Accompanying CD contains a radio program originally broadcast on Hessischen Rundfunk on Dec. 12, 1967, entitled: Die Maschinen und der Fortschritt : Gedanken zu enier Geistesgeschichte der Technik.

[1] Die Mathematik und die Wissenschaften.--2. Die Mathematik in der Kunst.

A closer look reveals that the intensely researched decade of German Geistesgeschichte was a heterogeneous formation, lacking a unified method and a uniform discursive space, whether of philosophical or any other provenience. By the same token, today one can observe the spectral return of demonized aspects of Geistesgeschichte in similarly capacious and hence diffuse concepts (Anthropocene, diversity, ecology). Against those tendencies, the article suggests a return to the problem of literary history, first articulated by Geistesgeschichte and unsolved (...) to this day. (shrink)

Geistesgeschichte was a serious response to a modal-quantitative problem in Classical German Philosophy. In an attempt at solving the problem, it glorified the historically given as spirit, and for this reason became ideology. Nonetheless, Geistesgeschichte is heir to the promise that history, as the history of the spirit, may yet rise to transcend what is given.

The fixation on canonical works that characterizes the disciplines of literary study in Germany is an inheritance of Geistesgeschichte; only literary historical curiosity, however, can secure the epistemological basis of literary study and protect it from disciplinary tedium.

How is it possible to investigate philosophical texts analytically, but simultaneously to contextualize them historically and thus to pursue an analytic Geistesgeschichte? The following contribution answers this question in four theses: (1) According to the Nominalism-Thesis, individual texts as opposed to general trends or ideas are to be attended to. (2) The Relationism-Thesis holds that these texts are always to be related to other texts within their historical context. (3) The Multi-Perspectivism-Thesis emphasizes the fact that texts in various contexts (...) are to be considered so that different kinds of relation become clear. (4) Finally, the Historiography-Thesis requires that in addition to the texts themselves interpretive schemata are also to be critically examined. All four theses are explicated with reference to medieval philosophy. (shrink)

Taking as its point of departure certain necessary distinctions to be drawn regarding the concept of Geistesgeschichte – a concept by no means reducible to the early 20th-century school of literary-historical research –, this contribution calls to mind some enduring tasks of our discipline. The role played by the epistemic tools of conceptual history in the fulfillment of those tasks is exemplified and discussed with regard to a normatively rich concept of understanding as the final goal of literary studies.

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