German philosophy and the First World War / Nicolas de Warren, Pennsylvania State University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Warren, Nicolas de, 1969- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philosophy, German--20th century.

Philosophy, German.

World War, 1914-1918.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 426 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

How did the First World War, the so-called 'Great War' - widely seen on all sides as 'the war to end all wars' - impact the development of German philosophy? Combining history and biography with astute philosophical and textual analysis, Nicolas de Warren addresses here the intellectual trajectories of ten significant wartime philosophers: Ernst Bloch, Martin Buber, Ernst Cassirer, Hermann Cohen, György Lukács, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Franz Rosenzweig, Max Scheler and Georg Simmel. In exploring their individual works written during and after the War, the author reveals how philosophical concepts and new forms of thinking were forged in response to this unprecedented catastrophe. In reassessing standardized narratives of German thought, the book deepens and enhances our understanding of the intimate and complex relationship between philosophy and violence by demonstrating how the 1914-18 conflict was a crucible for ways of thinking that still define us today.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: "What's the Seminar Got to Do with the War?"

Chapter 1 The Genius of War, the Genius of Peace: Max Scheler's Demons

A Sacred War

"A Demoniacal Genius Who Stormed from the Heights"

"Endlich ein Gott"

Material Value Ethics

Individual and Collective Persons

The God of War

On the Eternal in Man

The Genius of Peace

Chapter 2 Deutschtum und Judentum: Hermann Cohen in the Time of the Nations

"Great and Joyous to be a German Citizen"

On Inner Peace

"Deutschtum und Judentum"

Ethics and Religion

Plato and Prophetic Messianism

"God Is Not the Father of Heroes"

God Loves the Stranger

In the Time of Nations

Chapter 3 I and Thou: Martin Buber and Dialogical Creation

War Scoundrel

In the Beginning Was the Word

Sublime Melancholy

"Watchmen, How Much Longer of This Night?"

Holy Insecurity

The Morning Cometh

Chapter 4 More than Life: Georg Simmel's Philosophical Testament

"Life Has Not Vanquished Me"

Border Fortress

Spiritual Decisions

We Hollow Beings

Worlds upon Worlds

The Gift of Death

The Individuality of Life

Become Who You Ought to Be

Chapter 5 The Apocalypse of Hope: Ernst Bloch's Phenomenology of Utopic Spirit

What Now?

Socialism or Barbarism

Ye Olde Pitcher

Philosophical Expressionism

The Inconstruable Question

Marx, Death, and Apocalypse

Chapter 6 The Road to Damascus in the Age of Capitalism: György Lukács and History and Class Consciousness

"The Second International Is Dead"

Permanent Mood of Despair

"I Cannot Bear an Inessential Life"

Transcendental Homelessness

October 1917

Orthodox Marxism

Revolutionary Class Consciousness

1924.

Chapter 7 From Death into Life: Franz Rosenzweig's Redemptions

"Then I Came to Know 'Everything'"

"I Therefore Remain a Jew"

"Now Everything Is Gone"

"A Field of Ruins"

Who Hears Me When I Cry Out?

The Flight of Philosophy from Ionia to Jena

"In Nothingness I Hope to Find Everything"

Miracles of Revelation

The Star and the Cross

The Gate toward Life

Chapter 8 "A Journey around the World": Ernst Cassirer, Freedom in Ways of Worldmaking

"But the Day Is Really So Absurd and Confused"

A Counter-History of Spirit

The Spirit of 1914

German Greatness

World Philosophy

Journey around the World

"Eins und Alles"

Chapter 9 Martin Heidegger and the Titanic Struggle over Being

Life during Wartime

The Hidden King

Gigantomachia peri tes ousias

"Guests in Our House"

Advance Outposts and Rearguard Positions

"The Great War Is Only Now Coming over Us"

Götterdämmerung

The Most Extreme Enmity

Stones for Bread

Chapter 10 The Tragedy of the Person: Edmund Husserl at War

"Fichte Speaks to Us!"

"Two Souls Reside in My Breast"

"I Did Not Write Any War-Writings"

Pro Patria Mori

Teleological Optimism

The Heroism of Reason against the Contingencies of Life

"Let the World Be Hell!"

The Tragedy of Love

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 30 Mar 2023).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108530361

1108530362

9781108534628

1108534627

9781108526180

1108526187

OCLC:

1479877194