Broken Hegemonies

by Reiner Sch rmann

Overview

". . . a book of striking originality and depth, a brilliant and quite new interpretation of the nature and history of philosophy." —John Sallis

In Broken Hegemonies, the late distinguished philosopher Reiner Schürmann offers a radical rethinking of the history of Western philosophy from the Greeks through Heidegger. Schürmann interprets the history of Western thought and action as a series of eras governed by the rise and fall of certain dominating philosophical ideas that contained the seeds of their own destruction. These eras coincided with their dominant languages: Greek, Latin, and vernacular tongues. Analyzing philosophical texts from Parmenides, Plotinus, and Cicero, through Augustine, Meister Eckhardt, and Kant, to Heidegger, Schürmann traces the arguments by which these ideas gained hegemony and by which their credibility was ultimately demolished. Recognizing the failure of ultimate norms, Broken Hegemonies questions how humanity today is to think and act in the absence of principles.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253215475
Publisher:	Indiana University Press (Ips)
Publication date:	10/29/2003
Series:	Studies in Continental Thought
Pages:	712
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Reiner Schürmann (1941–1993) was Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. His books include Meister Eckhardt: Mystic and Philosopher and Heidegger on Being and Acting: From Principles to Anarchy (both Indiana University Press).

Reginald Lilly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Skidmore College, is translator of The Principle of Reason by Martin Heidegger and editor of The Ancients and the Moderns (both Indiana University Press).

Table of Contents

Translator's Remarks

VOLUME ONE
General Introduction

PART ONE
IN THE NAME OF THE ONE: THE GREEK HEGEMONIC FANTASM
I. ITS INSTITUTION: THE ONE THAT HOLDS TOGETHER (PARMENIDES)
Chapter 1. Contradictories: Their Juxtaposition and Their Confusion
Chapter 2. Contraries: The Foundation for Obligation
Chapter 3. On Power and Forces: The Normative System
Chapter 4. Henology Turned Against Itself?
Chapter 5. The Disparate: Narrative of a Journey

II. ITS DESTITUTION: THE ONE TURNED AGAINST ITSELF (PLOTINUS)
Introduction
Chapter 6. The Temporalizing Event
Chapter 7. The Singularising Contretemps

PART TWO
IN THE NAME OF NATURE:
THE HEGEMONIC LATIN FANTASM
Introduction
I. ITS INSTITUTION: THE PRINCIPLE OF TELIC CONTINUITY (CICERO AND AUGUSTINE)
Chapter 8. Concerning Singular Given Natures
Chapter 9. On the Erratic Differend
Chapter 10. On the Natural Double Bind: The Will Turned Against Itself

II. ITS DESTITUTION: THE DOUBLE BIND OF PRINCIPLE AND ORIGIN (MEISTER ECKHART)
Introduction
Chapter 11. Nature, Principle of Subordinations
Chapter 12. Feet On One's Neighbor's Head
Chapter 13. Nature Denatured by the Origin

VOLUME TWO
Preface: Analytic of Ultimates and Topology of Broken Hegemonies

PART THREE:
IN THE NAME OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
THE MODERN HEGEMONIC FANTASM

Introduction
Excursus: the consciousness of Ulysses

I. ITS INSTITUTION: OF THE CONSCIOUSNESS THAT DETERMINES (KANT WITH LUTHER)
A. The Regime of Passive Consciousness: 'An Obedient Spirit that Lets Itself be Broken...'
Chapter 1. The Identity of the 'I'
Chapter 2. A Pathetic Differend
B. The Regime of Spontaneous Consciousness: "I, the Possessor of the World"
Introduction
Chapter 3. The Torments of Autonomy
Chapter 4. The Differend in Being-For-Consciousness

II. THE DIREMPTION: ON DOUBLE BINDS WITHOUT A COMMON NOUN (HEIDEGGER)
Introduction: Proteus Alone Can Save Us Now
Chapter 5. On the Historical Differend
Chapter 6. What, the Deferred There?
Chapter 7. On the Discordance of Times
Conclusion
Notes
Index