Georges Minois

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Georges Minois (* 1946 ) is a French historian and an expert on the history of religion , social and mentality .

biography

Until 2006, the graduate of the École normal supérieure worked as a teacher of history and geography at the Lycée Ernest Renan in Saint-Brieuc . His numerous and extensive works deal with individual cultural-historical topics, taking into account the breadth of the overview as well as the depth of the insight.

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Histoire de l'avenir

In his work History of the Future. Oracles, Prophecies, Utopias, Prognoses (1996) he tells the story of the future as a story of the practices with which the attempt was made to interpret the future. He draws a line from pre-Christian oracles and prophecies to utopias and science-based forecasts. He differentiates between five epochs, each characterized by the dominance of a specific form of future vision: the ages of oracles, prophecies, astrology, utopias and scientific predictions. The forms of forecasting the future overlap and are not clearly limited in time, but there is in each case a dominance of the forecasting practices.

Histoire de l'atheisme

In his large-scale work History of Atheism (1998), which is often compared to Fritz Mauthner's four-volume history of atheism from 1923, it says for example:

“This dark, confused century [the 19th] has disoriented many spirits who have fallen into despair in an already largely disillusioned world ... Schleiermacher initiated the trend - by declaring religion to be a purely psychological matter ... Likewise Kierkegaard's attitude is dangerous ... But the true individualistic unbeliever is Max Stirner ... There is neither God nor man, there is only I, and this I must be liberated by rejecting all transcendencies and all idols, as well as the idea of ​​communicating with him Others who are irrevocably out of reach. The consequence is a desperate nihilism, a dead end. ... The I can only attend the spectacle of its own destruction. "

Or:

"We find the logical consequence of individualistic atheism in Keller , Schopenhauer , Hartmann : it is the will to destroy."

In his “Balance of Unbelief”, the last chapter in his history of atheism , Minois states that more than a fifth of humanity no longer believes in a god. He estimates about 1.1 billion agnostics and 262 million atheists in 2000, compared with about 1.2 billion believers for Islam and 1.1 billion for the Catholic Church.,

The Marburg philosopher Winfried Schröder judged that Minois' history of atheism was “a non-fiction book whose author did not bother to take note of the current state of research.” It “still spreads ... the old legends of ancient and medieval God deniers ”.

Fonts (in German translation)

  • The hell. To the story of a fiction. Diederichs, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-424-01198-3 ; dtv, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-423-04679-1
  • Story of suicide. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-538-07041-5
  • History of the future. Oracle, prophecies, utopias, forecasts. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-538-07072-5 ; new as: The Story of Prophecies. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2002; ISBN 3-491-96043-6
  • Hell - a small cultural history of the underworld. Herder, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-451-04778-0
  • History of atheism. From the beginning to the present. Verlag Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Weimar 2000, ISBN 3-7400-1104-1

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Minois 2000, p. 628.
  2. ↑ Britannica Book of thew Year, 1994, stating Minois
  3. ↑ According to the World Christian Encyclopedia. Specification of Minois
  4. ↑ U. Kronauer / A. German (ed.): The "unbeliever" in the legal and cultural history of the 18th century . Heidelberg 2015. p. 253.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Minois, Georges
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French historian and author
DATE OF BIRTH 1946