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Abstract: With Fink at Table. On Eugen Fink’s Philosophy of Sociality Fink’s philosophy of sociality does not start from the experience of the individual other, but from the primacy of participation in the same world. Fink unfolds this idea in the context of material culture, that is, in his analysis of how we interact with everyday things, such as tables. Such things are not merely objects of use, but can become “meaningful things” that symbolically represent our existence, and they represent it as a fundamentally shared existence. The essay draws attention to the fact that not all sharing, as Fink claims, provides unity. Reference is made to Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the table and the world, which, like Fink, holds that human dependence on objects is essential, with the difference that she ascribes both unifying and separating significance to objects and the world. In the conclusion, some critical observations on Fink are made. Fink did not reflect on the ambiguity in the concept of sharing, and his claim that sharing establishes communal unity is thus rather unfounded. Further, his conviction that philosophy of sociality is based on the cosmological concept of the world is viewed in a critical light, since it tempts one to assume a unity of the world, which, however, is never guaranteed in advance.
Keywords: Fink, sociality, table, world, Arendt
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 53; Downloads: 13
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Abstract: Labor as a Worldly Relation. Approaches to Fink’s Fundamental Phenomenon of Labor This paper makes an attempt in exploring the relationship between world and labor in Fink’s philosophy. Although Fink considered labor as a “human basic phenomenon,” the worldliness of labor remains unevolved. I suppose that Fink implicitly deals with this matter in his reflections upon labor and nature. Hence, this paper examines Fink’s critical stance towards the traditional notion of labor/nature and his alternative proposition: “wilderness.” An analysis of the latter shows that labor does not simply create products (artificial objects), but regional ontologies (“Seiendheiten”) of the natural and artificial as such. In so doing, labor reveals itself as an ontological activity. I propose that “wilderness” is governed by an eminent but unthematized spatial sense, which will be unfolded by interpreting “wilderness” as a frontier, thus pondering the limitations of both labor and entities as such. The application of the concept of “Umwelt” enables us to approach labor’s worldliness.
Keywords: labor, nature, world, wilderness, human being
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 49; Downloads: 12
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Abstract: Place-World and World-Space. Eugen Fink and Philosophy of Place in Discussion The article attempts to bring Eugen Fink’s understanding of space into a discussion with newer approaches in phenomenology and hermeneutics, which expressly focus on the notion of place. With regard to the observation that philosophy of place has as yet only scarcely referred to Eugen Fink the question arises how could it profit from a confrontation with Fink’s cosmology. Upon an introductory deliberation concerning some of the fundamentals of Edward Casey’s and Jeff Malpas’s philosophy of space, we elaborate the central aspects of Fink’s comprehension of space, in order to accentuate the common characteristics and differences between his understanding and the recent research orientation. By contrasting in this manner Fink’s cosmological thinking with the topological thinking of the philosophy of space, can with the inclusion of Fink’s notion of anthropological and social spatiality a research field be outlined, which could impart onto philosophy of place a potential practical dimension.
Keywords: space, place, world, cosmology, topology
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 57; Downloads: 17
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Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 54; Downloads: 14
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Abstract: The encounter between received poetic traditions and rational critique appears to characterize reception itself as an interruption. The tradition impinges on present discourse and calls for an evaluation in terms of the present. Regarded as such, reception requires a translation that would negotiate the relationship. The consequence of formulating the question of reception in this way is that the received past subsists parenthetically, inserted into the present while remaining somehow apart from the present. An especially provocative illustration of the disruptive and parenthetic nature of reception, including the strategies of translation that it instigates, can be found in the life and work of Martin Heidegger who, perhaps more than any other philosopher of the twentieth century, persistently reflected on the interchange between poetic tradition and thinking.
Keywords: translation, tradition, reception, parenthesis, M. Heidegger
Published in DiRROS: 25.10.2024; Views: 58; Downloads: 13
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