Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte. Band 55

Aristotle gives an account of pleasure in two different treatises of the Nicomachean Ethics. In book VII he identifies pleasure with the pleasurable activity, while in book X he treats pleasure as something different from the pleasurable activity. These two treatises give two ways to study pleasure from a philosophical point of view. We can ask for the conditions that an activity must fulfil to be pleasurable (what is pleasurable: book VII) or we can ask for the metaphysical category of pleasure (what is pleasure: book X). In this paper I try to answer to these questions and to approach to Aristotle’s concept of pleasure, relating the concept of ›ἐνέργεια’‹ that Aristotle uses in book X with the self-perception and the perfection of the vital activities.

This article intends to investigate the etymology, the historical meanings and the semantic nuances of the terms used now or in the past, in the main languages of Western Europe, to refer to marginal annotations of texts. The study shows that depending on the words under consideration, what stands out is either their hermeneutic dimension (›gloss‹ and, to a lesser extent, ›scholion‹), their location on the page (›marginalia‹) or the time gap between their formulation and that of the text (›apostil‹). Also, the focus may be on the material aspect of their production, especially when handwritten (›annotation‹).While ›notes‹, ›remarks‹ and ›annotations‹ in their diversity may come from the writer himself, ›glosses‹ and ›scholia‹ are typically added by distinct authors, ancient scholars commenting in its margins a text that has become canonical.

In traditional imagery, ›the habour‹ figurates mostly as the final destination of adventurous and dangerous voyages as well as the secure and stable redoubt for sea vehicles, seeking shelter from storms and other maritime scares. Nevertheless there are also habour-pictures, which mirrows sickness and loss of vital energy. Facing this, ships are not meant to be anchored too long but to set sail in time. Even more, a heroic or stoic dwelling far away from the land, remaining in the realm of liquidity and without wishing to return to solid ground draws the sketch of the modern condition of men. Instead, the visual counterpart shows a picture of a being beyond the fluid element: the basic possibility of naval agility und vitality. So fixed immobile on solid ground, ships are wrapped in resignation. At last, they appear as living dead. And even if maritime remobilisation could be done, they remain merely shadows of their former lifes.

This essay focuses on the thesis of the so-called »double truth« within the philosophical and theological milieu of the University of Altdorf during the XVIIth Century. The problem of the »double truth« that aroused in the scholastic discussions on Averroism, receives a particular form in the context of Altdorf. In fact, this unique discursive setting was inspired there by the two main tendencies that characterize that philosophical and theological milieu at that time, namely radical Paduan Aristotelism, and Lutheran orthodoxy. Only apparently opposed, these two positions converge on that point. And the synthesis of these two currents of thought gives rise to an interesting justification of the paradox of the conflict »between true and true«: the development of a theory of different fields and levels of truth.

Since the late 16th century the notions ›Machiavel(l)ian‹, ›Machiavellism‹ etc. were widely spread for a policy not bound to virtue and religion or only simulating them. ›Monarchomachism‹ was created by W. Barclay in 1600 as a name for those philosophers, e. g. the Huguenot thinkers in France, but also catholics in Scotland and Spain, who placed the king under the power of the people. During the 17th and 18th centuries the two terms stood for the both extremes which all wise policy had to avoid. Some historians see a mutual conditioning between the two positions; monarchomachism as the reaction on machiavelian despotism and machiavelistic authority as reaction on the permanent rebellion of the people. N. H. Gundling seems to be one of the few pleading for a third possibility: a severe sovereign as outlined by Th. Hobbes. Since the end of the 18th century the two terms as a couple became out of usage. As opposed against each other they deliver one of the main questions of modern policy: Who should be the sovereign and holder of the highest power?

The object of this investigation is the constitution of the modern notion of substance on the basis of the concepts – inherited from the late antiquity and the middle ages – radical contingency / existence, infinity and representation. The evolution of this constellation of concepts crystallizes historically in the idea of reality as a structured whole, a specifically modern idea that cannot be found as such in previous philosophical contexts. It is then shown that the philosophical project of the modern age consists precisely in the conceptual elaboration of this thought. From Descartes to Leibniz, philosophical thinking thus has to reconfigure the traditional notion of substance according to the requirements of this new conception. The Leibnizian hypothesis of an irreducible plurality of substances proves to be an essential stage in the historical development of this idea. At the same time, the examination of the internal inadequacies of the Leibnizian articulation of this concept provides instructive indications of its further development in philosophical thought.

The article reveals the history of the concept of fate in Germany from the 17th century until the First World War. It shows that the concept changes not only its meaning but also its function in several discourses, reaching from theological and philosophical debates in Enlightenment to discussions in literature, politic and science in the 19th century. Being first an expression for the causal determination in a mechanized world the concept of fate was as well demonized as internalized in mind and body around 1800. Additionally it became an identification concept and challenge for communities, like the nation or the ›Volk‹. The concept of fate pointed to key questions of the self-reflection of the modern German society: it dealt with the preconditions of human life and the consequences of human action, which could not be mastered by the modes of modern rationality.

In his early writings, Lessing uses the notion of ›religion‹ as an eqivalent to ›faith‹ and ›law‹. He replaces the older term ›law‹ (›lex‹) by ›religion‹ and says that no religion is higher than another. In his middle period, Lessing recognizes a ›natural religion‹ of all men which consists only in knowing God and make a dignified concept of him. But as men are different there grow positive religions which add many things to the natural religion, as well as each natural right becomes realized only by positive rights. The best religion would be the one with only a few positive additions. At the beginning of the Ringparabel (Nathan der Weise, act 3) the late Lessing repeats the three main notions of all worship of God: ›faith‹, ›law‹, and ›religion‹. (Boccaccio, Lessing’s source has only ›law‹.) As there can be no historical proof on the rightness of one of the three religions and there are necessarily positive religions, Lessing recommends that everyone should be in his own religion. But the religions must give up the claim to disseminate themself by force. F. Niewöhner interprets the Ringparabel that there can be only different religions and therefore they have to tolerate each other.

Among the central debates within the classical German philosophy after I. Kant is the question of how intentional self-consciousness is possible. In the following discourse, Schelling’s concept of self-consciousness in System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) will be examined and critically discussed. The central theses are, first of all, that for Schelling self-consciousness is a case of intentional consciousness; secondly, that Schelling develops a performative interpretation of intentional self-consciousness; and thirdly, Schelling fails to completely explain intentional self-consciousness.

The German word ›Selbstverständnis‹ was coined by the end of the 18th century, probably by Novalis. Within German Idealism it was the late Fichte who used it almost systematically from 1805. It then took root in philosophy, rather surprisingly, not so much through the 19th century humanities as through Martin Heidegger. Some years ago it was argued that ›Selbstverständnis‹ as used in the common language of the second half of the 20th century was a buzzword. This is true also for contemporary German philosophy, although there are tendencies which show that the word might be on its way to become a philosophical conceptor term. In the present article, I investigate the development of the philosophical expression ,Selbstverständnis’ from its beginnings up to this day, an attempt not made so far.

The paper focuses on the meaning and function of the concept ›logism‹ (›Logismus‹) in 1) Wilhelm Dilthey’s theory of knowledge, in 2) Count Paul Yorck von Wartenburg’s historic-psychological philosophy of life and in 3) Georg Misch’s logic of life. Although all three authors criticize the concept of logism, it is used as reference point for their anthropological foundation of cognizance and knowledge.

Few of the German word creations of modern times were assimilated into other European languages to such an extent as the concept of ›Weltanschauung‹. The historical reception of the concept in France confirms the principle formulated by Paul Ricœur that asserts the existence of »untranslatable« terms and recommends that we dispense with their translation, and that we make use of such expressions in the original language so as not to distort their content. Why should the notion of ›Weltanschauung‹ have exerted such a strong influence, especially on the French language? The question arises naturally. The translation of ›Weltanschauung‹ into the Polish »światopogląd« is too strongly associated with the tradition of Marxist-Leninist doctrine. It is worth taking stock and systematically working through such issues surrounding the translation of such philosophically important terms. This will help ensure that those key concepts of German philosophy that continue to be important in the Humanities as studied in various European languages, obtain a more uniform and binding form.

In 1925 Heidegger stated that categorical intuition was one of the three major discoveries of Husserlian phenomenology. He also claimed that categorical intuition should be interpreted in a temporal way in order to open up a path for promising research on categories. Even though Heidegger never explicitly developed this temporal interpretation of categorical intuition, this essay shows how he did this implicitly. The first part locates his first approach to this problem in the concept of world-time. The second part sees Heidegger’s second approach in his concept of Temporalität. Finally the third part develops the thesis that after the subjectivism of the first and the formalism of the second approach, Heidegger developed a metaphysical notion of time as a basis for promising hermeneutic-phenomenological research on categories.

The concept of primary energy is fundamental in energy economy and ecology. However, even in the specialized literature there is still no consistent usage of this concept. We shall present a wide-spread concept that can be considered as the original concept of primary energy. But, examining primary energy statistics, we shall fi nd that the usage of the term ›primary energy‹ in these contexts is not compatible with the original concept. We shall present an alternative concept that corresponds to the quantification strategies applied in primary energy statistics. Finally, we claim that the inconsistent usage of the term ›primary energy‹.