Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte. Band 57

Max Gottschlich: Zur Systematik des μίμησις-Begriffs in Platons Kunstbegründung.This article engages with Plato’s justification of art and its core category, the concept of μίμησις. It will be shown that there is a sound systematic difference between two basic meanings of μίμησις in Plato. The proper understanding of this difference has considerable bearing both on the understanding of Plato and on the philosophy of art, since it enables us to bridge two gaps: First, the gap between the standpoint of the early and middle Plato with its famous criticism of art, on the one hand, and the affirmative re-evaluation of art in the late period, on the other hand. Second, the gap between the two principal pre-modern paradigms employed in justifying art: the ontological paradigm of art as (re)presentation on the one side, and the modern paradigm of art as expression on the other side.

As a ubiquitous principle for (international) legislation, ›(human) dignity‹ has proved to be successful in providing a principle that is supposed to unite people with different religious and ethical beliefs. Whether such a principle can withstand scrutiny is another matter. If ›dignity‹ is based on one or more characteristics, it is difficult to uphold, while the alternative of abstracting from such characteristics is even more problematic, since finding a basis is in that case all but illusory. Forgoing ›dignity‹ altogether is, in that light, not as unattractive as may at first sight seem to be the case. The burden of justification is lower, while the freedomof citizens to disagree with legislation that binds them is afforded the proper room.

›Liberty‹ is the key concept in Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy. In this article the Hobbesian conception of liberty is developed at first. Particular attention is given to the constraint of the liberty of the will. The result of the inquiry is then faced with the interpretation of Quentin Skinner. Subsequently his view that Hobbes has radically changed his view of freedom, is discarded. The difference worked out to his opinion is appreciable and equals a new interpretation of the hobbessian understanding of liberty, for according to Skinner fear does not constrict liberty. But it does, and so also fear of power and its exercise restrains human liberty. This considerable difference leads to a new understanding of the prevailing liberty in the state of nature and under a sovereign.

Several authors find some points of resemblance between John Scottus Eriugena and German Idealism. But idealistic philosophers, like Hegel, did not read Eriugena’s major work, Periphyseon, and, instead, they knew about his thought through the histories of philosophy that circulated during nineteenth century in Germany. In this sense, this article seeks to analyze how three German historians of philosophy of modern times, Brucker, Tennemann and Rixner, belonging to different philosophical trends, present Eriugena’s thought in regard to the theme of pantheism, the most important topic pointed out in those historical philosophical works.

The study examines the concept of the interesting in the aesthetic system of Anton Müller (1792–1843), full professor of aesthetics and classical literature at Prague University in the years 1823–1842. The study describes how he worked with the concept of the interesting; it compares his approach with the earlier German reflections on this concept, selected according to their response in Bohemian and Austrian aesthetics, and compares these findings with the existing literature about the interesting. The study shows that the privileged role of the interesting in Müller’s theory is caused by the restraint of a significant part of the Austrian pre-March aesthetics towards the Critique of Judgment, which, despite Kant’s objections, insisted on the significance of the interesting for beauty and art. The condition described does not allow Müller’s privileged way of dealing with the concept of the interesting to be regarded as an attempt to revive the concept, which had been forbidden by Kant, as his approach could have been understood from the perspective of German aesthetics, but rather as the highest possible level of privileging of the interesting, crowning the traditional Austrian approach to this concept.

The present essay seeks to understand Hölderlin’s work throughout the concept of modernity theorized by Reinhart Koselleck (Sattelzeit). According to Koselleck, the historical changes introduced by the French Revolution determined a mutation in the collective perception of time with radical implications in the sphere of political languages. Our main thesis is that, as a writeridentified with the revolutionary hopes, Hölderlin’s texts managed to develope and display a sharp consciousness on this process. Under these premises the relationship between enthusiast rhetoric and the experience of historical acceleration (Beschleunigung) will be then examined focusing on some important passages of his literary work.

To assert its position as the »Queen of the sciences,« philosophy responded to the developing trend in the mid-19th century to divide psychology from philosophy by coining the battle slogan of ›psychologism‹. However, specifically with regard to the philosopher Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843), who was viewed as the principal representative of psychologism, this appellation truly does not apply. Fries never took seriously any ›anthropologized apriori‹ of the kind represented by evolutionary epistemology (for example, Konrad Lorenz). For Fries, the laws of logic and mathematics and basic philosophical principles are objective; they are universally valid and necessary. Instead, Fries clearly differentiates between the universal and necessary validity of the apriori on the one side and the empirical methods for its discovery on the other.

The paper aims to present Nietzsche’s project of a new Enlightenment on the basis of his use of the metaphor which the Enlightenment employs for its selfpresentation, namely the metaphor of light. Firstly it is shown, above all in consideration of Nietzsche’s early account of language, that it is methodologically necessary to examine Nietzsche's critique of the Enlightenment from a metaphorological point of view. Examining his differentiated use of the metaphor of light we can then more precisely understand, in which sense Nietzsche can recognize a strong bond between the notion of Enlightenment and the practice of transfiguration. Finally, we clarify the connection suggested by Nietzsche between the ideals of a new Enlightenment and the thought of eternal recurrence of the same.

In a letter to Franz Overbeck from 1883 Nietzsche confessed that the more heread the German philosopher Gustav Teichmüller the more he realized »how poorly« he understood Plato and »how much Zarathustra Platonizes« (Πλατωνίζει). This is a striking admission from a thinker who defined his own philosophy as »inverted Platonism « and it has yet to be adequately explained. This article examines what Nietzsche may have meant by the verb »to Platonize« by drawing an explicitconnection to Teichmüller’s controversial views on Platonic psychology. Two possible meanings of the verb are put forth, a weak (rhetorical) and a strong (philosophical) meaning and a case in defense of the latter is made. In the strong sense of the word »to tonize« meant that the Overman was a mythos in the Platonic sense, in that it made Nietzsche’s much more recondite »Bundle Theory« of the self accessible to the average reader, but it did not correspond to a view of the self which Nietzsche espoused in his own voice.

›Anthropotechnics‹ as a term is used regularly since 2000 for the definition of ›human-breeding‹ and ›Human- Enhancment‹. The Philosopher Peter Sloterdijk brought this term in the scientific discourse (1999), but the term dates back to the 19th century. The following Paper focuses on the French, German and Russian ideas and terms of Anthropotechnics, in which different kinds of human-optimization are used. The project discusses the history of technical, biological and philosophical visions of human optimizing on the basis of the term ›Anthropotechnics‹. The analysis focuses on the discourses of biology, philosophy, literatureand technics as well as their medial, apparative and literal practices in the period from about 1860 to 1950.

The paper deals with the term and concept of dropouts (›Aussteiger‹) – a highly complex and little investigated phenomenon. Even though the term is often used in everyday language, we do only have a rather vague and ambiguous understanding of the concept behind it. In order to curtail this vagueness and to sharpen the understanding and usability there will not just be an examination of the history of the uses and developments of the term ›Aussteiger‹, but also a proposal of an adequate understanding of the discussed concept. The basic questions for the paper can be summarized as follows: What was the former understanding of ›aussteigen‹ and ›Aussteiger‹? What are we talking about today, when we use the term ›Aussteiger‹? Can we focus on a less vague and more usable definition of the term (especially for the Humanities and the Social Sciences)? And what should be the main features of the concept?

In 1970 Dolf Sternberger created the notion of »constitutional patriotism« to signify a certain German patriotism as engagement for democracy and rightin a country separated in two parts. Jürgen Habermas accepted the notion in order to acknowledge the liberal institutions of post-war Germany andits realization of universal principals of right. But the concept has a certain parallel in the discussion between Th. Abbt and F. C. von Moser in the years 1761 to 1765 when the unity of the German Empire was endangered and patriotism could only mean the pleading for a legal order beyond political absolutism.

Based on the knowledge about ›reciprocity‹ as presented in the article »Wechselwirkung« in the Historical Dictionary of Philosophy (vol. 12, 334– 341) this text tries to widen the view on further applications of the concept. Early sources can be found in Classical Latin when the use is bound to and based on the observation of the tide. A more recent use can be found in Modern Physics. Especially since Einstein’s Theory of relativity and related works of Max Born reciprocity has playedand it still does play an important role as scientific concept. It can be found in Chemistry, Biology and Pharmacology, as well. Moreover, it also has a career inhumanities, in law as well as in Philosophy, Philology, Literature and even in younger subjects like Cultural Ecology. One can suppose that the reason for the wide range of applications lies in its versatility as well as its precision.