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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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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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348Religion 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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931Mundrys 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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570Vorgriffe. Über Präsumtionen, Präsuppositionen und VorurteileInternationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 11 (1): 85-100. 2002.
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25Ist 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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597Darwinismus als Kritikverbot. Zu Friedrich August von Hayeks Theorie der MoralevolutionAufklärung Und Kritik 3 (1): 31-40. 1996.
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503Totengespräch 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.
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1Moral als Problem. Friedrich Nietzsche: Fröhliche Wissenschaft § 345Zeitschrift Für Didaktik der Philosophie Und Ethik 30 (1): 56-61. 2008.
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48Über die Intentionalität von EmotionenInternational Studies in Philosophy 29 (4): 11-21. 1997.Intentionality is a key feature of emotions; we understand them as directed towards objects. Intentional objects need not be real objects. Furthermore, objects of emotions can be distinguished from their causes. At the same time, objects and causes may be related, and, for some emotions, have to be related if the emotions are to count as warranted. Psychoanalysis and comparable cures tend to ignore these relationships. That does not necessarily preclude therapeutic success. Yet being based on sa…Read more
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2752Die Idee der VerwandlungIn Verwandlungsmusik. Über komponierte Transfigurationen, Universal Edition. pp. 11-51. 2007.Within the European history of ideas, at least three conceptions of metamorphosis can be distinguished. First, as celebrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there is the vision of an open-ended flux of shapes in all directions, potentially with the ambiguous result of wavering identity. Secondly, at the centre of the synoptic gospels Jesus’s transfiguration is presented as a luminous elevation, rendering his true nature unambiguous. Thirdly, alchemy conceives of metamorphosis as contingent upon a meeti…Read more
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4The Crypto‐Mrtaphysic of ‘Ultimate Causes’ Remarks on an Alleged ExposéRatio 1 (2): 97-112. 2006.
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713Individualism for the Masses: Aesthetic Paradox in Mahler’s Symphonic ThoughtIn Elisabeth Kappel (ed.), The Total Work of Art: Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in Context, Universal Edition. pp. 46-60. 2011.In his Eighth Symphony Gustav Mahler envisions modern artistic production to steer clear of an alternative emerging at the time: that between popular music on the one hand and esoteric avantgarde music on the other; Mahler’s music is meant to reach the masses, but without descending to audiences’ lowest common denominator. One query through which Mahler’s paradoxical aesthetic vision of an ‘individualism for the masses’ can be explored has been hinted at by the composer himself: Does his integra…Read more
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4Vollkommenes hält sich fern. Ästhetische NäherungenUniversal Edition. 2012.In ‘Vollkommenes hält sich fern’ (‘Perfection keeps itself aloof’) – the book title is drawn from a verse of American poet Kimberly Johnson (*1971) –, Philip Alperson and Andreas Dorschel discuss issues in the philosophy of music and general aesthetics related to the body, to practices and genres, values and education.
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Darwinism as a Prohibition of Criticism. A commentary on Friedrich August von Hayek’s Theory of Moral EvolutionInternational Journal of Moral and Social Studies 5 (1): 55-66. 1990.
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
19th Century Philosophy |
European Philosophy |