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". . . 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.
List 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
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).
Summary
Reinterprets the history of Western philosophy from Greece to modern times.
