エピソード

  • Rosenzweig and Heidegger (Peter E. Gordon)
    2025/11/17

    The provided text, excerpts from a book by Peter Eli Gordon, offers a comprehensive examination of the philosophical relationship and shared intellectual horizon between Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Heidegger, particularly within the context of German-Jewish thought in the Weimar era. The discussion centers on the “new thinking” that emerged after the perceived collapse of idealism and metaphysics, arguing that both philosophers, despite their dramatic personal and political divergence (especially regarding Heidegger's Nazism), sought a new foundation for philosophy rooted in temporality, finitude, and authentic existence. Significant attention is paid to Rosenzweig’s major work, The Star of Redemption, positioning it not merely within a distinct Jewish canon but as a profound response to contemporary German philosophy, including the late work of Hermann Cohen and the critique of the German-Jewish dialogue. Furthermore, the text analyzes the linguistic and existential similarities in their thought, such as their shared emphasis on the constitutive role of language and the importance of being-toward-death.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    27 分
  • God After Auschwitz (Hans Jonas)
    2025/11/17

    The provided text is an excerpt from a 1987 article by Hans Jonas titled “The Concept of God after Auschwitz: A Jewish Voice,” originally a lecture delivered upon receiving an award. Jonas grapples with the theological challenge posed by the Holocaust, specifically Auschwitz, which he argues cannot be explained by traditional Jewish concepts of sin, punishment, or martyrdom. To address this unprecedented evil, Jonas proposes a speculative theology rooted in a myth of a self-limiting God, suggesting that the Divine renounced its omnipotence at creation. This reimagined God is suffering, becoming, and caring but is also endangered and powerless to intervene in the physical world, thus necessitating a rejection of the traditional idea of divine omnipotence to reconcile God’s goodness with the existence of evil.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    30 分
  • Adorno and Existence (Peter E. Gordon)
    2025/11/17

    The provided text is an introduction and excerpts from Peter E. Gordon's monograph, Adorno and Existence, which examines Theodor W. Adorno's critical yet enduring engagement with existentialism and phenomenology, primarily focusing on Martin Heidegger and Søren Kierkegaard. Gordon explains his aim is to trace Adorno's complex intellectual history, arguing that Adorno's critiques of figures like Heidegger and Husserl, who represent the "philosophy of bourgeois interiority," actually helped Adorno understand his own materialist philosophical goals. A significant portion of the analysis centers on Adorno's polemical book, The Jargon of Authenticity, which critiques the popularized, secularized language of existentialism, linking its concepts of authentic existence and self-possession to ideological conformity and the repression inherent in the "dialectic of enlightenment." Ultimately, Gordon suggests that Adorno's critique—a negative dialectic—reveals an "inverse theology" and a complicated affinity with the very tradition he vehemently opposed, especially in later reflections on Kierkegaard and the concept of the object’s primacy.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    37 分
  • Migrants in the Profane (Peter E. Gordon)
    2025/11/15

    The provided text offers excerpts from Peter E. Gordon’s book, Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization, which originated as the Franz Rosenzweig Lectures at Yale University. The central focus is an examination of how Critical Theory—specifically the work of Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor W. Adorno—addressed the complex relationship between theology, secularization, and historical materialism. Gordon analyzes the Frankfurt School's concept of "migration into the profane," exploring how religious ideas persist and retain critical force even after losing their explicitly sacred context. Key discussions revolve around Benjamin's critique of progress and the metaphor of the chess-playing Turk, Horkheimer’s later turn toward the "wholly other" as a source of hope, and Adorno's theory of negative dialectics as a secularized form of negative theology, often referencing Jewish tradition and the trauma of exile and anti-Semitism. The overall aim is to leverage these theorists' insights into dialectics and disenchantment to address contemporary challenges like the global migration crisis and political nationalism.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    31 分
  • German Jews (Mendes-Flohr)
    2025/11/15

    The provided excerpts offer an extensive overview of German-Jewish identity and the complex relationship between Judaism and German culture, primarily through the lens of the humanistic ideal of Bildung (self-cultivation). A central theme is the "and"—the struggle to reconcile being both a Jew and a German, often referred to as a dual identity or bifurcated spirit. The text discusses key figures who grappled with this tension, such as Moses Mendelssohn and the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, the latter of whom championed a Jewish Renaissance based on affirming Judaism as a living reality while engaging with modern culture. It further explores cultural debates like the Kunstwart debate and the philosophical positions of thinkers like Hermann Cohen and Walter Benjamin, highlighting how the promise of assimilation eventually led many to a renewed sense of Jewish pride and identity commitment, even as the possibility of a "New Babylon" on German soil was tragically aborted by the rise of the Nazis.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    36 分
  • Implicit Prosody (Van Handel)
    2025/11/14

    This extensive document, a Doctor of Philosophy dissertation by Nicholas J. Van Handel from UC Santa Cruz, presents an investigation into implicit prosody, which refers to the prosodic structure readers mentally assign during silent reading. The research explores several facets of this phenomenon, including which reading tasks are sensitive to implicit prosody, specifically comparing the Maze task and self-paced reading (SPR) across multiple experiments involving homographs and garden path sentences. Methodologically, the author finds that the Maze task often yields more localized and larger effects compared to SPR, supporting its use for studying prosody. Theoretically, the dissertation lays groundwork for an incremental model of prosodic parsing, discussing how grammatical constraints on the syntax-prosody interface can be applied word-by-word, and examines how constituent length and information structure affect attachment decisions in ambiguous relative clause constructions.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    37 分
  • Precarious Happiness (Peter E. Gordon)
    2025/11/14

    The provided text offers excerpts from a philosophical work by Peter E. Gordon, titled Prekäres Glück: Adorno und die Quellen der Normativität, which focuses on the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno. The discussion centers on Adorno's legacy, exploring his contributions across philosophy, sociology, and aesthetics, and engaging with interpretations by other thinkers like Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth. Central to the analysis is Adorno's complex concept of immanent critique, which seeks to locate normative potential—such as the possibility of freedom and genuine human flourishing—within the contradictions and flaws of modern society, rejecting the idea of absolute societal falsity or purely transcendent ideals. Furthermore, the text examines how Adorno’s aesthetics, particularly his analysis of late Beethoven and Mahler, serve as models for philosophical thought by revealing the dialectical tensions and "cracks" in reality, thus illustrating a materialistic understanding of happiness tied to unsuppressed sensory experience and nature. The overall aim is to reject a purely negativistic interpretation of Adorno, arguing instead for a notion of "precarious happiness" that affirms negative critique while acknowledging a persistent, though fragile, hope for a better future.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    25 分
  • Minima Moralia (Adorno)
    2025/11/14

    The provided text consists of excerpts from Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, a work of philosophical aphorisms and essays. The content offers a critical diagnosis of contemporary life and culture during a period of historical decay and societal transformation, particularly in the aftermath of World War II, with frequent references to the rise of fascism and totalitarianism. Adorno explores the erosion of individual experience and autonomy due to the omnipresence of the culture industry, economic mechanisms, and the division of labor, arguing that life itself has been absorbed into an ideology that conceals its non-existence. The reflections span diverse topics, including the decay of morality and tact, the futility of modern pleasure and relationships, and the ambiguous role of intellectuals and art in a reified world, ultimately asserting the necessity of unwavering critical thought even in the face of despair.

    続きを読む 一部表示
    35 分