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First published in in 1976, Hermann Levin Goldschmidt's Contradiction Set Free, (Freiheit für den Widerspruch), reflects the push to explore new forms of critical thinking that gained momentum in the decade between Theodor Adorno's
Negative Dialectics of 1966 and Paul Feyerabend's
Against Method in 1975.
The book articulates Goldschmidt's reclamation of an epistemologically critical position that acknowledges the deep underlying link between the modes of production of knowledge and the social and political life they produce. In signalling a breakout from the academic rut and its repressive hold, Goldschmidt pointed beyond the ossified methods of a philosophical discourse whose oppressive consequences could no longer be ignored.Contradiction Set Free makes available for the first time in English a pivotal work by one of the great critical thinkers of the 20th century.
List of contents
I. The Discovery of Contradiction1. Contradiction From the Beginning
2. Contradiction in Thought
3. Contradiction in Faith
4. Plato's Dialectic
II. The Forgotten and Overblown Contradiction1. The Unity of the Middle Ages
2. The All of the Middle Ages
3. The Anxiety of the Middle Ages
4. The End of the Middle Ages
III. The Repression of Contradiction1. From Opposition to Contradiction
2. From Hegel to Marx and Kierkegaard
3. Mao Zedong's Contradiction Set Free
4. The Weakness of Every Dialectic
IV. Attempted Displacement1. Freedom of Technology
2. Freedom Through Technology
3. Technology Contra Freedom
4. Freedom Contra Technology
V. Attempted Oppression1. The Completeness of the Modern World
2. The Totalitarian Arrogation of Totality
3. The Fascist Arrogation of Force
4. The Right to Contradiction as the Right to Resistance
VI. Attempted Eradication1. Attempted Sabotage
2. Attempted Postponement
3. Attempted Dissipation
4. Attempted Annihilation
VII. The Challenge of Contradiction1. Outraged Freedom
2. Freedom Contra the State
3. Freedom through Challenge
4. Freedom contra Freedom
VIII. The Contradictions of Freedom1. Freedom instead of Subjugation
2. Freedom despite Liberation
3. Freedom despite Freedom
4. Limits of Freedom-in Freedom
IX. The Unavoidable Contradiction1. The Old Meaning
2. The Lost Meaning
3. The Enduring Meaning
4. The Reclaimed Meaning
X. The Unacceptable Contradiction1. Guilt and Exculpation
2. Guilt and Turning
3. The Good of Turning
4. In the End only Good!
XI. Set Contradiction Free!1. Dialogic instead of Dialectic
2. Dialogic without Dialogism
3. Set Contradiction Free!
4. Instead of Aufhebung - Aufgeräumtheit
XII. In Contradiction to the World1. The Challenged Environment
2. Challenging Maturity
3. Costs Claimed
4. Required: Humans!
Notes
About the author
Hermann Levin Goldschmidt (1914-1998) was an independent philosopher and champion of dialogical thinking. A native of Berlin, he fled to Zurich in 1938 and continued to live and work in Switzerland until his death in 1998.Willi Goetschel is Professor of German and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada.
Summary
First published in in 1976, Hermann Levin Goldschmidt’s Contradiction Set Free, (Freiheit für den Widerspruch), reflects the push to explore new forms of critical thinking that gained momentum in the decade between Theodor Adorno’s Negative Dialectics of 1966 and Paul Feyerabend’s Against Method in 1975.
The book articulates Goldschmidt’s reclamation of an epistemologically critical position that acknowledges the deep underlying link between the modes of production of knowledge and the social and political life they produce. In signalling a breakout from the academic rut and its repressive hold, Goldschmidt pointed beyond the ossified methods of a philosophical discourse whose oppressive consequences could no longer be ignored.Contradiction Set Free makes available for the first time in English a pivotal work by one of the great critical thinkers of the 20th century.
Foreword
This translation makes a powerful work by Hermann Levin Goldschmidt, one of the most important Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, available to an anglophone audience for the first time.
Additional text
Contradiction Set Free is one of Herman Levin Goldschmidt's most important books and it has lost none of its power since its publication forty years ago.This meticulous translation, together with Willi Goetschel's extremely helpful introduction, should go a long way to seeing that he is finally given his rightful due in the English-speaking world.
