Ernst Bloch stands as a significant philosophical and political voice of twentieth-century Germany. His work is characterized by a profound exploration of hope and utopia, which he viewed as fundamental driving forces for human progress and freedom. Bloch's philosophical approach, while influenced by Marxism, transcended it by emphasizing the transcendent and spiritual dimensions of human existence. His thought seeks to connect a materialistic understanding of the world with a persistent quest for a better future.
Ernst Bloch gives a striking account of materialism that traces emancipatory elements of modern thought to medieval Islamic philosophers' encounter with Aristotle. He argues that the great medieval Islamic philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) planted the seeds of a radical materialism still relevant for critical theory today.
An examination of modern culture and its legacy. The author, a German Marxist philosopher and political theorist, argues that the key elements of a genuine cultural tradition are not just to be found in the past, but also in the experimental cultural process of our time.
An intense and lively debate on literature and art between thinkers who became some of the great figures of twentieth-century philosophy and literature
Traces, a masterwork of twentieth-century philosophy, is the most modest and beautiful proof of Bloch's utopian hermeneutics, taking as its source and its result the simplest, most familiar and yet most striking stories and anecdotes.
In 1968 we celebrated the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. We still have reason to hope for a concrete celebration in 2018 This study of Marx serves not only as an excellent introduction to that most influential of worldly philosophers but is also a significant resume of the central issues of Bloch's own profound and wide-ranging thought. Special attention is given to the political maturation of the young Karl Marx and to his studies and intellectual relationship to important thinkers of his time. Bloch concludes with an insightful summons to the West to consider Marx anew as a thinker still vitally relevant to contemporary social issues, and not merely as the father of a sovietized political system.
Presents an historical examination of Christianity in an attempt to find its social roots. This book offers a detailed study of the Bible and its long standing fascination for 'ordinary and unimportant' people.
The Spirit of Utopia, written mostly in 1915-16, published in its first version just after the First World War, republished five years later, 1923, in this version is presented for the first time in English translation. schovat popis
The Principle of Hope is one of the great works of the human spirit. It is a critical history of the utopian vision and a profound exploration of the possible reality of utopia. Even as the world has rejected the doctrine on which Bloch sought to base his utopia, his work still challenges us to think more insightfully about our own visions of a better world.The Principle of Hope is published in three volumes: Volume 1 lays the foundations of the philosophy of process and introduces the idea of the Not-Yet-Conscious - the anticipatory element that Bloch sees as central to human thought. It also contains a remarkable account of the aesthetic interpretations of utopian "wishful images" in fairy tales, popular fiction, travel, theater, dance, and the cinema. Volume 2 presents "the outlines of a better world." It examines the utopian systems that progressive thinkers have developed in the fields of medicine, painting, opera, poetry, and ultimately, philosophy. It is nothing less than an encyclopedic account of utopian thought from the Greeks to the present. Volume 3 offers a prescription for ways in which humans can reach their proper "homeland," where social justice is coupled with an openness to change and to the future.
Ernst Simon Bloch wurde am 8. Juli 1885 in Ludwigshafen am Rhein geboren und starb am 4. August 1977 in Tübingen. Er stammte aus einer jüdischen Familie und studierte von 1905 bis 1908 Philosophie bei Theodor Lipps und Oswald Külpe. 1908 promovierte er. 1913 heiratete er die Bildhauerin Else von Stritzky. Als Gegner des Krieges lebte er von 1917 bis 1919 in der Schweiz und arbeitete für das Archiv für Sozialwissenschaften. 1917 vollendete er sein Werk Geist der Utopie. Nach dem Tod seiner Frau heiratete er 1922 die Malerin Linda Oppenheimer, die Ehe hielt bis 1928. Bloch kehrte nach Berlin zurück und war mit Persönlichkeiten wie Bertolt Brecht und Walter Benjamin befreundet. Politisch aktiv, kämpfte er gegen die NSDAP. Nach Hitlers Machtübernahme wurde er ausgebürgert und emigrierte mit seiner Lebensgefährtin Karola Piotrowska in die Schweiz. Nach ihrer Ausweisung heirateten sie 1934 in Wien und lebten bis 1937 in Paris, Sanary und Prag, bevor sie in die USA emigrierten. Dort verfasste Bloch bedeutende Werke. 1948 erhielt er einen Lehrstuhl für Philosophie in Leipzig und blieb bis 1961, trotz Konflikten mit der SED. Kurz vor dem Mauerbau hielt er einen Vortrag in Tübingen und entschied sich, in Westdeutschland zu bleiben. Dank seiner Freunde konnte er eine Gastprofessur in Tübingen antreten, wo er bis zu seinem Tod lebte.
Atheismus im Christentum, erstmals 1968 erschienen, gilt - neben dem dritten Band von Das Prinzip Hoffnung - als Ernst Blochs wichtigster Beitrag zur Religionsphilosophie und hat die Theologie in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts maßgeblich beeinflußt. Blochs profunde Kenntnisse vor allem des Judentums und des Christentums verschmelzen vor dem Hintergrund seines Marxismus zu einer originellen Kritik sowohl an den hierarchischen Strukturen des Christentums als auch an der Leere des Atheismus. Legendär sind seine Ausführungen zum Verhältnis von Marxismus und Religion. Nur ein Atheist kann ein guter Christ sein, gewiß aber auch: Nur ein Christ kann ein guter Atheist sein - so lautet ein Schlüsselsatz dieses Buches, das mit einer Reflexion über Marx und das Abtun der Entfremdung endet.
