Agnes Heller

This book, first published in 1983, is a radical reinterpretation of the Hungarian revolution in the context of world politics and Eastern Europe as a whole. It examines the events and protagonists with a fresh eye, and relies on witnesses and participants for the rigorous documentary backing.

This book, first published in 1983, is a radical reinterpretation of the Hungarian revolution in the context of world politics and Eastern Europe as a whole. It examines the events and protagonists with a fresh eye, and relies on witnesses and participants for the rigorous documentary backing.

Vi vil alle gerne vide mere om vores fremtid. Hvor er vi på vej hen? Men vores samfund bliver mere og mere komplekst, og det er tilsvarende vanskeligt at se fremad. Fra utopi til dystopi handler om vores forestillinger om fremtiden. I et livligt og meget klar bog beskriver Ágnes Heller, hvordan vores ideer om fremtiden er opstået og gennemgår de vigtigste historiske utopier. Hun tvivler på, om vores utopier er værd at stræbe efter; de har normalt en totalitær karakter. Der er ingen opskrift på fremtiden, i dag mindre end nogensinde. Derfor sympatiserer Ágnes Heller med de moderne dystopier (anti-utopier), fra Aldous Huxley til Michel Houellebecq, når de advarer mod konkrete farer mod frihed og demokrati. Ágnes Heller (1929-2019) var ungarsk født filosof. Hun var en original og vidtfavnende tænker. Hun skrev blandt andet om marxisme, etik, modernitet og hverdagen. Hun var mangeårig professor ved The New School of Social Research. På dansk er tidligere udkommet Den ældre Lukács' filosofi, Teorien om de menneskelige behov hos Marx og senest Paradoks Europa.

Completed shortly before her death in 2019, Tragedy and Philosophy is the sum of Agnes Heller's reflections on European history and culture, seen through the prism of Europe's two unique literary creations: tragedy and philosophy. Part 1 traces their parallel history from ancient Athens to rebirth in early modern London and Paris. Part 2 explores the interactions between post-metaphysical philosophy and post-tragic drama from the eighteenth through to the twentieth centuries. Heller's perspective is post-Hegelian: the story of European culture can only be told from its end, the generalization of modernity across the globe. In this sense Part 3 is Heller's farewell to the grand narrative of European history and culture as well as her own personal farewell to philosophy.

Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism provides a theoretical construction to the extraordinary events of the past several years in Europe and the Soviet Union, and China. These masterful essays attribute much of the problem of totalitarianism to its blind acceptance of a Marxist philosophy of practice. With the failure of communist practice, the collapse of the Marxian paradigm was quick to follow.At its roots this volume is a critique of the idea that we can have "scientific knowledge" of the social and political future. Totalitarian Marxism combined statements of history and claims of omniscience. Free choice was surrendered to history, and when the predicted outcomes fail to materialize, when communism came closer to being buried than capitalism, and western ideals of democracy proved far more compelling than inherited doctrines of authoritarianism, the outcome proved monumental and disastrous.The authors position themselves as evolving from critical Marxism to post-Marxism, and then post modernism. By this, they mean a modest view of life, one that moves beyond radical universalism and grand narrative, into a realization of individualism and equity concerns are central to the end of the twentieth century. The volume proceeds historically: from studies of the classic Marxian legacy; to the early twentieth century efforts of Lukacs, Weber and Adorno; proceeding to the disintegration of the Marxian paradigm in both its pure and revisionist forms. It ends with a study of options posed by this paradigmatic collapse - to consideration of the status of postmodernity and the choices between pure relativism and a theological fundamentalism. ,This is a work of absolute importance for political philosophy, the sociology of knowledge, and the history of ideas. In raising recent events to a theoretically meaningful framework, it represents a refreshing as well as remarkable step toward understanding Revolutions from 1789 to 1989.

Hvad binder os sammen som europæere? Er det muligt for de europæiske nationalstater at finde en fælles identitet? Og ma° den identitet nødvendigvis være pa° bekostning af resten af verden – af de ”fremmede”?A´gnes Heller, en af det 20. og 21. a°rhundredes mest betydningsfulde europæiske filosoffer, gennemlevede en af de mest dramatiske og voldelige perioder i kontinentets historie. I sit livs sidste tre essays leverer hun en glasklar analyse af, hvorfor Europa sta°r i vejen for sig selv, og stiller en række afgørende spørgsma°l til Europas fortid, nutid og fremtid.ANMELDELSER:“En af Europas mest beundringsværdige filosoffer og dristige systemkritiker.” – Judith Friedlander

This book is a collection of recent lectures by Agnes Heller, delivered all over the world. These essays are edited and introduced by the author of the most significant intellectual biography of her work, John Grumley. In these lectures, Heller engages one of her greatest strengths: to discover philosophy within the very flux of contemporary events. These bring together such timely topics as refugees, human rights, truth in politics and the contemporary university as well as perennial issues like the possibility of artistic representation of the Holocaust, the question whether revolutions are always betrayed, and the possibility of universality in the contemporary multicultural world.

First published in 1985, this book provides a stimulating series of inter-connected essays which address the theme of shame, which, unlike the problem of conscience, has been seldom discussed by moral philosophers. The essays focus on the ethical regulation of human action and judgement, examining both its constant and varying elements and concentrating on contemporary types of moral regulation. Professor Heller uses Aristotelian categories, such as the good life, in her discourse to present a new conception of rationality, distinguishing between shame regulation and conscience regulation of moral conduct, and arguing that shame regulation cannot be completely overcome even in an age of rationalism.

Set 16 of Verso's Radical Thinkers series.On the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth, four titles that consider the life and works of Karl Marx.

The basic discoveries underlying Marx's critique of political economy - labour power, surplus value, use value - are all in some way built upon the concept of need. From Marx's varying and passing interpretations of a theory of need, Agnes Heller unravels the main tendencies and demonstrates the importance which Marx attached to the "restructuring" of a system of needs going beyond the purely material. She also brings out those aspects, especially the idea of "radical needs" which point to revolutionary activity and to the project which Marx could only foresee but which for us today is of real urgency: the "society of associated producers". Thus Agnes Heller's study is not only the first full presentation of a fundamental aspect of Marx, but the basis for a discussion of the utmost contemporary relevance.

This radical analysis of the role and importance of historiography interprets the philosophy and theory of history on the basis of historicity as a human condition. The book examins the norms and methods of historiography from a philosophical point of view, but rejects generalisations tht the philosophy of history can provide all the answers to contemporary problems. Instead it outlines a feasible theory of history which is still radical enough to apply to all social structures.

Doomsday or Deterrence? argues against the majority of premises and conclusions of the antinuclear argument as existed in 1986 when this study was first published. Fehér and Heller’s study claims that social changes are important to curb technology trends that lean toward the construction of nuclear weapons, as well as using the ‘West’ as its own value that needs to be defended and emphasising the importance of understanding the true feelings behind the antinuclear argument. This title will be of interest to students of politics and international relations.

First published in 1985, this book provides a stimulating series of inter-connected essays which address the theme of shame, which, unlike the problem of conscience, has been seldom discussed by moral philosophers. The essays focus on the ethical regulation of human action and judgement, examining both its constant and varying elements and concentrating on contemporary types of moral regulation. Professor Heller uses Aristotelian categories, such as the good life, in her discourse to present a new conception of rationality, distinguishing between shame regulation and conscience regulation of moral conduct, and arguing that shame regulation cannot be completely overcome even in an age of rationalism.

Considering such witnesses of the time as Shakespeare, Dante, Petrarch, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Montaigne, More and Bacon, Agnes Heller looks at both the concept and the image of a Renaissance man. The concept was generalised and accepted by all; its characteristic features were man as a dynamic being, creating and re-creating himself throughout his life. The images of man, however, were very different, having been formed through the ideas and imagination of artists, politicians, philosophers, scientists and theologians and viewed from the different aspects of work, love, fate, death, friendship, devotion and the concepts of space and time. Renaissance Man thus stood as both as a leading protagonist of his time, one who led and formulated the substantial attitudes of his time, and as one who stood as a witness on the sidelines of the discussion. This book, first published in English in 1978, is based on the diverse but equally important sources of autobiographies, works of art and literature, and the writings of philosophers. Although she uses Florence as a starting point, Agnes Heller points out that the Renaissance was a social and cultural phenomenon common to all of Western Europe; her Renaissance Man is thus a figure to be found throughout Europe.

This book, first published in 1984, examines the politics and philosophy of ordinary men and women, and their ordinary transactions. It analyses the interaction between the individual and the social, both for the roots of everyday behaviour and for the means to change the social fabric. Using an approach that combines Marx, Husserl, Heidegger and Aristotle, Agnes Heller defines categories such as ‘group’, ‘crowd’, ‘community’, and deals with characteristics of everyday life such as repetition, rules, norms, economics, habits, probability, imitation. She also analyses everyday knowledge, and concludes by looking at the place of personality in everyday life.

This radical analysis of the role and importance of historiography interprets the philosophy and theory of history on the basis of historicity as a human condition. The book examins the norms and methods of historiography from a philosophical point of view, but rejects generalisations tht the philosophy of history can provide all the answers to contemporary problems. Instead it outlines a feasible theory of history which is still radical enough to apply to all social structures.

Doomsday or Deterrence? argues against the majority of premises and conclusions of the antinuclear argument as existed in 1986 when this study was first published. Fehér and Heller’s study claims that social changes are important to curb technology trends that lean toward the construction of nuclear weapons, as well as using the ‘West’ as its own value that needs to be defended and emphasising the importance of understanding the true feelings behind the antinuclear argument. This title will be of interest to students of politics and international relations.