Der deutsch-griechische Philosophiehistoriker und politische Denker Panajotis Kondylis lebte von 1943 bis 1998. Er hat ein umfangreiches Werk hinterlassen, in das die einzelnen Aufsätze des Bandes einführen. "Die Urteile von Kondylis zeichnen sich aus durch Nüchternheit und einen Ernüchterungseffekt, durch Klarheit der Argumente und ihre Begründung, durch Unbestechlichkeit einer offenen Parteinahme jenseits aller modischen Schwankungen und Zumutungen. Seine wissenssoziologisch aufregende These, dass sich Identitäten ändern können oder sukzessive auswechselbar werden, während die reale Existenz einer Person sich durchhält, dieser erfahrungsgesättigte (...) Satz beruht auf seiner ganz persönlichen Leistung, nämlich seine eigene Existenz nie aufgegeben oder gewechselt oder gar verraten zu haben". (shrink)

Human rights do not exist. To be more precise, in the year 1998 human rights do not exist and no one can know if they will exist in the future. This ascertainment is inescapable if we wish to strictly define the concept of “right” and “human right” without taking into consideration political-ideological expediencies. A “right” is not something that exists merely as a phantom in the minds of philosophers or that flourishes on the lips of propagandists. The very essence of (...) a right entails by definition that it can be demanded and imposed, and a “human right” can only be…. (shrink)

There are two main reasons for pairing these posthumously published essays of Paul Piccone (1940–2004) with those of Panajotis Kondylis (1943–1998). One, both of these authors, who died in the last few years, were my friends, whose lives moved along much the same general trajectory as my own. None of us could be described as an academic luminary; although neither Paul, who mentored later successful professors, nor Panajotis, who called himself a “Privatgelehrter,” periodically associated with Heidelberg and the (...) University of Athens, had as close an association as I've had with a long-term academic post. These brilliant social thinkers spent…. (shrink)

After the French Revolution, when “Left” and “Right” came to designate the two main political orientations in Europe, “modernity” became the dominant metaphysical horizon within which almost all political questions have been formulated. As Panajotis Kondylis has shown in Konservatismus and other works, earlier “pre-modern” conservative visions lingered on, buried mostly in fading institutions, but their time was up. In the 20th century, the major political ideologies—Bolshevism, fascism, Nazism, liberalism, etc.—have all been alternative modernist proposals for social reconstruction, concerned (...) primarily with how to modernize society in what these ideologies postulate as the most efficient, just and rational way. Most…. (shrink)

Observation of Reality and Theory Creation in Panagiotis Kondylis’ Thought In the first part of the paper the authors present an outline of the Polish perception of thoughts and ideas of Panagiotis Kondylis which has started to develop only recently. This is followed by demonstrating major issues present in the output of this Greek philosopher who was strongly linked both with Greece and with Germany. The paper closes with a discussion of Kondylis’ concept of theory creation demonstrated in his work (...) entitled Theorie des Krieges. Clausewitz – Marx – Engels – Lenin which was published in Stuttgart in 1998. Although the very foundation of his ideas is the theory of war by Carl von Clausewitz whom Kondylis perceived as a conceptual soul mate, the discussion per se is of a more universal nature and may pertain to the essence of developing any theory. The paper is to help the Polish reader to understand the ideas and thoughts of Kondylis, and thus to facilitate the perception of translations of his texts that were published in Studies in the history of philosophy. (shrink)