On the “Spiritual” in Aesthetic Experience; or, The “Nonfactual in Facticity”

This article revisits the original meaning of “spiritual” as distinct from “intellectual” experience in Theodor W. Adorno’s late work. It does so through the implicitly Hegelian motifs in Wassily Kandinsky’s manifesto “On the Spiritual in Art,” a text that Adorno engages in passing in his Aesthetic Theory and that was, in turn, deeply influenced by the thought of Kandinsky’s nephew Alexandre Kojève, who also wrote an essay on his uncle’s paintings. This genealogy of motifs is of more than mere historical and anecdotal significance. At stake is nothing less than an accurate understanding of “spiritual experience [geistige Erfahrung]” as a more than merely theoretical matrix for what Adorno, in Negative Dialectics and the lecture courses, calls his materials studies. Rather than indicating largely esoteric or theosophical elements in Kandinsky’s influence on modernist aesthetic discourse, “spiritual experience,” in part read through the eyes of Kojève and, via him, Vladimir Soloviev, is thereby distinguished from what Adorno sees as an irrepressible tendency toward “spiritualization” in contemporary culture and the philosophy that reflects on it. Instead, it reveals a dimension of depth that the reception of Critical Theory has all too often ignored or disparaged.

Eric Weil e la «fine della storia»

O artigo visa mostrar como Eric Weil (1904-1977) recompreendeu a famosa tese do “fim da história”, elaborada por Alexandre Kojève (1902-1968) desde os anos de 1930, propondo uma nova versão de caráter essencialmente “kantiano pós-hegeliano”: um elemento teórico fundamental do inter histórico- filosófico weiliano, que emergiria claramente dos estudos específicos sobre Kant aos quais Weil se dedicou de modo pontual a partir da década de 1960. Veremos, portanto, como as reviravoltas “práticas” de tal recompreensão tenham de fato indicado a estrada para a constituição de uma nova filosofia política, eminentemente crítica e antidogmática.

THE CRUCIFIED GOD AT THE BASIS OF MODERN EUROPEAN SCIENCE AND SOURCES OF THE INTERNALIST ANTIPOSITIVISM. ARTICLE THREE: HEGEL

The Religion-Science relationship is often understood as problematic, and they themselves as sides in the confrontation between clericalism and scientism. Against the background of these polemic party positions the study of the positive significance of theological toposes, tropes, mythologemes in science stands out, when it is conducted secularly, and even more so emphatically atheistically. One of the vivid examples of that is met in the reflections of two French philosophers of Russian origin, Alexandre Koyré and Alexandre Kojève. By studying the genesis of science, Koyré discovers that modern mathematical physics requires a homogeneous world, and it became so for the first time in Christian Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. Kojève continues Koyré’s reflections – according to him, the application of the celestial science of mathematics to terrestrial physics became possible through the habit of European thinkers to the scandalous thought about the Incarnation of God, about the possibility for the infinity and for the perfection to be born in the flesh and thus “heal” it. The positions of both have their origin in Hegel’s thoughts, but in some points do not agree with him. The research consists of three parts published in three separate articles: on the foundation of Modern science according to Koyré, Kojève and Hegel. The here presented third part is about Hegel.

Burnout der Autorität

Avital Ronell is currently one of the world´s most renowned and stimulating literary scholars; she has worked with Jacques Derrida and Sarah Kofman, among others. Her new book analyses the decline of various forms of authority. In writing about Alexandre Kojève, Sarah Kofman and Hannah Arendt, Ronell examines the melancholy which accompanies the diagnosis of the burnout of authority. Didn´t we conceive of authority as a stabilizing factor for many forms of life, criticizing which was always borne by respect for what was criticized? Indeed, deconstruction never simply equals destruction. In times of widespread political regression, of which populism is only one manifestation among others, Ronell's inventive ideas have a contemporary significance.

Kritik

Sophia Gräfe: Noch einmal nachdenken. Tierforschung für Philosophen (Martin Böhnert, Methodologische Signaturen. Ein philosophischer Versuch zur Systematisierung der empirischen Erforschung des Geistes von Tieren) Arne Klawitter: Die Erfahrung des Fleisches und die Hermeneutik des Begehrens. Michel Foucaults vierter Band von »Sexualität und Wahrheit« (Michel Foucault, Die Geständnisse des Fleisches) Nikola Mirković: Anerkennung als Autorität (Alexandre Kojève, Der Begriff der Autorität) Johannes Röß: Krisenhaftes Denken. Erkundungen zu Georg Simmels Philosophie und ihrer Wirkung (Gerald Hartung/Heike Koenig/Tim-Florian Steinbach (Hrsg.), Der Philosoph Georg Simmel) Volker Schürmann: Bekennender Anti-Reduktionismus (Thomas Fuchs, Verteidigung des Menschen. Grundfragen einer verkörperten Anthropologie)

Tempo e filosofia na 'Fenomenologia do espírito' de Hegel

Nesse texto, pretendemos indicar uma via alternativa para a leitura e compreensão da Fenomenologia do espírito de Hegel. Em relação à leitura antropológico-existencial de Alexandre Kojève e Jean Hyppolite, concordamos com Adorno que a Fenomenologia não é uma história arquetípica do humano em direção ao filósofo, nem trata da passagem de uma consciência comum não filosófica à consciência-de-si filosófica. O objeto dela seria a própria filosofia. Mas não a filosofia em geral e sim a filosofia tal como o idealismo alemão a concebe.