Heideggers Ungebrauch

This essay is concerned with a topic that has been widely discussed in East Asia for decades – the relationship between Martin Heidegger’s thought and Daoism. At the centre of my reflections is a motif that appears in Heidegger’s 1945 “Evening Conversation: In a Prisoner of War Camp in Russia, between a Younger and an Older Man” – a “doing that is a letting” (ein Tun, das ein Lassen ist). Starting from this, I discuss Heidegger’s approach to the Daoist “thinking of the useless” expressed in his Black Notebooks and other texts. In the development of Heidegger’s thought the “turning” (die Kehre) marks an important juncture. I propose speaking of a second or transcultural turning, which begins around 1943. For this transformation in Heidegger’s thought, what has been of outstanding importance is his preoccupation with Daoist texts, and especially his reading of the classical texts Lǎozǐ and Zhuāngzǐ. This is evident in his numerous explicit or implicit references to the Daoist classics. In 1945, in a situation of extraordinary emergency, Heidegger refers to Zhuāngzǐ’s motif of uselessness and the “necessity of the unnecessary”. This can be seen as a personal escape from responsibility, but also, importantly, as a way out of his deep entanglement with National Socialism. Although the way Heidegger proposes is arguably twisted and disturbing, its value lies in its providing a necessary perspective from which to unfold the critical potential of transcultural philosophy.

„Auch die Natur wartet auf die Revolution.“

In this article, Herbert Marcuse’s nature-ethical considerations, which have to date been scarcely received, are used to develop perspectives on how the nature-ethical gap in contemporary Critical Theory could be closed. The central idea is that nature is tobe recognized as a subject in its own right without needing to anthropomorphize it in the process. The advocatory ethics of nature, which is outlined here, differs from current sustainability and environmental ethics primarily in that it maintains the tension between an anthropocentric and an ecocentric approach and does not resolve it in one direction. Marcuse’s so-called “liberation of nature” is understood as a means for the “liberation of humans”, but the latter can only succeed if the former is also carried out.

Ohne-Tun und Selbstwandel

In the text “The Principles of a Liberal Social Order”, Friedrich A. von Hayek quotes from Chapter 57 of the Daoist classic Lǎozǐ 老子 (alternative transliterations are Lao Tzu, Laotse, etc.; the text is also known under the title Dàodéjīng or Tao Te King 道德經). Appearing in a text devoted primarily to the concept of “spontaneous order”, the quote opens up questions regarding the relationship between liberalism and Daoism, which I address in this essay. The discussion comprises three parts. In the first part, I turn to the translation cited by Hayek and, by way of a commentary to the translation, I attempt to gain access to the motifs of “effortless action/without doing” (wúwéi 無為), “self-transformation” (zìhuà 自化) and “self-government” (zìzhì 自治); the second part offers a hermeneutic commentary through which I discuss interpretative approaches found in the Chinese commentarial tradition; finally, the third part outlines transcultural correspondences which explore the political meaning of the Daoist “without doing” and the idea of “spontaneous order” in the context of the discursive struggle between the “democratic West” and “authoritarian China”.

Das Können des Nichtkönnens und das Tun ohne Tun

In this essay, Christoph Menke’s “aesthetics of force” converses with contemporary Chinese philosophy, especially with the field of Transcultural Research in the Zhuāngzǐ conducted in Taiwan. The starting point of the following reflections is that “the artist is able to be unable” (der Künstler kann das Nichtkönnen). How can we philosophically describe a way of doing that retains self-awareness in the midst of self-forgetfulness? What Zhuāngzǐ discusses is an aesthetic cultivation of “contemplative perception” (Schau/guān 觀) in the midst of doing. His language is able to describe and interpret from within a way of doing that refrains from purposeful action. Menke’s approach corresponds with my reflections on Daoism and the book Zhuāngzǐ developed in recent years. Particularly important in this context is the exploration of relating aesthetics to ethical and political questions through an aesthetic transformation of subjectivity. Following the linguistic dynamics associated with the transcultural interweaving of texts, this essay connects Menke’s interpretation of Nietzsche and my interpretation of the Zhuāngzǐ. In so doing, I hope to set in motion a change in thinking on both sides.

Edgar Zilsels „Sozialismus 1943“ im Kontext

In the summer of 1943 Edgar Zilsel resigned from his membership in the exile organization of Austrian Social Democrats, a political movement he had joined as a young man back in Vienna. Zilsel (1891–1944) is known as an innovative scholar bridging philosophy, history and sociology of science, and belonging to the so-called left wing of the Vienna Circle of Logical Emipricism. Details of his political convictions are less recognized. A recently detected manuscript illuminates his worldview: His resignation letter had been accompanied by a short exposition of his interpretation of socialism near the end of World War II. The article introduces Zilsel, his life and work and publishes for the first time Zilsel’s statement from 1943.