Florian Grosser

In E-Co-Affectivity, Marjolein Oele presents a comprehensive philosophical account of pathos. Analyzing distinct, yet interconnected spheres of affectivity, she persuasively argues that pathic phenomena or experiences underlie and enable the emergence, existence, and individuation of living beings as well as the (trans)formation of communal constellations between them. In my commentary, I first raise questions concerning interpretive and argumentative strategies employed by Oele. Subsequently, I comment on some of the political implications and limitations of Oele’s study: in particular, on the underlying assumption that pathos has an equalizing effect on affective communality; and on the resulting relative lack of discussion of unequal degrees and kinds of vulnerability among those who are affected due to differences in social-political status and positionality.

Within the vast reception history of Martin Heidegger’s philosophical thought poets, novelists, and playwrights have occupied a central place. This collection of essays opens up new perspectives by tracing the manifold, often surprising ways in which Heideggerian concepts, motifs, and concerns have been taken up in literary and poetic writing since the middle of the 20th century. In their contributions, scholars from the Americas, Asia, and Europe explore intellectual constellations between Heidegger and selected literary figures such as John Ashbery, Julia de Burgos, Paul Celan, Elfriede Jelinek, and Velimir Khlebnikov. The volume unveils the immense creativity that crystallizes in these poetic and literary traces and disseminations of Heidegger’s thinking. Hence, it points to new and fruitful ways to critically intervene in current philosophical and literary debates.

Martin Heidegger gilt als einer der bedeutendsten und zugleich umstrittensten Philosophen des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts. Werk und Person üben bis heute diesseits und jenseits philosophischer Diskussionen eine erhebliche Faszination aus. Dies liegt nicht allein an der außergewöhnlichen Originalität seines Denkens und der Kraft seiner Sprache, sondern auch an seinen schwerwiegenden politischen Verstrickungen im Zusammenhang mit der Machtergreifung Hitlers. Florian Grosser zeichnet die wesentlichen Stationen und Entwicklungslinien von Heideggers verschlungenem Denkweg aus einem halben Jahrhundert nach. Dabei arbeitet er die spezifische Gefährlichkeit von Heideggers politischem Denken klar heraus, insbesondere sein radikal revolutionäres und überzogen antagonistisches Verständnis des Politischen, das ihn hindert, reale politische Phänomene angemessen zu verstehen. Grosser geht der Frage nach, ob Heideggers Denken, wie vielfach unterstellt, tatsächlich eine innere Verwandtschaft mit dem Nationalsozialismus aufweist. Die Differenzen immerhin sind gravierend. Die essayistisch gehaltene Darstellung, die im Grenzbereich zwischen Philosophie und Politikwissenschaft angesiedelt ist, erweckt die festgefahrene, seit Jahrzehnten in den starren Mustern von Anklage und Verteidigung verharrende Kontroverse um den "Fall Heidegger" zu neuem Leben.

This paper offers a critical analysis of the role of political theology in contemporary political praxis and theory. In particular, it examines the idea that a retrieval of politico-theological thinking can counter what some theorists describe as the disorienting effects of ‘postmodern relativism’. With a focus on the United States, the paper first shows that the political landscape there attests to an excessive political theology that is ‘messianic’ in structure and that carries markedly Schmittian traits on the level of its content as it detaches decision-making from prudential and ethical concerns. Subsequently, it argues that the fact that ‘new political theology’ in its currently dominant (messianic, decisionist, and conflictual) form is incompatible with cornerstones of what Hannah Arendt defines as ‘real democracy’ does not preclude a different return to conceptual resources provided by the politico-theological tradition: This productive alternative is elaborated with the help of Arendt’s reinterpretation of two notions central to Schmitt’s discourse, sovereignty and the miracle.

The paper aims at showing the potential of a phenomenologically informed approach for contemporary debates on democratic legitimacy and community. While the role of affectivity has recently been reconsidered in social and political theory, phenomenological insights into affective moments of subject- and community-formation can contribute to further methodological refinement. Inversely, it is suggested that phenomenological analyses on subjectivity and intersubjectivity should be broadened so as to include what often remained a blind spot: the political dimension. Drawing on descriptive resources offered by Levinas, Waldenfels, and Esposito, the paper sets off to rehabilitate the concept of Betroffenheit, of concernedness or being concerned, which, historically, was at the center of conceptions of democratic politics before being removed from it. Questioning its unreserved ‘juridization’, it is argued that an affective understanding of being concerned is relevant for re-describing the emergence of collective political agents: The shared response to an initial experience of being concerned opens up an alternative account of political processes that, venturing beyond issues of legitimacy and sovereignty, outlines the perspective of democracy out of shared concernedness.

This article examines Niccolò Machiavelli’s central political writings by means of asking whether his thinking is structured by an underlying concept of the political. In exploring the ways in which Machiavelli (a) addresses some of the basic conditions that determine the political realm and (b) reflects upon the conditions for practical success in this domain, the contours of an implicit, yet consistent concept of the political become apparent. It will be argued that, with regard to its content, this concept is irreducible to the aspect of power. Instead, it is an element of care – or more specifically: ‘care of many’ – that is characteristic of Machiavelli’s understanding of the political and that decisively informs his considerations on both principalities and republics.

In jüngerer Vergangenheit haben sich Flucht und Vertreibung als wichtige neue Herausforderungen sowohl für liberale politische Ordnungen als auch für liberales politisches Denken erwiesen. Dies ist nicht allein darauf zurückzuführen, dass die Zahl der Flüchtlinge und Vertriebenen weltweit auf über 70 Mio. angestiegen ist und sich damit innerhalb der letzten Dekade verdoppelt hat. Zu diesem quantitativen Faktor kommt hinzu, dass sich selbst in vermeintlich gefestigten liberal-demokratischen Ordnungen gewisse qualitative Veränderungen beobachten lassen, die in Zusammenhang mit diesen Migrationsbewegungen stehen, ja sich in unmittelbarer Reaktion auf diese einstellen: So sind es zuwanderungsskeptische bzw. -feindliche Positionen, die z. B. in den Vereinigten Staaten, in Großbritannien, Ungarn oder Italien im Zentrum neuer Populismen stehen und unter der Wählerschaft erhebliche Resonanz erzeugen.

The paper concerns Hannah Arendt’s attempt to identify both historical types and conceptual understandings of revolution that can be considered to be genuinely ‘political.’ Its aim is to first reconstruct Arendt’s distinction between ‘political’ and ‘anti-political’ processes and conceptions of profound, lasting transformation. In this section of the paper, it will be shown to what extent the critical distinction she proposes is informed by her understanding of (a) the role of ‘the social question’ and (b) the role of violence for the praxis as well as the theory of revolution. In a second step, the focus will be on the problematization of certain aspects of her critique of political revolution that lead, as will be argued, to the counter-intuitive exclusion of a variety phenomena and theories as properly revolutionary. The final part of the paper will hint at the possibility of a productive re-appropriation of Arendt’s critique of political revolution.

Zusammenfassung: Die für diesen Schwerpunkt ausgewählten Beiträge setzen sich aus sachlich, methodologisch sowie disziplinär vielfältigen Perspektiven mit dem Thema der Grenze, der Grenzziehung und des Grenzregimes auseinander. Während Grenzen in der normativen politischen Philosophie und Theorie kaum als eigenständiges Problem behandelt bzw. zumeist traditionell, d. h. als für territorial verankerte staatliche Zuständigkeitsbereiche konstitutive statische Trennlinien begriffen werden, wird in den hier versammelten Texten der Versuch unternommen, diese präziser und detaillierter in ihrer gegenwärtigen Gestalt und Wirkungsweise zu bestimmen, um auf dieser Grundlage alternative grenztheoretische Modelle zu entwickeln. Im Zentrum steht dabei die Frage, in welcher Weise sich die zunehmende Beweglichkeit von Grenzen – eine Beweglichkeit, die nicht nur neu konfigurierten politisch-rechtlichen Maßnahmen und Institutionen, sondern auch neuen Kontrolltechnologien geschuldet ist – auf das Verständnis von staatlicher Souveränität, von demokratischer Legitimität oder von Menschenrechten auswirkt. In dieser Einleitung werden zum einen einige maßgebliche rezente Grenzziehungsphänomene erörtert, die im Licht der Covid-19-Pandemie in besonderer Deutlichkeit zutage treten; zum anderen werden Grundzüge eines veränderten politiktheoretischen Nachdenkens über Grenzen skizziert. Daneben werden die sieben Beiträge des Schwerpunkts überblicksartig vorgestellt.

The paper aims at showing the potential of a phenomenologically informed approach for the contemporary debate on democracy. While the role of affectivity has recently been reconsidered in social and political theory on various levels, the phenomenological insights into the affective side of subject- as well as community-formation can offer a precious tool for methodological refinements, so the argument. Inversely, the paper suggests that these analyses on subjectivity and inter-subjectivity should be enlarged so as to include what often remained a blind spot of phenomenology: the political dimension. The paper sets off to rehabilitate a concept – being concerned – that was at the center of conceptions of democratic legitimacy before being removed from it. Against the ‘juridization’ of concernedness and its limits (Habermas), the point is to show how, by drawing on the descriptive resources offered by Husserl, Levinas, Waldenfels, and Esposito, concernedness becomes relevant for re-describing the emergence of individual and collective political agents. The shared response to an initial experience of being concerned opens up an alternative account of democratic processes that, venturing beyond issues of legitimacy or sovereignty, outlines the perspective of a radical democracy out of shared concern.