Recently, archaeologists have been focusing on material relies as evidence of a historical consciousness. This article examines the Iliad and the Odyssey from the point of view of this 'archaeology of the past'. Various material objects, ranging from tombs to everyday objects, evoke the past in the epic poems, thereby enriching the narrative and providing reflections on the act of memory. In turn, Homeric evidence sheds new light on the hermeneutics of relies in archaic oral society.

The idea that language is metaphoric in nature has often been suggested or stated since Vico and Rousseau. Derrida, too, often writes about metaphor and the impression he gives is that he is arguing for the metaphoric nature of both thought, whether philosophic or not, and language. Interpreters like de Man or Culler have helped to spread this impression. If it is correct, Derrida shares a pan-metaphoric view of language and whatever can be made with it. It is useful to (...) refer to Derrida's view because in my opinion he has been very good at saying what language is, even if he has been very much in the wrong in seeing no distinction between language and language use. Let us consider first what he has been good at. (shrink)

. Bildung and the historical and genealogical critique of contemporary culture: Wilhelm von Humboldt’s neo-humanistic theory of Bildung and Nietzsche’s critique of neo-humanistic ideas in classical philology and education. Educational Philosophy and Theory: Vol. 50, Bildung and paideia. Philosophical models of education, pp. 662-671.

Der Band gibt erstmals einen umfassenden Überblick über den lyrischen Nachlass des jungen Nietzsche aus den 1850er und -60er Jahren. Zusätzlich präsentiert Armin Thomas Müller eine Beispiel-Edition und historisch kontextualisierende Analyse des Manuskripthefts Mp I 22 von 1858. Somit trägt der Band grundlegend zur literatur-, philosophie- wie kulturgeschichtlichen Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche bei. Armin Thomas Müllers Arbeit nimmt den bislang in der literaturwissenschaftlichen wie auch philosophischen Auseinandersetzung mit Friedrich Nietzsche vernachlässigten lyrischen Nachlass aus der Zeit zwischen 1850 und 1869 in den (...) Blick. Anschließend an eine grundlegende Einführung in das Thema wird Nietzsches Jugendlyrik überblicksartig vorgestellt mit Schwerpunkten zur Editions- und Forschungsgeschichte, zu literaturgeschichtlichen Kontexten sowie zu den autoreflexiven Aufzeichnungen des jungen Nietzsche, die das Thema (lyrischer) Dichtung umkreisen. Die vorliegende Publikation enthält zudem eines heutigen materialorientierten Standards entsprechende Faksimile-Edition mit diplomatischer Transkription des Manuskripthefts Mp I 22 von 1858. Das kulturgeschichtliche Erkenntnispotenzial in Nietzsches Jugendgedichten wird abschließend in einer textgenetischen und historisch kontextualisierenden Analyse der edierten lyrischen Texte aus Mp I 22 deutlich. Auf dieser Grundlagenforschung werden weiterführende Auseinandersetzungen mit Nietzsche aufbauen können. (shrink)

Famously, Bernard Williams has argued that although death is an evil if it occurs when we still have something to live for, we have no good reason to desire that our lives be radically extended because any such life would at some point reach a stage when we become indifferent to the world and ourselves. This is supposed to be so bad for us that it would be better if we died before that happens. Most critics have rejected Williams’ arguments (...) on the grounds that it is far from certain that we will run out of things to live for, and I don't contest these objections. Instead, I am trying to show that they do not affect the persuasiveness of Williams’ argument, which in my reading does not rely on the claim that we will inevitably run out of things to live for, but on the far less contentious claim that it is not unthinkable we will do so and the largely ignored claim that if that happens, we will have died too late. (shrink)

If utopias in the western cultural tradition owe their model of ideal, final, unitary order to the objective basis of metaphysics, have they not, like metaphysics, undergone a dissolution in Heidegger’s sense of Verwindung? Insofar as the very notion of unity, like that of an ultimate metaphysical foundation, now reveals its violence and will to domination and as we are interested instead in thinking utopia as a ‘project for emancipation’, the author suggests replacing the unity that was hitherto characteristic of (...) utopia with a multiplicity that is defended as a value and not as a phase of ‘confusion’ to be overcome. (shrink)

Among the reasons for what might be called the ‘utopian crisis’ in post-modern culture, where the very idea of a utopia is the subject of suspicion and where its claim to perfection is held to blame for every fanatical ideology, may well be found the close, perhaps excessively close link that the utopian idea has always maintained with metaphysics. I am referring here to the notion of metaphysics as elaborated by Heidegger. Many defenders of metaphysics still refuse Heidegger's critique, but (...) it remains nevertheless the case that the definition of metaphysics as disregarding being-itself (das Sein) in favour of process-of-being (das Seiende), or of an objective ground of being that reason could grasp and to which it should adhere when interacting with knowledge and praxis, constitutes at least a generally accepted point of departure for discussion. (shrink)

In this article, we present a new perspective on how to combine inquiry-based, problem-oriented learning with practices in the Humanities. Our particular interest is how the initial phase of findin...

The author of 'Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen' (1918) is usually regarded as one of the founding fathers of the so-called 'Conservative Revolution'. But Thomas Mann's understanding of this concept does not at all coincide with the definition established by Armin Mohler, mainly in that it is not Nietzschean. Nor do the ties with the George circle furnish grounds for assigning Mann to the 'Conservative Revol ution', any more than to the 'aesthetic fundamentalism' which was cul tivated there. Moreover, it can be (...) shown that Mann's political views differ significantly from the 'new nationalism' propagated in the circle around Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, and that they have more affini ties to old liberalism than to a 'Conservative Revolution'. (shrink)