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Time of the magicians : Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger, and the decade that reinvented philosophy / Wolfram Eilenberger ; translated by Shaun Whiteside.
Van Pelt Library B3181 .E5513 2020
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Eilenberger, Wolfram, 1972- author.
- Standardized Title:
- Zeit der Zauberer. English
- Language:
- English
- German
- Subjects (All):
- Benjamin, Walter, 1892-1940.
- Benjamin, Walter.
- Philosophy, German.
- History.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1889-1951.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig.
- Heidegger, Martin, 1889-1976.
- Heidegger, Martin.
- Cassirer, Ernst, 1874-1945.
- Cassirer, Ernst.
- Philosophy, German--History--20th century.
- Germany--History--1918-1933.
- Germany.
- Genre:
- History.
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- 418 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Penguin Press, 2020.
- Summary:
- "A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth century The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is still fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin, whose life is characterized by false starts and unfinished projects, is trying to flee his overbearing father and floundering in his academic career, living hand to mouth as a jobbing critic. Wittgenstein, by contrast, has dramatically decided to divest himself of the monumental fortune he stands to inherit, as a scion of one of the biggest industrial families in Europe, in order to commit himself unswervingly to a life of the mind. Meanwhile, Heidegger, having managed to avoid combat in war by serving instead as a meteorologist, is carefully cultivating his career, aligning himself with the great Edmund Husserl, and renouncing his prior Catholic associations. Finally, Cassirer is working furiously on the margins of academia, applying himself intensely to his writing and the possibility of a career at Hamburg University. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama, which will unfold across the next decade. The lives and ideas of this great philosophical quartet will converge as they become world historical figures. But as the Second World War looms on the horizon, their fates will be very different. Wolfram Eilenberger, internationally-bestselling author, stylishly traces the paths of these remarkable and turbulent lives, which feature not only philosophy but some of the most important economists, politicians, journalists, and artists of the century, including John Maynard Keynes, Hannah Arendt, and Bertrand Russell. In doing so, he tells a gripping story about some of history's most ambitious and passionate thinkers, as well as illuminating with rare clarity and economy their brilliant ideas, which all too often have been regarded as enigmatic or opaque"-- Provided by publisher.
- Contents:
- Machine generated contents note: I. Prologue: The Magicians
- The Arrival of God
- High Fliers
- Maintaining One's Composure The Davos Myth
- Human Questions
- Without Foundation Two Visions
- At a Crossroads
- Where Is Benjamin? Fail Better
- Does My Life Need a Goal?
- The One-Man Republic
- II. Leaps: 1919
- What to Do?
- A Refuge
- Critical Days
- Romantic Theses New Self-Awareness
- Flights
- The Transformation
- Ethical Acts A Sorrow Beyond Dreams
- An Interesting Condition Exposed Flanks
- A World Without a View
- The Primal Scientist No Alibi
- The New Realm
- Fidelity to the Event German Virtues
- Unloved
- Electrified
- III. Languages: 1919
- 1920
- Figuratively Speaking
- Viennese Bridges
- Poetic Precision Against the World
- Three Dots in The Hague Pictures of Facts
- The Barber
- Russell on the Ladder Why the World Does Not Exist
- Under Pressure The Obscured Gaze
- Lonely Together
- Two Oddballs Worlds Ahead
- The Breakthrough of Authenticity Something in Media
- Flappers
- The Task Radical Translation
- Cult and Sound
- Goethe in Hamburg The Fundamental Phenomenon
- The Will to Multiplicity Onward
- Does the Language Exist?
- IV. Culture: 1922
- 1923
- A Hut of One's Own
- Strange Callings
- Existential Health Check Stormy Weather
- Wars of Attrition
- Bad Neighbors Good Neighbors
- Utopia on the Bookshelf
- The Outcome of Myth The New Enlightenment
- Across the River In the Maelstrom
- The Third Man
- Goethe in Weimar More Light
- Freedom or Fate
- Choice or Decision The Divorced Republic
- Leap of Salvation Redeeming Transcendence
- Ruthlessness Three-Quarters Understood
- In Therapy
- Top Down
- V. You: 1923
- 1925
- The Idiot
- It's Complicated
- Hospitality From Hamburg to Bellevue
- Snake Experiments Tunnel and Light
- Weimar Topples
- Mighty Fortresses Being an Event
- You, Demon
- In the Midst of Being To Think the Hardest Thing
- Amor Mundi
- Hunger Cures Goodbye Deutschland
- Grapes and Almonds
- New Beginnings
- VI. Freedom: 1925
- 1927
- Red Stars
- Critical Prologues
- A Case for Adam Grief Work
- Remembered Perception
- Tristes Tropiques Critical Album
- Palestine or Communism
- Neighbors To Work
- Exposing the Question
- The Time of Dasein
- Philosophizing with a Hammer: The Study of Equipment Sturm und Angst
- That Certain Something: Running Ahead into Death The Hamburg School
- The Hidden Origin Plurality of Outcome
- Self-Fashioning Through Openness The Fault in Our Stars
- Out of the Mouths of Babes Engineers of Speech
- A Little List
- The Responsibility Principle.
- Notes:
- "Originally published in German as Zeit der Zauberer by Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart," ©2018 -- title page verso.
- Translated from the German.
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Other Format:
- Online version: Eilenberger, Wolfram, Time of the magicians
- ISBN:
- 9780525559665
- 0525559663
- OCLC:
- 1127067361
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