of his legacy? Or does his commitment to the eternal recurrence, for example, lead him to a terrible realization? The study presents the force of Nietzsche’s thought as he created the resources, which he hoped could be effectively transferred to a reader, to begin to create an affirmative reality he defines from out of the fullness of the free spirit and the philosopher.