Whereas Phenomenology of Perception concludes with a puzzling turn to “heroism,” this article examines the short essay “Man, the Hero” as a source of insight into Merleau-Ponty’s thought in the early postwar period. In this essay, Merleau-Ponty presented a conception of heroism through which he expressed the attitude toward post-Hegelian philosophy of history that underwrote his efforts to reform Marxism along existential lines. Analyzing this conception of heroism by unpacking the implicit contrasts with Kojève, Aron, Caillois, and Bataille, I show (...) that its philosophical rationale was to supply experiential evidence attesting to the latent presence of human universality. It is a mythic device intended to animate the faith necessary for Marxist politics by showing that universal sociality is possible, and that the historically transformative praxis needed to realize it does not imply sacrifice. This sheds considerable light on Merleau-Ponty’s early postwar political thought. But inasmuch as the latter cannot be severed from his broader philosophical concerns, the prospect is raised that his entire phenomenological project in the early postwar period rested on a myth. Not necessarily a bad myth, but a myth nonetheless. (shrink)

Was meint die moderne Wirtschaftswissenschaft, wenn sie von Zukunft redet und Künftiges vorhersagt? Wohin greift sie aus, wenn sie die Zukunft für den Menschen sichern oder offen halten will? Wie ist so etwas wie Zukunft in jener Epoche – dem Griechentum – erfahren und gedacht, in der zuerst die Möglichkeit einer Theoriebildung aufkam und also der Grund für ein Wissen von der Zukunft gelegt wurde? Der vorliegende Band versammelt die Beiträge zu zwei in den Jahren 2013 und 2014 an der (...) Freien Universität Bozen abgehaltenen Kolloquien zum Thema des Verhältnisses von Ökonomie und Zukunft. Die Absicht der Kolloquien wie auch dieser Publikation ist, auf das Fragwürdige jenes Verhältnisses hinzuweisen. In dieser Absicht verlieren die Begriffe „Ökonomie“ und „Zukunft“ ihre Eindeutigkeit und werden ihrerseits fragwürdig. (shrink)

This volume - the joint effort of the research groups on practical philosophy and the history of political thought of the Institute of Philosophy of the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences - brings together scholarly essays that attempt to face the challenges of the contemporary situation. The authors come from rather divergent disciplinary backgrounds, including philosophy, law, history, literature and the social sciences, from different cultural and political contexts, including Central, Eastern and Western Europe, (...) and belong to different generations. But they all share an interest to bravely answer the large topical issues concerning universal morality, here and now. (shrink)

Cet article propose les éléments d’un cadre théorique permettant d’analyser des situations sociales comportant une part d’imprévisibilité. S’intéresser à des ruptures, des changements soudains, c’est en partie revenir sur de vieux tabous de la sociologie et plus généralement des sciences sociales : la contingence, l’événement, l’imprévisible. Une solution possible réside dans la définition précise de ce qui est considéré comme imprévisible et dans la prise en compte de différents niveaux de temporalité, à condition d’accepter l’idée que les temps « courts (...) » peuvent parfois influer sur les temps « longs ».In this article I propose the elements of a theoretical framework that makes it possible to analyse social situations with a part of unpredictability. Being interested in ruptures, unexpected changes, is for a part going back to some old taboos of sociology, and more generally, of social sciences : contingency, events, unpredictability. One possible solution consists in a precise definition of what is considered as unpredictable and in taking into account different levels of temporality, providing to accept the idea that « short » time can sometimes have an influence on « long » time. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Phenomenology and the Problem of History Husserl: The “Inner History” of Europe and of Humanity Heidegger: History as Destruction and Retrieval Phenomenological and Existentialist Developments after Husserl and Heidegger.

The aim of the present article is to draw attention on a historical development in the French sociological tradition. Being a heritage of the Germanintellectual context, the tradition of the comprehensive sociology was not among the main trends in France. Furthermore, the phenomenological orientationin social theory mostly associated with the work of Alfred Schütz was also a side interest until the 1980s. From this decade on, a new paradigm becomesgradually institutionalized, a paradigm which gathers different intellectual and theoretical positions and (...) which partly rehabilitates the comprehensive and thephenomenological heritage. My intention is to analyze how this new orientation in the French social science used the comprehensive legacy in order to proposea new culture of knowledge. (shrink)