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Time to Grasp the Nettle

Günther Anders Reinhold Ellensohn Kerstin Putz

Correspondence between Theodor W Adorno, Ernst Bloch, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Helmuth Plessner Edited by Reinhard Ellensohn and Kerstin Putz

The book gathers Günther Anders’ previously unpublished correspondence with philosophers from thinking traditions close to his own. These are Plessner, a leader in the philosophy of anthropology, Adorno, Horkheimer and Marcuse, all of first generation Frankfurt School, and also Bloch, an outsider although comparable with Anders on Critical Theory.

Anders shares with these fellow thinkers a wide-ranging biographical commonality – the experience of being driven out of Nazi Germany and feeling an alienation from the German-Jewish milieu and the Shoah. He also shares with them the goal to develop a concrete, non-academic, but nonetheless highly engaged, philosophy as a way of responding to that background. The letters demonstrate how much controversy there was among these philosophers. As early as the dispute with Adorno, the fractures between academic, and what might be described as more ‘invasive’ philosophies, become part of the debate. In one letter to Marcuse, Anders speaks of philosophers as ‘thoroughly objectionable’, while in another letter he insists ‘Contradiction doesn’t earn anyone a living’. This book bears witness to the high moral demands of these intellectuals and writers. These letters bring some fascinating biographical and historical content to our attention and they also give us insights on the history of philosophy and thus help us to see into the minds of this generation of intellectuals shaped by the politics and culture of post-war Europe.

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Published 2022-01-13 by C.H.Beck , ISBN: 9783406791642

Main content page count: 368 Pages

ISBN: 9783406791642