Der Weg zum Werk, von U. Schöndorfer.--Von Augustinus bis zu Pascual Jordan, von B. Bavink.--Begriff der Potenz und neue Physik, von H. Conrad-Martius.--Zur Terminologie der Naturphilosophie, von A. Dempf.--Die Elementenlehre des Platon und Demokrit, von P. Wilpert. Prinzipielle Subjecktivierungsgrenzen, von A. Konrad.--Zur Fritz Mauthners Sprachkritik, von Stürmann.--Positivismus und gefährdete Humanität, von F. Joachim v. Rintelen.--Zum Problem der sittlichen Sanktion, von A. Wilmsen. Das existenzielle Denken. Sein Wert und seine Grenzen, von A. Guggenberger.

Perhaps, as Professor Battaglia remarks in his Introduction, the German people has the philosophical vocation: Si può persino dire, con una certa enfasi, che il popolo tedesco ha ‘la’ vocazione filosofica. Certainly it was a happy idea to invite distinguished German and Austrian philosophers to explain each his philosophical standpoint. The project was successfully carried out by the Institute of Philosophy in the University of Bologna. The list of contributors speaks for itself: Theodor W Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Leo Gabriel, Hans (...) G Gadamer, Romano Guardini, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Helmut Kuhn, Ludwig Landgrebe, Johannes Baptista Lotz, Karl Löwith, Friedrich Max Müller, Josef Pieper, Helmut Plessner, Fritz-Joachim von Rintelen, Amadeo Silva-Tarouca, Ernst Topitsch, and Carl F von Weizsäcker. The page or two of biography that precedes each essay is helpful; there are as many contrasts here as there are between the different philosophical perspectives outlined by the contributors; and there is one striking similarity in the interruption of the careers of so many of these men—all now in their sixties or older—by the Nazi period. Professor Felice Battaglia’s Introduzione deserves to stand with the other contributions; it is a summary that weaves together with considerable skill the strands of German philosophy represented by writers as various as Bloch and Guardini or Pieper and Plessner. German philosophy, he points out, has come a long way from the gnoseological problems of Kant or the absolutism of Hegel; it has unexpectedly found its way, via phenomenology and existentialism, back to a situation in which one can say: Teologia non spaventa molti pensatori tedeschi. (shrink)

Perhaps, as Professor Battaglia remarks in his Introduction, the German people has the philosophical vocation: Si può persino dire, con una certa enfasi, che il popolo tedesco ha ‘la’ vocazione filosofica. Certainly it was a happy idea to invite distinguished German and Austrian philosophers to explain each his philosophical standpoint. The project was successfully carried out by the Institute of Philosophy in the University of Bologna. The list of contributors speaks for itself: Theodor W Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Leo Gabriel, Hans (...) G Gadamer, Romano Guardini, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Helmut Kuhn, Ludwig Landgrebe, Johannes Baptista Lotz, Karl Löwith, Friedrich Max Müller, Josef Pieper, Helmut Plessner, Fritz-Joachim von Rintelen, Amadeo Silva-Tarouca, Ernst Topitsch, and Carl F von Weizsäcker. The page or two of biography that precedes each essay is helpful; there are as many contrasts here as there are between the different philosophical perspectives outlined by the contributors; and there is one striking similarity in the interruption of the careers of so many of these men—all now in their sixties or older—by the Nazi period. Professor Felice Battaglia’s Introduzione deserves to stand with the other contributions; it is a summary that weaves together with considerable skill the strands of German philosophy represented by writers as various as Bloch and Guardini or Pieper and Plessner. German philosophy, he points out, has come a long way from the gnoseological problems of Kant or the absolutism of Hegel; it has unexpectedly found its way, via phenomenology and existentialism, back to a situation in which one can say: Teologia non spaventa molti pensatori tedeschi. (shrink)