Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) was one of the most significant German philosophers of the twentieth century. His publications include The Legibility of the World, Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Genesis of the Copernican World, Work on Myth, and Out of the Cave.
Spencer Hawkins is an Instructor in the Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas program at Bilkent University, Turkey.
This English translation of <i>Das Lachen der Thrakerin</i>, the original German of which first appeared with Suhrkamp in 1987, will no doubt intensify the impression among anglophone readers that Blumenberg is a decidedly historical and literary philosopher whose own thinking emerges from an almost obsessive level of engagement with the minutiae of Western intellectual history, including the genre of the philosophical anecdote ... Like many of Blumenberg's works, <i>Das Lachen der Thrakerin </i>demands a lot of the reader: a detailed knowledge of the Western tradition, not only of philosophy, but of letters in general, from the Presocratics to the present; and patience with an argumentative method which revels in the detours and the details, and which is thin on orienting summaries (here the highly informative Afterword and scholarly apparatus provided by Hawkins offer much historical context and orientation).
Modern Language Review
Greek astronomer Thales of Miletus was the original absent-minded professor. He was walking and studying the night sky, it is said, when he tripped and fell into a well, leading him to theorize that water—and not a god or gods—was the prime mover of reality. German-Jewish ‘philosophical anthropologist’ Blumenberg follows the myth of Thales through the ages to show that the scientific endeavor is necessary but also fundamentally ridiculous. It culminates with an attack on ‘incomprehensible arrogance’ as the most destructive human tendency, reaffirming modesty and skepticism. Today everything is made of data instead of water; Blumenberg, translated with great care by Spencer Hawkins, reminds me that we are still as ridiculous as Thales.
- David Auerbach, Slate Magazine
In its sweeping scope and singular focus, Hans Blumenberg’s <i>The Laughter of the Thracian Woman</i> provides a monadic history of how to read the beginning of thinking as located precisely at the nexus of storytelling and reflection, literature and philosophy. In Blumenberg’s series of relentless reconstructions and analyses, the telling and re-telling of the anecdote of Thales falling into a well – over and over again, from Plato to Heidegger, accompanied by the Thracian woman’s laughter – comes to form the central image for the tension within philosophy between theoretical reflection and intuitive insight.
Paul Fleming, Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Director, Institute for German Cultural Studies (IGCS), Cornell University, USA
Hans Blumenberg stands as one of the most important and innovative thinkers of the twentieth century. As a philosopher, historian of science, and literary scholar, his work has made indispensable contributions to a broad range of fields across the Humanities and the Social Sciences. This impeccably nuanced translation of The Laughter of the Thracian Woman promises to enhance our understanding of Blumenberg’s methodology and the theoretical premises that drive his thought, while offering key insights into the perennial tensions between theory and realism, contemplation and action, philosophical reflection and the Lebenswelt.
John T. Hamilton, William R. Kenan Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Chair, Germanic Languages and Literatures, Harvard University, USA
An important work by 20-century philosopher Hans Blumenberg, here translated into English for the first time, The Laughter of the Thracian Woman describes the reception history of an anecdote best known from Plato’s Theaetetus dialogue: while focused on observing the stars, the early astronomer and proto-philosopher Thales of Miletus fails to see a well directly in his path and tumbles down. A Thracian servant girl laughs, amused that he sought to understand what was above him when he was not mindful of what was right in front of him.
Blumenberg sees the story as a highly sought substitute for our missing knowledge of the earliest historical events that would fit the label “theory.” By retelling the anecdote, philosophers reveal their distinctive values regarding absorption in curiosity, philosophy’s past, and the demand that theorists abide by sanctioned methods and procedures. In this work and others, Blumenberg demonstrates that philosophers’ most beloved images and anecdotes have become indispensable to philosophy as metaphors; that is, as representations whose meanings remain indefinite and invite frequent reinterpretation.
Introduction: Reading into the Distance
About this book
I. Theory as exotic behavior
II. Socrates is shifted into protohistory
III. Knowledge about heaven and capability on earth
IV. The theorist between comedy and tragedy
V. Reoccupations
VI. Astrological predominance
VII. Applause and scorn from the moralists
VIII. As adopted by historical critique
IX. From cursing sinners to scorn for the Creation
X. Tycho Brahe's coachman and the earthquake in Lisbon
XI. Absentmindednesses
XII. In what matter Thales had failed according to Nietzsche
XIII. How to recognize what matters
IVX. Interdisciplinarity as repetition of protohistory
Works Cited
This series offers a forum for the publication of new works in all areas of German Studies (German, Austrian, and Swiss literature, culture, and cinema from any period). New Directions in German Studies welcomes proposals that offer a fresh perspective on any vibrant aspect of the field.
A long and venerable tradition of "Germanistik" has been opened up in exciting ways in the past few decades. The series taps into that tradition and its growth into German Studies, reframing aspects of the discipline in light of concerns germane to these fields: German, Austrian, or Swiss national identity and aesthetics; historical approaches to German-language literature and cinema; the legacy of the Holocaust and its influence on aesthetics; politics and aesthetics; issues of canonization and periodization; the place of gender, queer, and postcolonial studies within German Studies; the aesthetics of exile; myth and national identity; cross-cultural dialogues and aesthetics; material culture; German-language aesthetics and globalization. New Directions in German Studies incorporates interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of the rich intellectual and cultural histories of the German-speaking countries. The series showcases studies focusing on hitherto underrepresented authors, as well as projects that seek to reframe canonical works in light of new perspectives and methodologies.
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Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) was one of the most significant German philosophers of the twentieth century. His publications include The Legibility of the World, Legitimacy of the Modern Age, Genesis of the Copernican World, Work on Myth, and Out of the Cave.
Spencer Hawkins is an Instructor in the Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas program at Bilkent University, Turkey.