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7Ein 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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1Objective Music: Traditions of Soundmaking without Human ExpressionIn Andreas Dorschel, Deniz Peters & Gerhard Eckel (eds.), Bodily Expression in Electronic Music: Perspectives on Reclaiming Performativity, Routledge. pp. 130-139. 2012.
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23Denktagebücher: Zur Poetik des philosophischen JournalsPhilosophische Rundschau 60 (4): 264. 2013.In philosophers’ diaries the individuality of men and women, their daily pain and pleasure, uniquely meets, and sometimes clashes, with the universal, or at least general, claims bound up with their metier. Following the genre’s history from the later 18th century to the present, Andreas Dorschel distinguishes (by way of ideal types) between (a) experimental diaries, (b) methodical diaries, (c) representative diaries, and (d) intimate diaries.
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1Das Programm ästhetischer Erziehung bei Schiller und beim frühen NietzscheVierteljahrsschrift Für Wissenschaftliche Pädagogik 68 (3): 260-284. 1992.Friedrich Nietzsche, in his early work, both appropriated and transformed Friedrich Schiller’s idea of aesthetic education. Art must cease to be a mere object of private pleasure and turn into a medium of public communication – this is the vision both philosophers share. As Nietzsche assigns the rôle held by language in Schiller to music, he shifts the project’s meaning. Yet both authors have to address the paradox that art, cut off from political and economic structures they disapprove of, is m…Read more
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13Über die funktionale Erklärung des normativen Geltungsanspruchs und das Konzept einer 'evolutionären Ethik'History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 14 (2). 1992.Neodarwinian ethology, today above all represented by sociobiology, is conceived of by responsible exponents as a descriptive and explanatory theory that cannot include any normative declarations. Still other, indeed notable, authors belonging to the discipline in question, either underhand or frankly employ prescriptive or evaluative judgments, — or they claim (what is not an insight of natural science) that it is impossible to provide a rational foundation for prescriptive or evaluative judgme…Read more
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1Die Idee der ‘Einswerdung’ in Wagners TristanIn Heinz-Klaus Metzger & Rainer Riehn (eds.), Richard Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, Edition Text + Kritik. pp. 19-25. 1987.
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54What is it to understand a directive speech act?Australasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (3). 1989.In this paper I want to examine the concept of 'conditions of fulfilment' or 'compliance' or 'satisfaction' which have been introduced by some authors in order to provide analyses of meaning which are just as adequate to directive speech acts as truth-conditional semantics are (claimed to be) adequate to assertive speech acts. It will be argued that this aim is missed. Most analyses (except those of some primitive cases) will remain throughout imcomplete as long as they are not supplemented by a…Read more
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381Vom 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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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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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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580Über 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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28Kunst 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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500Furcht 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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352Religion 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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962Mundrys 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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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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603Darwinismus als Kritikverbot. Zu Friedrich August von Hayeks Theorie der MoralevolutionAufklärung Und Kritik 3 (1): 31-40. 1996.
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577Vorgriffe. Über Präsumtionen, Präsuppositionen und VorurteileInternationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie 11 (1): 85-100. 2002.
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508Totengespräch 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
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
19th Century Philosophy |
European Philosophy |