« Categories of Human Form » : Some Notes on E.L. Doctorow and Historical Consciousness in American Fiction since 1960

Caliban ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
James R. Thompson
Author(s):  
Kresten Lundsgaard-Leth

”The Praxis of Understanding” offers a comparative reading of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics as well as Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method. The article elaborates on the two following theses that turn out to be both separate and highly interconnected. The first thesis is fleshed out in an analysis of Aristotle’s three modes of activity; namely poiesis, theoria and praxis. Here, it is suggested and argued that – contrary to Aristotle’s own self-understanding – praxis (rather than theoria) is actually the most essential human form of activity. The second thesis moves on to show that there is a conspicuous and underappreciated structural analogy between these Aristotelian modes and the three modes of understanding history in Gadamer’s Truth and Method. As such, the priority of effective-historical consciousness above what Gadamer refers to as enlightenment and historicism can be said to realize a latent potential in the Ethics, which both presupposes and transcends the Aristotelian analysis of praxis.


1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-378
Author(s):  
Richard Lehan
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Andrzej Przylebski

RESUMENPodemos encontrar en los escritos tardíos de Fichte un giro importante desde una perspectiva individualista del Yo hacia una perspectiva comunitaria del Nosotros. Él intentó en sus Discursos a la nación alemana explicitar una relación espiritual que trabaja contra la atomatización de una sociedad dada. Elaboró para ello un interesante concepto de nación cultural. El factor constitutivo de una nación como tal es el lenguaje, y con ello: el camino del pensamiento y la experiencia de la realidad. Fue un paso adelante, no sólo hacia la famosa afirmación hegeliana acerca del progreso histórico a través de las grandes naciones, sino también hacia un giro hermenéutico en la filosofía europea. La filosofía social del Fichte tardío es una interesante mezcla de racionalismo trascendental y conciencia histórica moderna. Llevó su pensamiento a las puertas de lo que el filósofo alemán contemporáneo H. Schnadelbach ha denominado como una segunda ilustración histórico-hermenéutica.PALABRAS CLAVESLENGUAJE, CULTURA, NACIÓN, HISTORIA HERMENÉUTICA, COMUNIDAD, ATOMIZACIÓNABSTRACTWe can find in the late writings of Fichte an important turn from an individualisticperspective of I to the community perspective of We. He tried in his Reden an die deutsche Nation to explicate a spiritual relationship that works against the atomization of a given society. He elaborated thus an interesting concept of cultural nation. The constitutive factor of such a nation is language, and with it: the ways of thinking and of experiencing the reality. It was a step ahead not only towards the famous Hegel’s claim about the historical progress through the great, leading nations, but also towards a hermeneutical turn in the European philosophy. Fichte’s late social philosophy is an interesting mixture of transcendental rationalism and modern historical consciousness. He situated his thought on the threshold to something the German contemporary philosopher H. Schnadelbach called a second, historicalhermeneutical Enlightenment.KEY WORDSLANGUAGE, CULTURE, NATION, HISTORY, HERMENEUTICS, COMMUNITY, ATOMIZATION


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