Why Socrates? André Glucksmann and Peter Engelmann
Friday 30 November, 2012
6:30pm, $0
New York University, Deutsches Haus
42 Washington Mews
n the ever-intensifying crisis of the West, philosophy is once again called upon. Yet, what it is missing, according to Glucksmann, is the non-essential sensitivity of Socratic questioning, resisting the pervasive, latent or open totalitarian ideology of thought. André Glucksmann reminds us that, even though we often refer to "Philosophy" since the demise of a blind faith in progress, the dimension of the Socratic radicalism of “know yourself†– the clear differentiation between right and wrong – remains obscure.
André Glucksmann’s talk is part of the Deutsche Haus Passagen Series, curated by our visiting scholar, philosopher, publisher and editor Peter Engelmann.
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher and essayist in the context of the group of "Nouveaux Philosophes". He is one of the leading political thinkers of Europe. Glucksmann was born in 1937 in France, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents from Romania and Czechoslovakia. His first book, Le Discours de la Guerre, was published in 1968. In 1975 he published La Cuisinière le Mangeur d'Hommes, in which he argues that Marxism inevitably leads to totalitarianism, tracing parallels between the crimes of Nazism and Communism. In his next book Les maîtres penseurs, published in 1977 and translated into English as Master Thinkers (Harper & Row, 1980), he traced the intellectual justification for totalitarianism back to the ideas articulated by various German philosophers such as Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
Since 1987, Peter Engelmann has been the publisher and editor of the publishing house Passagen Verlag in Vienna, whose specialization in French philosophy was groundbreaking for the entire German-speaking world. Passagen Verlag has translated the works of crucial French authors into German, such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Sarah Kofman, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, and Hélène Cixous. Their publication created a wide range of socially engaged programs and ushered numerous important publications of contemporary, experimental literature. Peter Engelmann is the author of Dekonstruktion. Jaques Derridas semiotische Wende der Philosophie and Philosophie und Totalitarismus. Zur Kritik dialektischer Diskursivität. Eine Hegellektüre as well as the editor of countless works on French postmodern philosophy and deconstruction.
André Glucksmann’s talk is part of the Deutsche Haus Passagen Series, curated by our visiting scholar, philosopher, publisher and editor Peter Engelmann.
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher and essayist in the context of the group of "Nouveaux Philosophes". He is one of the leading political thinkers of Europe. Glucksmann was born in 1937 in France, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents from Romania and Czechoslovakia. His first book, Le Discours de la Guerre, was published in 1968. In 1975 he published La Cuisinière le Mangeur d'Hommes, in which he argues that Marxism inevitably leads to totalitarianism, tracing parallels between the crimes of Nazism and Communism. In his next book Les maîtres penseurs, published in 1977 and translated into English as Master Thinkers (Harper & Row, 1980), he traced the intellectual justification for totalitarianism back to the ideas articulated by various German philosophers such as Fichte, Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche.
Since 1987, Peter Engelmann has been the publisher and editor of the publishing house Passagen Verlag in Vienna, whose specialization in French philosophy was groundbreaking for the entire German-speaking world. Passagen Verlag has translated the works of crucial French authors into German, such as Jacques Derrida, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Sarah Kofman, Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Jacques Rancière, Alain Badiou, and Hélène Cixous. Their publication created a wide range of socially engaged programs and ushered numerous important publications of contemporary, experimental literature. Peter Engelmann is the author of Dekonstruktion. Jaques Derridas semiotische Wende der Philosophie and Philosophie und Totalitarismus. Zur Kritik dialektischer Diskursivität. Eine Hegellektüre as well as the editor of countless works on French postmodern philosophy and deconstruction.