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6Ein Bett gestaltenDeutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 68 (3): 439-450. 2020.In the process of making bedsteads, Plato claimed, makers look towards the ‘idea’ of the bed. But what is that idea? Two candidates come to mind: shape and purpose. The fact that we identify objects of very different shape, not even involving a bedstead, as beds seems to render purpose conceptually superior. But, then, what is a bed’s purpose? An obvious response appears tobe: lying down and sleeping. Yet, first, beds are not needed for that. Secondly, precisely when a bed is slept on, it is not…Read more
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In den Strudeln der Einbildungskraft. Philosophische Imagination bei Fichte, Schiller und NietzscheIn Matthias Schmidt & Arne Stollberg (eds.), Das Bildliche und das Unbildliche. Nietzsche, Wagner und das Musikdrama, Wilhelm Fink. pp. 29-41. 2015.“How does music stand to image and concept?” (KSA 1, 104) This query in the aesthetics of media is central to Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy and related early texts; it shapes both their form and content. Nietzsche searches for a mode of non-conceptual philosophizing; he wishes to organize thought as a sequence of suggestive images – thoughts, that is, about that very relationship. Nietzsche’s success or failure in that endeavour becomes clearer against the foil of the 1795 controversy between Fri…Read more
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342Vom Genießen. Reflexionen zu Richard StraussIn Gemurmel unterhalb des Rauschens. Theodor W. Adorno und Richard Strauss, Universal Edition. pp. 23-37. 2004.The work of Richard Strauss has been disparaged as a music designed to be relished (“Genußmusik” was Adorno’s term), lacking any dimension of ‘transcendence’. The notion of ‘relish’ or ‘pleasure’ (“Genuß”), used for characterization rather than disparagement, can disclose crucial aspects of Strauss’s art, though it does not exhaust it. To oppose ‘relish’ or ‘pleasure’ (“Genuß”) to ‘transcendence’, however, either uses hidden theological premises or disregards that ‘relish’ or ‘pleasure’ (“Genuß”…Read more
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Bilder und WorteWeimarer Beiträge: Zeitschrift Für Literaturwissenschaft, Ästhetik Und Kulturwissenschaften 43 (1): 110-122. 1997.‘Logos’ is the Greek term for word, and language is indeed the realm of logic in a way that imagery never will be. While clearly not all use of words is argumentative – in fact, most is not –, their sequentiality brings them closer to argument than images, given the simultaneity of contents within the latter. In images, there is no discrete number of definite signs – the sort of thing language has in its vocabulary. The relations between colour and form are not systematized through rules. There …Read more
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442Furcht und AngstIn Dietmar Goltschnigg (ed.), Angst. Lähmender Stillstand und Motor des Fortschritts, Stauffenburg. pp. 49-54. 2012.Is fear a ‘deficient mode’ of anxiety? This claim made by Martin Heidegger in ‘Being and Time’ (1927) depends on an analysis of intentionality. Emotions take objects: to love, to hate, to fear is to love, to hate, to fear someone or something. Yet anxiety, Heidegger maintains (‘Being and Time’ § 40), is about “nothing” (“nichts”) rather than “something” (“etwas”). Heidegger then turns lack of knowledge or understanding of what one’s anxiety is about into a revelation of “Nothing” (“Die Angst off…Read more
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7Transzendentalpragmatik. Ein Symposion für Karl-Otto Apel (edited book)Suhrkamp. 1993.Die philosophiegeschichtlichen, sprachphilosophischen, rationalitäts- und wissenschaftstheoretischen Versuche einer Transformation der Philosophie, der Karl-Otto Apels Lebenswerk gilt, bezeichnet Apel deshalb als »Transzendentalpragmatik«, weil sie ihren Einheitssinn in dem Gedanken finden, daß nichts außer der menschlichen Praxis des Argumentierens die kontexttranszendierende Gültigkeit unserer Meinungen über Tatsachen und Normen ermöglicht. Die einzelnen Beiträge beleuchten Konsequenzen und Pr…Read more
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539Über Ausdruck, insbesondere den musikalischenIn Andreas Dorschel & Elisabeth Kappel (eds.), Friedrich von Hausegger, Die Musik als Ausdruck, Universal Edition. pp. 152-177. 2010.To call a piece of music sad or joyous need not imply reference to a subjective state. Speaking in this vein, we do not have to attribute sad or joyous feelings to the composer or to the performer. Nor do we predict that listeners will become sad or joyful when they will listen to a performance of that composition. Musical expression is not a mode of consciousness in those who produce it and it is not an effect of music either. Rather, it is a feature of the music itself. Once we have discarded …Read more
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27Kunst und Wissen in der Moderne (edited book)Böhlau. 2009.The relationship between art and knowledge is subject to historical change. In the early 19th century, the view was still prevalent that art was about eternal values, especially beauty, whereas science was entirely involved in historical time: The former was seen as contemplative, the latter as searching. But ever since, most artists have given up that stance and hence the once imagined detachment from historical time. They search, and sometimes research, too. Does that mean that art and science…Read more
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327Religion als 'Teilsystem'? Zu Niklas Luhmanns 'Die Unterscheidung Gottes'Österreichische Zeitschrift Für Soziologie 11 (3): 12-18. 1986.
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27Ein Versprechen von Glück Neuere philosophische Studien über das SchönePhilosophische Rundschau 58 (3): 226. 2011.
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15Entwurf einer Theorie des FluchensVariations 23 167-175. 2015.Resentment, voiced in words, turns into a curse. Curses appeal to a superior power that is meant to execute them – God. But if God were God, he would have better things to do than to execute resenters’ curses, and if he were less than God, he could not execute them. Hence those who curse are led, in the end, to curse God, too – and once again in vain.
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867Mundrys NuancenIn Heike Hoffmann (ed.), Salzburg Biennale 2015, Salzburg Biennale. pp. 62-64. 2015.The production of artworks can be based on a fixed modus operandi, i.e., on a general manner and, alongside, specific patterns to be applied all over again. Alternatively, each artwork can be seen as (cor-)responding to an individual problem for which there is no recipe; in this case it needs to be looked at afresh. That approach characterizes the aesthetics of music composer Isabel Mundry (*1963); her art, ever unpredictable, is one of nuances.
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Der ‘Kunstregelbau’. Kontrapunktik in Max Webers Fragment Zur MusiksoziologieIn Ulrich Tadday (ed.), Philosophie des Kontrapunkts, Edition Text + Kritik. pp. 135-142. 2010.In his social theory, Max Weber (1864 – 1920) attempts to identify patterns that have distinguished Western rationality. Music, he argues, is one of the domains that exhibit such structures. As a specific instance, Weber cites counterpoint as developed in 15th century Europe and – so he claims – culminating in Bach’s music. “No other epoch and culture possesses it”, Weber asserts. Counterpoint’s rationality is meant to manifest itself in rules; yet Weber’s approach lacks an analysis of such rule…Read more
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536Vorgriffe. Über Präsumtionen, Präsuppositionen und VorurteileInternationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 11 (1): 85-100. 2002.
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21Ist strategisches Handeln ergänzungsbedürftig? Karl-Otto Apels These und ihre BegründungArchives Européenes de Sociologie 30 123-149. 1989.
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35Wilhelm Müllers ‘Die Winterreise’ und die Erlösungsversprechen der RomantikThe German Quarterly 66 (4): 467-476. 1993.Wilhelm Müller's lyric cycle "Die Winterreise", superficially the depiction of the end of an unhappy erotic relationship, can be interpreted as a negation of the promises of deliverance which, during the early Romantic period, were associated with the spheres of dreams, death, nature, contemplation, and love. Even art, Müller's own medium, seems susceptible to this negation.
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577Darwinismus als Kritikverbot. Zu Friedrich August von Hayeks Theorie der MoralevolutionAufklärung Und Kritik 3 (1): 31-40. 1996.
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480Totengespräch zwischen Franz Joseph Haydn aus Rohrau und Anton Friedrich Wilhelm von Webern aus Wien in der musikalischen UnterweltIn Andreas Dorschel & Federico Celestini (eds.), Arbeit am Kanon: Ästhetische Studien zur Musik von Haydn bis Webern, Universal Edition. pp. 9-15. 2010.In the spirit of Fontenelle's "Dialogues des morts", Dorschel stages an imaginary conversation between 18th century composer Joseph Haydn and 20th century composer Anton von Webern. In the section of Hades reserved for composers, they confront their different musical poetics.
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17Sentimentalität. Über eine Kategorie ästhetischer und moralischer AbwertungPerspektiven der Philosophie 31 (1): 11-22. 2005.Sentimentality: this term has had an odd career that converted it from an expression of praise into one of abuse. The obvious suspicion is that the word ‚sentimental‘ has had an entirely different meaning in the 20th and 21st centuries (when it has been deployed for abuse) as compared to the 18th century (when it had been used for praise). Scrutiny shows, however, that this is not the case. Rather the very same aspects of sentimentality that had appeared to, e.g., Sterne as a feat of human imagi…Read more
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Einführung zu den Schriften [Richard Wagners]In Laurenz Lütteken (ed.), Wagner Handbuch, Bärenreiter. pp. 110-117. 2012.In his writings, Richard Wagner imagines art as something natural. This paradox was only befitting for Wagner’s contradictory historical stance: that of an eminently modern artist loathing the modern world. For him, nature served as a yardstick apt to find the modern world deficient on all counts. But how can something ahistorical, nature, be used to judge a historical phenomenon, modernity? To arrive at the verdict Wagner was keen on, he had to fill his concept of nature with historical content…Read more
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Systemrationalität?In Karl-Otto Apel & Matthias Kettner (eds.), Die eine Vernunft und die vielen Rationalitäten, Suhrkamp. pp. 349-372. 1996.We judge actions to be rational if means are adequate to ends. In modern societies, innumerable actions are interconnected into complex systems. Does rationality, then, become a feature of systems? If so, it will not do to view means in the light of ends, Niklas Luhmann maintained. In ‘The Concept of Purpose and Systems Rationality’ (‘Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität’) (1968), he defined the rationality of systems as their capacity to reduce complexity (“Reduktion von Komplexität”); in his la…Read more
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Arbeit am Kanon: Zu Hugo Wolfs MusikkritikenMusicologica Austriaca 26 43-52. 2007.Cultivation of the musical canon and canonisation of truly original work can be identified as guiding principles of both Hugo Wolf’s artistic and his critical practice. The latter is shaped by classicist tropes; they may serve strategic functions as well, yet cannot be reduced to them. While he rejects the merely old-fashioned, Wolf also leads a striking attack on what he terms “modern music”. His endorsed aesthetics intertwine the old and the new.
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Historical subjunctives : eight theses on understanding past possibilitiesIn Andreas Haug & Andreas Dorschel (eds.), Vom Preis des Fortschritts: Gewinn und Verlust in der Musikgeschichte, Universal Edition. 2008.
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
19th Century Philosophy |
European Philosophy |