Another Reading List: German Lessons for Americans

The title of this post is, of course, deliberately misleading.  The post is certainly not about lessons in the learning of the German language.  For some years now, I have been convinced that one of the best ways to think about almost all aspects of contemporary philosophy is to return to the questions that occupied certain German philosophers in the 1920’s and 1930’s.  I believe that there is much to learn about fundamental philosophy by re-examining that era (and perhaps jettisoning some of the derivative questions that have characterized later 20th century thought).

But fundamental philosophy cannot be separated from social and political philosophy.  So it would indeed be an interesting intellectual exercise to examine a number of pertinent social, political and (more strictly) philosophical questions in the light of certain texts from that period in Germany.  We could also include a few important texts written later, but dealing with that period.  If, at this moment, I were an academic with a captive audience, I would say that there is a way to structure a meaningful course around a well chosen set of these writings.  By presenting this reading list, I wish to suggest a few books that have something to say about certain aspects of the current context.  Three of these recommendations may be more of interest to students of philosophy.  The first (and most important) entry should be of interest to anyone concerned about better evaluating the current social/political/economic crisis.

It is my intention to use the latitude and the informality that a blog permits to write more detailed entries concerning these types of topics in the future.  I would like to remind the reader that it is a lesson learned from the Marxist current in western thought that we cannot draw lines which clearly limit philosophy to what are often referred to as questions of technique.   So, in light of the coming American elections and the social controversy that this election year has used as its backdrop, here are a the first few entries for our reading list:

Franz Neumann, Behemoth (The Structure and Practice of National Socialism 1933-1944), Oxford University Press, 1944 (reprinted in 1966 by Harper&Row).  This work has virtually disappeared from circulation , yet it may in many ways be the most important text produced by the thinkers that are commonly identified as the Frankfurt School. (On a more deeply philosophical level, that distinction surely belongs to Adorno & Horkheimer’s  Dialectic of Enlightenment).  Neumann’s description of the social structure of Germany and its adaptation to National Socialist rule is insightful.  His analysis of the structure and aims of the cartels is detailed.  I do not know of any writing which gives a better picture of the Germany of that period.  This book should be required reading for anyone who is serious about understanding how NS worked and who is interested in a certain homology between it and the contemporary situation.

Karl Löwith, My Life in Germany Before and After 1933, University of Illinois Press, 1994 (original German text published in 1933).  The great philosopher Löwith’s “record” of his life is notable for what we learn of the difficulties of assimilated Jews in the changing German society leading to National Socialism and for what we see of the reaction/adaptation of academics to political change in the universities in that era.

Leo Löwenthal, An Unmastered Past, University of California Press, 1987. We all owe respect to Löwenthal’s reflections on the Weimar Republic, Adorno , Benjamin,  post-modernism, etc.

Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, In 1926 : Living at the Edge of Time, Harvard University Press, 1997.  I had the privilege of being a student in a seminar Gumbrecht gave at l’Université de Montréal years ago.  Students of German thought will understand the tradition from which Gumbrecht works.  A book of this type is a sort of first step in Husserl’s project of a true science of the Lebenswelt (although the author would undoubtedly not characterize his work that crudely). The reader will get a surprisingly vivid idea of life in 1926 and also benefit from the thought of one of America’s leading intellectuals.