The ideal of humanity.--The federation of humanity.--The moral progress of humanity.

Focusing on his essays “New value‐free sociology” and “Remarks on social conflict today,” this chapter discusses Adorno's assessments of how Karl Mannheim, Georg Simmel, Lewis Coser, and Ralf Dahrendorf have addressed the tensions and conflicts that beset contemporary society. The chapter draws on these sociologists' works and on Adorno's reading of them to elucidate core arguments in his critique of both their conceptions of the social world and their sociological modes of procedure. Particular emphasis is placed on Adorno's notion (...) of the potential of a sociological approach that is more suitable for gaining insight into the antagonistic capitalist condition. The key components of such an approach, notably experience, its interplay with theory, and sociology's response to appearance, are further illuminated with reference to passages that illustrate their operations in sociological research. (shrink)

Anhand eines bisher unveröffentlichten Briefentwurfs wird erläutert, warum Karl Kraus schließlich nicht auf einen Vorschlag Upton Sinclairs einging, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit ins Englische übersetzen und in einer sozialistischen Sammlung von “Volksklassikern” erscheinen zu lassen. Der Aufsatz berücksichtigt sowohl die Bestände des Kraus-Archivs als auch den Upton-Sinclair-Nachlaß der Indiana University.

In this paper we provide some keys for understanding the cryptic essay “Karl Kraus” by Walter Benjamin. For this purpose, we highlight the Kraus’s importance for the journalistic and political criticism that Benjamin was interested in, we introduce the reader to the three parts of the essay and we make a brief reflection on the construction of the concept of critique in Benjamin based on the work of Kraus.

Si l’immunité du philosophe de la connaissance aux penchants irrationalistes et au modèle tyrannique de Kraus ne fait pas de doute, l’intérêt pour ses outils trouve son sens dans la prise de conscience par le rationaliste des limites de l’Aufklärung. Contre les tentations élitistes de certains enthousiastes naïfs (la liberté naîtra de la lucidité acquise par la seule science et le seul exercice de la raison), Bouveresse tient la satire et l’ironie pour indispensables : le monde intellectuel n’est pas (...) moins violent et injuste que les autres mondes sociaux ; on ne peut y défendre l’honnêteté intellectuelle et l’exigence de justice sociale et économique sans accompagner l’exercice de la raison et les luttes pour un monde égalitaire par l’exercice d’une contre-violence au moins équivalente à la violence de l’attaque dont sont l’objet ces valeurs inséparables aux yeux du démocrate armé. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se tratan de establecer algunas analogías entre los conceptos de ¿lenguaje¿, ¿cita¿, ¿historia¿ y ¿traducción¿ presentes en la obra de Karl Kraus y Walter Benjamin. A partir de los textos de Benjamin sobre el escritor austriaco, se quieren poner de manifiesto la común consideración en estos autores del lenguaje como fuente originaria de sentido y su lucha contra la instrumentalización del texto escrito llevada a cabo por la prensa diaria.

*******Résume en français plus bas****** Karl Kraus’s favourable and conceptually complex comments of the portrait drawings byOskar Kokoschka in 1910 put us on the trail of a host of different phenomena of pictorial representation. Based on close-readings of several aphorisms by Kraus and drawings by Kokoschka, I suggest that there is something like realistic distortion and that the traditional concepts of style cannot account for all essential stylistic variations that are important in pictures. I argue that we (...) need to introduce the concept of subject specific style. This must be distinguished from other concepts such as signature style. I try to show how these conceptual distinctions are connected to the difference in representational range displayed by media that are based on traces, like photography, and by media based on testimony, like drawing or writing. *********** Résumé En 1910, Oskar Kokoschka produit une série de dessins pour la revue expressionniste berlinoise Der Sturm. L’un des portraits représente le satiriste Karl Kraus, un autre l’architecte Adolf Loos. Au même moment, Kraus fait paraître une série d’aphorismes qui commentent le travail de Kokoschka. Kraus part du travail de Kokoschka pour arriver à des principes généraux sur la représentation picturale. Une analyse des réflexions de l’écrivain et des deux dessins faits par Kokoschka nous permet non seulement de mieux comprendre comment un dessin peut saisir le caractère d’un modèle au-delà du physique, mais aussi de forger des concepts pour enrichir les notions de style traditionnelles. Nous soutenons dans notre article qu’il faut introduire l’idée d’un style à l’oeuvre pour compléter les notions de style habituelles.Le style à l’oeuvre peut être spécifique au sujet traité. Nous montrons en particulier comment le dessin permet des distorsions réalistes, difficiles à obtenir dans des médias basés sur la trace comme la photographie. (shrink)

Krause’s philosophy deserves to be memorized as the first link in a chain of thinking on animal rights that is still on the way today. Though Krause was not the first to talk of animal rights in the history of animal ethics, his theory of animal rights is pathbreaking in embedding a conception of animal rights in an all-encompassing metaphysical system. The essay situates Krause’s theory of animal rights in the framework of his general theory of rights and points to (...) the challenges Krause’s theory faces by the inevitability of trade-offs between animal and human rights. (shrink)

After a brief introduction to Krause’s life and work this article investigates the impression, based of the available sources, that Krause had an important influence on Schopenhauer’s philosophy. It then provides a concise systematic analysis of central elements of Krause’s and Schopenhauer’s thinking and thereby substantiates the claim that Krause did indeed have a significant influence on the development of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer.

Panentheism is an often-discussed alternative to Classical theism, and almost any discussion of panentheism starts by way of acknowledging Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832) as the person who coined the term.1 However, apart from this tribute, Krause's own panentheism is almost completely unknown. In what follows, I first present a brief overview of Krause's life and correct some misconceptions of his work before I turn to the core ideas of Krause's own panentheistic system of philosophy. In brief, Krause elaborates (...) a scientific holism that is anchored in intellectual intuition of the Absolute as the one principle of being and recognition. The task of philosophical speculation consequently is twofold: the analytic-ascending part of philosophy proceeds by way of transcendental reflection and according to Krause enables us to obtain intellectual intuition. The synthetic-descending part of philosophy starts by way of showing that science as a whole is an explication of the original union of the Absolute as apprehended in intellectual intuition. Once this is achieved, Krause argues that the emerging philosophy of science is most adequately referred to as “panentheism” since everything is what it is “in and through” the Absolute, while the Absolute itself is not reducible to anything in particular. I end by showing how to relate Krause's panentheism to recent philosophical discussion. (shrink)

The book provides the first analysis of Karl Christian Friedrich Krause_s system of philosophy and his panentheism in English. Karl Christian Friedrich Krause has bequeathed to us a system of philosophy which is little recognised in contemporary philosophy. This is both surprising and unfortunate, because Krause_s philosophical system has much to offer: Through transcendental reflection on the nature of the human, Krause understands God as the one infinite and unconditioned reality, and the ultimate necessary condition of knowledge. God (...) makes humanity, nature, and reason ultimately comprehensible as the essential categories of the divine Essence. God is thus the single, primary, object of science that is already logically presupposed even before His discovery. Science presupposes theology, and theology is best read as panentheism. (shrink)

Dem Autor geht es in erster Linie darum, einen in Deutschland weitgehend vergessenen Philosophen in den Mittelpunkt des Wissenschaftsdiskurses zu stellen. Der Thuringer Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, Schuler von Fichte und Schelling in Jena, entwickelte eine eigenstandige Philosophie, die sich einerseits der epochalen abendlandischen Geistestradition verpflichtet weiss, zugleich aber auch von der Kantischen Philosophie und ihrem kritischen Geist beeinflusst wurde. Krause ist einerseits Systemphilosoph, der immer wieder die Thematik des Absoluten oder Gottes in den Vordergrund stellt - in dieser (...) Hinsicht ist er spekulativer Idealist. Andererseits muss alle Philosophie beim Ich beginnen, sofern zeigt er sich als Denker des Transzendentalen. Krauses Philosophie ist zweistrahlig aufgebaut: Zum einen will er die endliche Welt aus Gott ableiten, andererseits soll das Ich zur Erkenntnis Gottes aufsteigen. Ausgehend von der Metaphysik wird dieser Aufstieg des Ich zum Absoluten in den verschiedenen Regionalphilosophien, in der Religion, Ethik und Asthetik thematisiert.". (shrink)

Karl Christian Friedrich Krause war ein bemerkenswerter Denker des Deutschen Idealismus. Seine Schriften können ohne Zweifel mit denen Hegels, Schellings und Fichtes konkurrieren. Gerade im Bereich der theoretischen Philosophie bietet das Krausesche Œuvre eine Fundgrube an Einsichten und Argumenten, die der heutigen, oftmals betont postmodernen oder atheistischen Philosophie eine dringend benötigte Kontrastfolie sein können. Sinn und Zweck der Arbeit ist es, den Panentheismus Krauses zeitgemäß darzustellen und Brückenschläge zur heutigen religionsphilosophischen Debatte aufzuzeigen.

Karl Friedrich Christian Krause’s concept of penal law, though little noticed in Germany, can be regarded as almost revolutionary for its time, as it assumes that public law is not only – negatively – intended to delimit and guarantee the citizens’ spheres of freedom. Rather, the law should also promote the welfare of the citizenry. As a result, Krause’s considerations of penal law do not focus on law enforcement alone, but just as much on the resocialization of both the (...) offender and the victim. In contrast to utilitarian positions, the perpetrator must not be instrumentalized for the benefit of society, e. g. for preventative purposes; rather, the offender has a subjective right to be rehabilitated. Correspondingly, the victim has a right to compensation on the part of the state inasmuch as the offender’s means prove insufficient. (shrink)