Panajotis condyle

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Panajotis Kondylis (Παναγιώτης Κονδύλης, * August 17, 1943 in Olympia ; † July 11, 1998 in Athens ) was a Greek philosopher and writer who had an impact above all in the German-speaking area.

Life

Kondylis first studied classical philology and philosophy in Athens (1963–1967). After the military coup in Greece in 1967, he was suspected of being a Marxist because of his involvement with Marx and Engels , but was not bothered. After completing his military service from 1967 to 1969, he went to Germany in 1971, where he studied philosophy, medieval and modern history, and political science in Frankfurt am Main and Heidelberg . After he was able to publish a Machiavelli study in the Kalvos publishing house in Athens in 1971 , Kondylis received his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1977 with a study on The Origin of Dialectics under Dieter Henrich , a work that was carried out in connection with Henrich's investigations into the genesis of German idealism in Hölderlin , Hegel and Schelling stands. In the 1970s and 1980s, Kondylis translated numerous works from European intellectual history into Greek. a. "Texts by Marx, Cassirer, Carl Schmitt, Max Horkheimer, Arnold Hauser, Machiavelli". In 1991 he was awarded the Goethe Medal , and as recipient of the Humboldt Research Award, he was a fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin in 1994/95 .

Kondylis did not aspire to an academic career; rather, he believed that "academic philosophy is dead and buried" and preferred to work as a " private scholar ".

Kondylis died at the age of 55 in Athens as a result of a failed routine operation. His private library of around 5000 volumes was taken over by the library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki .

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In his dissertation, Kondylis hardly followed Henrich's positions in his dissertation, despite some factual takeovers, but argued based on the positions of his next published work, The Enlightenment in the Framework of Modern Rationalism (1981), in which he gave a new interpretation of the Enlightenment epoch, which with particular emphasis worked out the polemical character of philosophy in general and of Enlightenment philosophy in particular. Then a philosophical worldview like Enlightenment rationalism arises from the polemical opposition to a worldview that preceded it, like in this case Cartesian rationalism . From this opposition, and not so much from the logic of a development of the matter itself, according to Kondylis, all the basic conceptual decisions of the Enlightenment epoch can be understood.

The comprehensive mastery of the relevant primary and secondary literature, combined with well-calculated violations of some academic customs, made the educational book an insider tip among intellectuals, including among right-wing intellectuals who succeeded Carl Schmitt ( Armin Mohler et al.). In the meantime, the book, which is mostly used without knowledge of Kondylis' philosophical definition of the position, has become a standard reference work. In particular, Kondylis' differentiation between the sensualistic rationalism of the Enlightenment and the intellectualistic rationalism of the Descartes era has become widely accepted.

How strong the suggestions were from Carl Schmitt , who was rarely cited in the earlier works, but always present , is shown in the third book, Power and Decision. The Formation of World Views and the Question of Value (1983), in which Kondylis sets out the general theoretical basis of his earlier publications. Accordingly, worldviews emerge from certain basic decisions, which Kondylis only formally characterized, with which the basic lines on the map of the semantic world are drawn. Kondylis writes with a Weberian pathos of value freedom and also argues decidedly - and with pleasure in provocation - nihilistic and anti-universalistic . The book ends with a few sentences that must be understood as the author's personal confession: There is no reason not to kill yourself, but it is interesting to follow the intellectual disputes of the past and present. This self-positioning of the author - even if only presented in the manner of a woodcut - who not only makes philosophical polemics the subject of his investigations, but also practices them as a form of his own thinking and writing, distinguishes him from every other German-speaking philosophy historian of the post-war period, with the exception of Hans Blumenberg .

Kondylis' next book, Conservatism. Historical content and downfall (1986), is a history of conservatism that was written against Karl Mannheim's theory, which was dominant in Germany at the time , and which understood conservatism as a reaction phenomenon that emerged from the French Revolution . Rather, conservatism is the nobility's view of the world, which has existed since the Middle Ages, and which derives its legitimation from a certain conception of law as a privilege, which is incompatible with the completely different egalitarian legal conception of modernity. This redefinition of the concept of conservatism has also become decisive for numerous newer researches.

The modern critique of metaphysics (1990) is, so to speak, the enlightenment book in a new form. It is clearer here than there how strongly Kondylis' factual statements are influenced by Ernst Cassirer , whose evaluations Kondylis does not adopt, but whose content-related disposition and theses he nevertheless follows in detail.

In the 1990s, Kondylis turned his thematic interest more towards the present. In the rather essayistic book The decline of bourgeois ways of thinking and living (1991) he confronts the irreconcilable worldviews of the liberal nineteenth century with the " postmodern worldview" of the century of mass democracy. The essays collected in the volume Planetary Politics after the Cold War (1992) are dedicated to diagnosing the present . The references to Carl Schmitt are in this volume as in the second volume of essays, The Political in the 20th Century. From utopias to globalization (2001), particularly clear.

Kondylis' last project was the draft of a "social ontology" with which he wanted to provide an absolutely value-free description of the phenomenon of the social. He shows Kondylis in his extremely well-read and astute handling of common major theories (Luhmann, Habermas and others) more polemically than ever. The first and apparently only volume, Fundamentals of Social Ontology. Volume 1: The Political and the Human. Social Relationship, Understanding, Rationality was published from the estate.

Things seem to have calmed down around Kondylis since his death. Of his books, The Enlightenment ... , Power and Decision and The Decline of the Bourgeois Form of Thought and Life have been reissued.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Falk Horst: Introduction , in: Falk Horst (ed.), Panajotis Kondylis. Scout without a mission. Articles and essays, Berlin 2007, p. VII.
  2. ↑ Manfred Lauermann: Dodging Spinoza ... At the same time: Homage to Panajotis Kondylis. In: Fifteenth Stage (Bonn, October 2000), p. 72, states that Kondylis was a member of the Greek Communist Party during the Greek military dictatorship (1967–1974) . No published documents are yet available on Kondylis' political commitment and its consequences.
  3. ^ Adolph Przybyszewski: 15th anniversary of the death of Panajotis Kondylis . In: Staatspolitisches Handbuch , ed. v. Erik Lehnert and Karlheinz Weißmann, Volume 3: Vordenker . Antaios, Schnellroda 2012.
  4. ↑ Andreas Cser, The Machiavelli study from 1971. On the first work of Kondylis , in: Falk Horst (ed.): Panajotis Kondylis. Scout without a mission. Articles and essays , Berlin 2007, p. 16.
  5. ↑ Falk Horst, Introduction , in: Falk Horst (ed.), Panajotis Kondylis. Scout without a mission. Articles and essays , Berlin 2007, p. VIII.
  6. ^ Letter to Bernd A. Laska from June 16, 1985, quoted in in Bernd A. Laska: Panajotis Kondylis - involuntary sponsor of the LSR project . See a. Interview with Rudolf Burger , in: Wiener Zeitung, June 1, 2007.
  7. ↑ Felix Dirsch: Kondylis as Antidote in Secession No. 92, October 2019, p. 78.
  8. ↑ The widespread assumption that Kondylis is very close to Schmitt is rejected by Volker Gerhardt (in the foreword to Kondylis' power issues , fn. 25). Kondylis himself saw himself in closer proximity to Marx than to Schmitt (Paul Gottfried quotes a corresponding letter by letter: Panajotis Kondylis and the Obsoleteness of Conservatism , in: Modern Age, vol. 39 (1997), pp. 403-411).

bibliography

  • The emergence of the dialectic. An analysis of the intellectual development of Hölderlin, Schelling and Hegel up to 1802. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1979. 729 pp. ISBN 3-12-911970-1 .
  • The Enlightenment within the framework of modern rationalism. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981. 725 pp. ISBN 3-12-915430-2 .
  • Power and decision. The formation of world views and the question of value. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984. 129 pp. ISBN 3-608-91113-8 .
  • The articles Reaction, Restoration and Dignity in: Historical Basic Concepts, Historical Lexicon for Political-Social Language in Germany , ed. v. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, Reinhart Koselleck, Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1984, 1992.
  • Conservatism. Historical content and decline. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986. 553 pp. ISBN 3-608-91428-5 .
  • Marx and ancient Greece . Heidelberg: Manutius-Verlag, 1987. ISBN 3-925678-06-9 .
  • Theory of war. Clausewitz - Marx - Engels - Lenin. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1988. 328 pp. ISBN 3-608-91475-7 .
  • The modern critique of metaphysics. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1990. 614 pp. ISBN 3-608-91330-0 .
  • The decline of bourgeois ways of thinking and living. Liberal modernity and mass democratic postmodernism. Weinheim: VCH-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1991. ISBN 3-527-17773-6 .
  • The philosopher and lust , Frankfurt: Keip Verlag, 1991. ISBN 3-8051-0510-X .
  • Utopia and historical action . In: Politische Lageanalyse, Festschrift for Hans-Joachim Arndt on his 70th birthday, ed. v. Volker Beismann and Markus Josef Klein. Bruchsal: San Casciano Verlag, 1993.
  • Only intellectuals claim that intellectuals understand the world better than anyone else. Interview by Marin Terpstra with Panajotis Kondylis. In: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 42,4 (1994), pp. 683-694.
  • Planetary Politics after the Cold War. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1992. ISBN 3-05-002363-5 .
  • The philosopher and power , Hamburg: Junius Verlag, 1992. ISBN 3-88506-201-1 .
  • Montesquieu and the Spirit of Laws. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1996. ISBN 3-05-002983-8 .
  • Basics of social ontology. Volume 1: The Political and the Human. Social relationship, understanding, rationality. Edited from the estate by Falk Horst. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag 1999 ISBN 3-05-003113-1 .
  • The political in the 20th century. From utopias to globalization. Heidelberg: Manutius-Verlag, 2001. (Collection of 19 articles from the 1990s) ISBN 3-934877-07-9 .
  • Power issues. Selected contributions to politics and society. Darmstadt: WBG, 2006. (Contains various reprints: the book Power and Decision , six thematically related articles and the interview with Marin Terpstra). ISBN 978-3-534-19863-4 .
  • Machiavelli. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 2007. ISBN 978-3-05-004046-2 .

Secondary literature

  • Buve, Jeroen Dominicus Josef: Power and Being. Metaphysics as Critique - or the Limits of Condylic Skepticism . Diss. Erasmus-Univ. Rotterdam. Leiden / NL 1988, 253 pages (reprinted by Cuxhaven, Verlag Junghans, 1991.)
  • Bolsinger, Eckard: What is decisionism? Reconstruction of an autonomous type of political theory . In: Politische Vierteljahresschrift 39, 1998, 471–502. (A comparison of Carl Schmitt, Hermann Lübbe and Panajotis Kondylis)
  • Harth, Dietrich: From Heidelberg to Athens and back. The philosophical journeys of the Panajotis Kondylis . In: IABLIS. Yearbook for European processes. No. 1 (2002).
  • Horst, Falk (ed.): Panajotis Kondylis - reconnaissance without a mission. Articles and essays . Akademie Verlag, Berlin: 2007. ISBN 978-3-05-004316-6
  • Furth, Peter : About mass democracy - your situation with Panajotis Kondylis . In: Mercury. German magazine for European thinking, No. 717, vol. 63, issue 2 (February 2009)
  • Horst, Falk (ed.): Panajotis Kondylis and the metamorphoses of society: nothing can be done without power . Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 2019.
  • Horst, Gisela: Panajotis Kondylis. Life and work - an overview. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2019.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Condyle, panajotis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Condylis, panagiotes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH August 17, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Olympia
DATE OF DEATH July 11, 1998
Place of death Athens