Post by Anna Vinkelman

I am glad to share my new essay on Praefaktisch: “Böse neue Welt: Vom Vertrauen dem Absoluten gegenüber in den Zeiten der Verstandeszivilisation.” The essay asks what it means to trust the world in times when the structures of civilization are both astonishingly rational and deeply fragile. Beginning with the everyday experience of standing on a Berlin U-Bahn platform, I turn to Stoicism, Kant, Wittgenstein, and Schelling in order to reflect on evil as something that does not merely harm us, but undermines our confidence in the world and in the rationality of human action. At the center of the text is a Kantian question that remains urgent today: how can we still examine the maxims of our own actions when modern civilization constantly draws our attention outward? Many thanks to Praefaktisch for publishing the essay in the series “Das Böse.” https://lnkd.in/euZ5PaBY #philosophy #ethics #Kant #Schelling #GermanIdealism