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Angels, The Space Of Time, And Apocalyptic Blindness: On Günther Anders’ Endzeit — Endtime, Babette Babich

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Anders was a preeminent critic of technology and critic of the atomic bomb as he saw this hermeneutico-phenomenologically in the visceral sense of being and time: the sheer that of its having been used (where the Nietzschean dialectic of the ‘having been’ reflects the essence of modern technology) as well as the bland politics of nuclear proliferation functions as programmatic aggression advanced in the name of defense and deterrence. The tactic of sheerly technological, automatic, mechanical, aggression is carried out in good conscience. The preemptive strike is, as Baudrillard observed, the opponent’s fault: such are the wages of evil. Violence …

Philosophische Figuren, Frauen Und Liebe: Zu Nietzsche Und Lou, Babette Babich

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No abstract provided.

On Nietzsche’S Judgment Of Style And Hume’S Quixotic Taste: On The Science Of Aesthetics And ‘Playing’ The Satyr, Babette Babich

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This essay reviews Nietzsche’s discussion of scholarly judgments of style beginning with his own inaugural lecture at Basel together with David Hume’s stylistic reflections in Hume's “On the Standard of Taste.” This casts light both on the context and the substance of Nietzsche’s own scholarly concern with the question of style and taste in terms of what Nietzsche called the “science of aesthetics” and consequently of scholarly judgment in both classics (or classical philology, here including archaeology and historiography) and philosophy. I also include a brief discussion of Nietzsche’s phenomenological performance practice of dance or playing the “satyr.”

On Nietzsche’S Judgment Of Style And Hume’S Quixotic Taste: On The Science Of Aesthetics And ‘Playing’ The Satyr, Babette Babich

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Genius Loci. Zu Nietzsche, Lou Und Dem Sacro Monte, Bzw. Den Sacri Monti, Babette Babich

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Politics And Heidegger: Aristotle, Superman, And Žižek, Babette Babich

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This essay discusses Heidegger's thinking on the political and technology in the context of metaphysics in an age that is increasingly directed to both technology and the imaginary or the virtual. The context of Aristotelian phronesis is traced back to Aristotle's youth in Macedonia and the circumstance of war and world conquest, to the allure of a comic book character (that would be the Action Comic's figure of Superman) and the cinematic seduction of a pair of eyeglasses to conclude with a review of Latour's network actants and Žižek on Marxism (and Occupy Wall Street).

Geworfenheit Und Prometheische Scham Im Zeitalter Der Transhumanen Kybernetik Technik Und Machenschaft Bei Martin Heidegger, Fritz Lang Und Günther Anders, Babette Babich

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Untersucht werden soll hier die Wirkung Heideggers auf Günther Anders. Dabei spiegelt Anders eine ganze Etappe Wirkungsgeschichte, denn er war Schüler von Husserl sowie von Paul Tillich – und zudem, vielleicht am wichtigsten, weil diese Beziehung die schwierigste ist, auch von Theodor W. Adorno.2 Günther Anders, der damals noch Günther Stern hieß, könnte eigentlich als eine Art Verkörperung der Phänomenologie gelten, war doch gerade er sowohl hermeneutisch geschult als auch ein früher Anhänger der Frankfurter Schule – als beide noch in anfänglichem Glanz und Fülle strahlten. Eigentlich aber reden wir gar nicht über Heidegger und seine Schüler, außer in der …

Martin Heidegger On Günther Anders And Technology: On Ray Kurzweil, Fritz Lang, And Transhumanism, Babette Babich

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No abstract provided.

La Fin De La Pensée? Philosophie Analytique Contre Philosophie Continentale, Babette Babich

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Nietzsches Hermeneutische, Phänomenologische Wissenschafts-Philosophie. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen Zu Altphilologie Und Physiologie, Babette Babich

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Sloterdijk’S Cynicism: Diogenes In The Marketplace, Babette Babich

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The Birth Of Kd Lang’S Hallelujah Out Of The ‘Spirit Of Music’: Performing Desire And ‘Recording Consciousness’ On Facebook And Youtube, Babette Babich

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The Hallelujah Effect on the Internet

The initial focus of this essay, apart from important preliminary references to Leonard Cohen is on kd lang, not as composer (although she is one) but musical performer and not as guitarist (although she is one) but as a singer and although her live performances have to make all the difference, very specifically, for the sake of any analysis, specifically as her singing is available in video format on YouTube. Of course there are many readings of kd lang and popular music, and of course most of them focus on the way she dresses, …

Requiem, Babette Babich

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The Philosopher And The Volcano, Babette Babich

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Nietzsche's Zarathustra echoes Empedocles' as orator or speaker especially if reviewed in terms of Empedocles' esoteric Katharmoi or Purifications. This essay reads Zarathustra teaching of the eternal return of the same as the teaching of going to ground, that is: death and rebirth, arguing that death is present at the start and already at work in the section entitled The Adder's Bite. Indeed it is the explicit subtext of the overman.

Like Empedocles, Nietzsche's Zarathustra tells us that the human being is something that should be overcome. and thus it makes a difference that we hear Zarathustra proclaim this teaching …

Le Zarathoustra De Nietzsche Et Le Style Parodique. A Propos De L’Hyperanthropos De Lucien Et Du Surhomme De Nietzsche, Babette Babich

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Abstract

Nietzsche’s Übermensch is derived from Lucian of Samosata’s term hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances in the context of that terminological origination in Lucian’s Kataplous — literally: sailing into port — referring to the journey of the soul into the afterlife, as escorted by Hermes and ferried by Charon along with myriads of others facing the same fate. The Kataplous he tyrannos, a title usually rendered as the Downward Journey (or The Tyrant), is a Menippean satire telling the tale of the “overman” supposed superior to others of “lesser” station in …

"An Impoverishment Of Philosophy", Babette Babich

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Interview on philosophy journals and editing, academic publishing, digital content, the analytic continental divide in philosophy, its persistence along with the reasons for its denial, philosophy curricula.

The Birth Of Kd Lang’S Hallelujah Out Of The ‘Spirit Of Music’: Performing Desire And ‘Recording Consciousness’ On Facebook And Youtube, Babette Babich

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No abstract provided.

Schrödinger And Nietzsche On Life: The Eternal Recurrence Of The Same, Babette Babich

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Schrödinger and Nietzsche on Life: The Eternal Recurrence of the Same

This essay explores Schrödinger’s reflections on measurement, consciousness, and personal identity. Schrödinger’s, What Is Life? is read together with Nietzsche’s own reflections on the same question, in his aphorism What is Life? together with Nietzsche’s teaching of the eternal return of the selfsame. Schrödinger’s own thinking is influenced as is Nietzsche’s by Schopenhauer but Schrödinger also has the Vedic tradition as this influenced Schopenhauer himself in view.

Zu Nietzsches Statuen: Skulptur Und Das Erhabene, Babette Babich

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Metaphern aus dem Feld der Bildhauerein kommen überraschend oft bei Nietzsche vor: von der Statue als einem Ideal von Unweglichkeit ebenso wie von der Skulptur als einer Metapher der Selbst-Darstellung, bis hin zu Nietzsches ikonoklastischer Klärung: wie mit dem Hammer zu philosophieren sei.

In Bezug auf die griechische Platik sowie Nietzsche’s Texte argumentiert die Autorin mit Nietzsche gegen eine damals und noch heute weit verbreitete Auffassung, wonach wir solche Statuen fast unvermeidlich aus einem jüdisch-christlichen Gesichtspunkt betrachten. Außerdem geht sie besonders ein auf Nietzsches Beschwörung der Skulptur in dem Zarathustra-Abschnitt Von den Erhabenen.

Adorno On Science And Nihilism, Animals, And Jews, Babette Babich

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No less than Heidegger or Nietzsche, Adorno had his own critical notions of truth/untruth. But Adorno’s readers are unsettled by the barest hint of anything that might be taken to be anti-science. Thus it is argued that Adorno opposes not science but scientism. But, and here not unlike Arendt, Adorno argued that so-called “scientistic” tendencies are the very conditions of society and of scientific thought.” I ask how we are to read Adorno by exploring his thought on animals and nihilism.

Nietzsche And Lou, Eros And Art : On Lou’S Triangles And The « Exquisite Dream » Of Sacro Monte, Babette Babich

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The Ister: Between The Documentary And Heidegger’S Lecture Course Politics, Geographies, And Rivers, Babette Babich

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The Ister, the 2004 documentary by the Australian scholars and videographers, David Barison, a political theorist, and Daniel Ross, a philosopher, appeals to Martin Heidegger’s 1942 lecture course, Hölderlins Hymne «Der Ister»and the video takes us «backward» as the river flows: beginning from the Danube’s delta where it ends in the sea and «journeying» with it to its source in the Alps.

the value of the Barison/Ross documentary for both political theory and philosophy is its illustration of the technological incursions or assaults on the river itself, that is to say: its representation of the ‘uses’ and hence …

The Philosopher And The Volcano, Babette Babich

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No abstract provided.

Towards A Critical Philosophy Of Science: Continental Beginnings And Bugbears, Whigs, And Waterbears, Babette Babich

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Continental philosophy of science has developed alongside mainstream analytic philosophy of science. But where continental approaches are inclusive, analytic philosophies of science are not – excluding not merely Nietzsche’s philosophy of science but Gödel’s philosophy of physics. As a radicalization of Kant, Nietzsche’s critical philosophy of science puts science in question and Nietzsche’s critique of the methodological foundations of classical philology bears on science, particularly evolution as well as style (in art and science). In addition to the critical (in Mach, Nietzsche, Heidegger but also Husserl just to the extent that continental philosophy of science tends to depart from a …

Technik Und Machenschaft Bei Martin Heidegger Und Günther Anders. Mit Einigen Bemerkungen Zu Ray Kurzweils Urknall, Babette Babich

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Early Continental Philosophy Of Science, Babette Babich

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Great Men, Little Black Dresses, & The Virtues Of Keeping One’S Feet On The Ground, Babette Babich

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One can use phenomenology, along with the usual tools of scholarship and analysis, to make the point that the promises of the 1960’s and 1970’s especially those of the women’s movement, have yet to bear significant fruit in the academy. Hence, for everybody’s non-thingly phenomenology of non-practice, a handy-dandy wiki-check on the net yields the claim that “U.S. Department of Education reports indicate that philosophy is one of the least proportionate, and possibly the least proportionate, fields in the humanities with respect to gender,” with a rather dismal addendum reporting that in “2004, the percentage of Ph.D.s in philosophy going …

"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Or Nietzsche And Hermeneutics In Gadamer, Lyotard, And Vattimo, Babette Babich

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Apart from reading Nietzsche's words on his characterization as an educator in suspicion with some suspicion, what does Nietzsche offer hermeneutics? This essay takes up this question by talking about the politics of interpretation, hermeneutics, and genealogy. In the process, we can address Lyotard's enthusiastic fealty to technology and offer yet once more requiem for the postmodern, understood here through (and hence contra) Lyotard as the simulacrum of communication that is the internet.

Das ‚Problem Der Wissenschaft‘ Oder Nietzsches Philosophische Kritik Wissenschaftlicher Vernunft, Babette Babich

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Ex Aliquo Nihil: Nietzsche On Science And Modern Nihilism. Acpq, 84-2 (Spring 2010): 231-256., Babette Babich

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This essay explores the nihilistic coincidence of the ascetic ideal and Nietzsche’s localization of science in the conceptual world of anarchic socialism as Nietzsche indicts the uncritical convictions of modern science by way of a critique of the causa sui, questioning both religion and the enlightenment as well as both free and unfree will and condemning the “poor philology” enshrined in the language of the “laws” of nature. Reviewing the history of philosophical nihilism in the context of Nietzsche’s “tragic knowledge” along with political readings of nihilism, willing nothing rather than not willing at all, today’s this-worldly and very planetary …