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A journalist and photographer set out to the "absinthe valley" in search of the history, the botany and the illicit mysteries of the "Green Fairy" 

Invented in a small valley in Switzerland, absinthe was the drink of choice for 19th century Bohemians. Van Gogh, Picasso and Oscar Wilde swore by its creative powers. But by the early 20th century, the drink was prohibited around the world. 

This “other prohibition” lasted nearly 100 years. Only in 2005 was it legal to make absinthe again in Switzerland. This is the story of the invention and reinvention of the much-feared drink, and of the craftsmen who kept the traditions alive, despite the risks. 

Swiss journalist Tania Brasseur travels through the few remote valley of Switzerland and France where absinthe is made today, and meets the people who have brought about absinthe’s renaissance. Along the way she discovers the turbulent story of “the green fairy’s” heyday in Paris, and delves into how it is made, how its very success led to its prohibition, and why it has now become a darling of barkeepers everywhere.

With more than 100-photos from Tamara Berger, and illustrations by Ajša Vera Dorothy Zdravković, this is an intimate look at a stunning region of Europe never seen this way before.

Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism, with consequences for philosophy today.

  Michael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx's work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx's value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement.

  In this normative interpretation of Marx, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the "form of value," Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital.

Karl Marx gave us not just a critique of the political economy of capital but a way of confronting the impoverished ethical quality of life we face under capitalism. Interpreting Marx anew as an ethical thinker, Absolute Ethical Life provides crucial resources for understanding how freedom and rational agency are impacted by a social world formed by value under capitalism, with consequences for philosophy today.

  Michael Lazarus situates Marx within a shared tradition of ethical inquiry, placing him in close dialogue with Aristotle and Hegel. Lazarus traces the ethical and political dimensions of Marx's work missed by Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, two of the most profound critics of modern politics and ethics. Ultimately, the book claims that Marx's value-form theory is both a continuation of Aristotelian and Hegelian themes and at the same time his most distinctive theoretical achievement.

  In this normative interpretation of Marx, Lazarus integrates recent moral philosophy with a historically specific analysis of capitalism as a social form of life. He challenges contemporary political and economic theory to insist that any conception of modern life needs to account for capitalism. With a robust critique of capitalism derived from the determinations of what Marx calls the "form of value," Lazarus argues for an ethical life beyond capital.

Part I of this book gives particular attention to freedom as an “aesthetic idea” that informs certain philosophical discussions of freedom in Kant, Schelling, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus and Isaiah Berlin. The critical concept of “positive freedom” is discussed in the first chapter and continues to inform the entire book. In Part II, the more “practical” application of these ideas with respect to certain “zones” of freedom such as academia (“academic freedom”), religion (“religious freedom”), art (“artistic freedom”), “free speech,” and “political freedom” are discussed Finally, in the Epilogue, the surprising relationship of “friendship” to “freedom” that begins with their close etymological relationship is discussed.

French territorial ambitions and consequent military activity during the reign of Louis XIV ensured that a number of territories bordering on France were subject to military occupation for strategic reasons from the 1660s onwards. Drawing on extensive archival research, this study presents the occupation of two of these territories, Lorraine and Savoy, from a comparative perspective. It investigates the aims and intentions of the French monarchy in occupying these regions, the problems of administering them, and French relations with key local elite groups.

Absolute monarchy on the frontiers makes a significant contribution to understanding this crucial era in the development of civil-military relations. It also places the occupations of Lorraine and Savoy within the framework of recent scholarship on early modern border societies and frontiers, and on the practice of ‘absolutism’ at the frontiers of the French kingdom. The book will appeal particularly to scholars and students of early modern France and Europe.

Engaging systematically with severe forms of poverty in Europe, this important book stimulates academic, public and policy debate by shedding light on aspects of deprivation and exclusion of people in absolute poverty in affluent societies. It examines issues such as access to health care, housing and nutrition, poverty related shame, and violence.

The book investigates different policy and civic responses to extreme poverty, ranging from food donations to penalisation and “social cleansing” of highly visible poor and how it is related to concerns of ethics, justice and human dignity.

Engaging systematically with severe forms of poverty in Europe, this important book stimulates academic, public and policy debate by shedding light on aspects of deprivation and exclusion of people in absolute poverty in affluent societies. It examines issues such as access to health care, housing and nutrition, poverty related shame, and violence.

The book investigates different policy and civic responses to extreme poverty, ranging from food donations to penalisation and “social cleansing” of highly visible poor and how it is related to concerns of ethics, justice and human dignity.

Erstmals wird in einer Ganzschrift das Wahrheitsverständnis des Theologen Paul Tillich ausgehend von dessen Frühwerk mit dem Schwerpunkt auf der Vorlesung zur Religionsphilosophie (1920) und der Dresdner-Dogmatik-Vorlesung (1925) analysiert. Es wird herausgearbeitet, wie der frühe Tillich außerchristliche Religionen beurteilt. Das korrelative Verhältnis von Religionsphilosophie und Theologie erweist sich hierfür als Schlüsselfaktor und bereichert die Forschung dahingehend, dass beide Zugänge zur Religion in Einklang gebracht werden.

Durch die Analyse der in der Tillich-Forschung und im Kontext eines Dialogs der Religionen noch kaum erforschten Vorlesung und dem Korrelat aus christologisch geprägter Religionsphilosophie und symbolischer Theologie schließt diese Arbeit eine Lücke in der Analyse von Tillichs Gesamtwerk. Dabei wird die Vorlesung Tillichs erstmals in ihrem Eigenwert gewürdigt. Denn sie zeigt die Kontinuität der Ideen Tillichs zum Wahrheitsanspruch der christlichen Religion. Die frühen Schriften Tillichs erweisen ihren Verfasser als Vertreter einer inklusivistischen Position, der sich auf dem Weg zu einem mutualen Inklusivismus bewegt und deshalb auch heute noch den religionstheologischen Diskurs bereichert.

The most remarkable true stories of all time and around the world brought vividly to life – from the Big Bang right up to the present day.

Embark on a journey across millennia and around the world, from the latest understanding of the origins of the universe through the birth of the Earth, the very first life, the age of dinosaurs, the rise of humans, ancient civilizations, colonialism, wars, technology, everyday life, global struggles for freedom and equality, pandemics – and much more. Eye-catching and informative illustrations and photographs throughout join with author Christopher Lloyd’s engaging narrative to bring to life the most remarkable true stories of all time. The 2nd edition is revised for fuller global coverage and updated with the latest research, as well as with events that have occurred since the first edition. The design has received a fresh treatment and many new photographs have been included.

Includes a glossary and index.

Die Frühe Neuzeit kannte eine Vielzahl von Diskursen, Performanzen und Repräsentationen, die auf eine Überhöhung des Monarchen abzielten, ohne sich jedoch zu einer kohärenten Gesamtheit zusammenzufügen. Ist das umfassende Forschungskonzept "Absolutismus" diesem heterogenen Befund angemessen? Die Beiträge gehen dieser Frage im Wesentlichen anhand von französischen Beispielen nach. Sie sehen Absolutismus dabei im Sinne neuerer kulturhistorischer Ansätze nicht als "objektive" Gegebenheit oder real existierende gesellschaftliche Struktur, sondern als frühneuzeitliche Konstruktion, als sozial und kulturell konstruierte Vorstellungswelt, in der Einflussmöglichkeiten und Herrschaftsansprüche zu allererst symbolisch repräsentiert wurden.

This title from the De Gruyter Book Archive has been digitized in order to make it available for academic research. It was originally published under National Socialism and has to be viewed in this historical context. Learn more here.

Kinder werden immer öfter mithilfe künstlicher Befruchtung gezeugt. Das Recht muss deshalb bestimmen, wer ihre Eltern sind. Lange richtete sich die Elternschaft nach der genetischen Abstammung. Was aber ist das maßgebliche Prinzip für die rechtliche Zuordnung eines Kindes, das mithilfe künstlicher Fortpflanzung gezeugt wurde? Dieser Frage sowie der, wer Eltern dieser Kinder sein sollten, ging der dem Werk zugrunde liegende Vortrag nach.

Abstammungs- und Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen spielten für einflussreiche, wohlhabende bürgerliche Familien im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert eine eminente Rolle. In diesem Buch werden am Beispiel von Basler Familien unterschiedliche genealogische Praktiken untersucht und gezeigt, wie über Stammbäume, Familiengeschichten, Diagramme, Familienfeste, Theaterstücke genealogisches Wissen generiert und genutzt wurde.

This is a high level introduction to abstract algebra which is aimed at readers whose interests lie in mathematics and the information and physical sciences. In addition to introducing the main concepts of modern algebra – groups, rings, modules and fields – the book contains numerous applications, which are intended to illustrate the concepts and to show the utility and relevance of algebra today. In particular applications to Polya coloring theory, latin squares, Steiner systems, error correcting codes and economics are described. There is ample material here for a two semester course in abstract algebra. Proofs of almost all results are given. The reader led through the proofs in gentle stages. There are more than 500 problems, of varying degrees of diffi culty. The book should be suitable for advanced undergraduate students in their fi nal year of study and for fi rst or second year graduate students at a university in Europe or North America. In this third edition three new chapters have been added: an introduction to the representation theory of fi nite groups, free groups and presentations of groups, an introduction to category theory.

Abstract algebra is the study of algebraic structures like groups, rings and fields. This book provides an account of the theoretical foundations including applications to Galois Theory, Algebraic Geometry and Representation Theory. It implements the pedagogic approach to conveying algebra from the perspective of rings. The 3^rd edition provides a revised and extended versions of the chapters on Algebraic Cryptography and Geometric Group Theory.

Abstraction shook Western art to its core. In the early part of the 20th century, it refuted the reign of clear, indisputable forms and confronted audiences instead with vivid visual poems devoid of conventional representational imagery and characterized by allegories of emotion and sensation.

This radical artistic adventure established new artistic means, as much as narratives. Expression became characterized by shocking juxtapositions of color, light, and line. Artists abandoned the conventions of brush and easel and played with new materials and methods of artistic gesture: commercial paints and housepainter’s brushes, working on unstretched and unprimed canvases, moving the canvas to the floor, and applying paint with hands.

This essential introduction spans the international breadth, conceptual depth, and seismic impact of abstract art with a thorough survey not only of the big names such as Picasso, Klee, Kline, Rothko, and Pollock, but also lesser-known figures who made equally significant contributions, including Antoni Tàpies, K. O. Götz, Ad Reinhardt, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp.

Hailed as the first American-born art movement to have a worldwide influence, Abstract Expressionism denotes the non-representational use of paint as a means of personal expression. It emerged in America in the 1940s, with lead protagonists including Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning.

Abstract Expressionism spawned many different stylistic tendencies but two particularly prominent sub-categories: action painting, exemplified by de Kooning and Pollock, and color field painting, made most famous by Rothko. Throughout, Abstract Expressionists strove to convey emotions and ideas through the making of marks, through forms, textures, shades, and the particular quality of brushstrokes. The movement favored large-scale canvases, and embraced the role of accident or chance.

With featured works from 20 key Abstract Expressionist artists, this book introduces the movement which shifted the center of art gravity from Paris to New York and remains for many the golden moment of American art.

Abstract nouns - power, privilege, race, gender, and identity - can embody varied positions that polarize the discourse around attempts to theorize them, particularly in contexts where disputes arise over activism and sociocultural change. This book therefore materializes out of one neurodivergent researcher’s endeavor to examine the five selected nouns through topical narratives provided by six culturally and linguistically diverse participants who also identify as neurodivergent or divergent thinkers. Neurodivergent narratives from individuals of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds can inform how we understand intention in abstract English language.

This book is relevant for phonologists, morphologists, Slavists and cognitive linguists, and addresses two questions: How can the morphology-phonology interface be accommodated in cognitive linguistics? Do morphophonological alternations have a meaning? These questions are explored via a comprehensive analysis of stem alternations in Russian verbs. The analysis is couched in R.W. Langacker's Cognitive Grammar framework, and the book offers comparisons to other varieties of cognitive linguistics, such as Construction Grammar and Conceptual Integration. The proposed analysis is furthermore compared to rule-based and constraint-based approaches to phonology in generative grammar.

Without resorting to underlying representations or procedural rules, the Cognitive Linguistics framework facilitates an insightful approach to abstract phonology, offering the important advantage of restrictiveness. Cognitive Grammar provides an analysis of an entire morphophonological system in terms of a parsimonious set of theoretical constructs that all have cognitive motivation. No ad hoc machinery is invoked, and the analysis yields strong empirical predictions. Another advantage is that Cognitive Grammar can identify the meaning of morphophonological alternations. For example, it is argued that stem alternations in Russian verbs conspire to signal non-past meaning.

This book is accessible to a broad readership and offers a welcome contribution to phonology and morphology, which have been understudied in cognitive linguistics.

Opposing a regime of accumulation and abstraction

This anthology explores the tension between abstraction and economics from the perspectives of art, art theory, art history, as well as law, sociology, philosophy, and economics. It poses questions about the current challenges of a global capitalist economy with claims to expansive growth in relation to aesthetics, technology, and democracy.

The relationship between abstraction and economics is discussed in a series of theoretical and artistic contributions. The main focus is on the role of art in mediating between the concrete and the abstract, on formalist approaches to art theory, and on the social and economic cues that help us trace the aesthetic regime of capitalism. Ultimately, this book asks, “how can artistic-aesthetic practices counteract the regime of accumulation and abstraction?”

• The visual arts in a socioeconomic context
• Reflecting on the relationship between abstraction and economics from capitalist-critical, decolonial, ecological, and queer-feminist perspectives
• Contributions by Brenna Bhandar, Christina von Braun, Sabeth Buchmann, Nikita Dhawan, Sven Lütticken, R. H. Quaytman, Marina Vishmidt, and others

An artistic discussion on the critical potential of African American expressive culture

In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the “proper” depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism—a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

Arguing against the need for “positive” representations, Abstractionist Aesthetics displaces realism as the primary mode of African American representational aesthetics, re-centers literature as a principal site of African American cultural politics, and elevates experimental prose within the domain of African American literature. Drawing on examples across a variety of artistic production, including the visual work of Fred Wilson and Kara Walker, the music of Billie Holiday and Cecil Taylor, and the prose and verse writings of Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and John Keene, this book poses urgent questions about how racial blackness is made to assume certain social meanings. In the process, African American aesthetics are upended, rendering abstractionism as the most powerful modality for Black representation.

An artistic discussion on the critical potential of African American expressive culture

In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the “proper” depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism—a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

Arguing against the need for “positive” representations, Abstractionist Aesthetics displaces realism as the primary mode of African American representational aesthetics, re-centers literature as a principal site of African American cultural politics, and elevates experimental prose within the domain of African American literature. Drawing on examples across a variety of artistic production, including the visual work of Fred Wilson and Kara Walker, the music of Billie Holiday and Cecil Taylor, and the prose and verse writings of Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and John Keene, this book poses urgent questions about how racial blackness is made to assume certain social meanings. In the process, African American aesthetics are upended, rendering abstractionism as the most powerful modality for Black representation.

An artistic discussion on the critical potential of African American expressive culture

In a major reassessment of African American culture, Phillip Brian Harper intervenes in the ongoing debate about the “proper” depiction of black people. He advocates for African American aesthetic abstractionism—a representational mode whereby an artwork, rather than striving for realist verisimilitude, vigorously asserts its essentially artificial character. Maintaining that realist representation reaffirms the very social facts that it might have been understood to challenge, Harper contends that abstractionism shows up the actual constructedness of those facts, thereby subjecting them to critical scrutiny and making them amenable to transformation.

Arguing against the need for “positive” representations, Abstractionist Aesthetics displaces realism as the primary mode of African American representational aesthetics, re-centers literature as a principal site of African American cultural politics, and elevates experimental prose within the domain of African American literature. Drawing on examples across a variety of artistic production, including the visual work of Fred Wilson and Kara Walker, the music of Billie Holiday and Cecil Taylor, and the prose and verse writings of Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, and John Keene, this book poses urgent questions about how racial blackness is made to assume certain social meanings. In the process, African American aesthetics are upended, rendering abstractionism as the most powerful modality for Black representation.

Mathematics and Science education have both grown in fertile directions in different geographic regions. Yet, the mainstream discourse in international handbooks does not lend voice to developments in cognition, curriculum, teacher development, assessment, policy and implementation of mathematics and science in many countries. Paradoxically, in spite of advances in information technology and the “flat earth” syndrome, old distinctions and biases between different groups of researcher’s persist. In addition limited accessibility to conferences and journals also contribute to this problem.

The International Sourcebooks in Mathematics and Science Education focus on under-represented regions of the world and provides a platform for researchers to showcase their research and development in areas within mathematics and science education.

The First Sourcebook on Asian Research in Mathematics Education: China, Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and India provides the first synthesized treatment of mathematics education that has both developed and is now prominently emerging in the Asian and South Asian world. The book is organized in sections coordinated by leaders in mathematics education in these countries and editorial teams for each country affiliated with them. The purpose of unique sourcebook is to both consolidate and survey the established body of research in these countries with findings that have influenced ongoing research agendas and informed practices in Europe, North America (and other countries) in addition to serving as a platform to showcase existing research that has shaped teacher education, curricula and policy in these Asian countries. The book will serve as a standard reference for mathematics education researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students both in and outside Asia, and complement the Nordic and NCTM perspectives.

Mathematics and Science education have both grown in fertile directions in different geographic regions. Yet, the mainstream discourse in international handbooks does not lend voice to developments in cognition, curriculum, teacher development, assessment, policy and implementation of mathematics and science in many countries. Paradoxically, in spite of advances in information technology and the “flat earth” syndrome, old distinctions and biases between different groups of researcher’s persist. In addition limited accessibility to conferences and journals also contribute to this problem.

The International Sourcebooks in Mathematics and Science Education focus on under-represented regions of the world and provides a platform for researchers to showcase their research and development in areas within mathematics and science education.

The First Sourcebook on Asian Research in Mathematics Education: China, Korea, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia and India provides the first synthesized treatment of mathematics education that has both developed and is now prominently emerging in the Asian and South Asian world. The book is organized in sections coordinated by leaders in mathematics education in these countries and editorial teams for each country affiliated with them. The purpose of unique sourcebook is to both consolidate and survey the established body of research in these countries with findings that have influenced ongoing research agendas and informed practices in Europe, North America (and other countries) in addition to serving as a platform to showcase existing research that has shaped teacher education, curricula and policy in these Asian countries. The book will serve as a standard reference for mathematics education researchers, policy makers, practitioners and students both in and outside Asia, and complement the Nordic and NCTM perspectives.

Als der Tanz im frühen 20. Jahrhundert zunehmend von modernen und außereuropäischen Einflüssen geprägt wurde, stellte dessen Darstellung bildende KünstlerInnen vor neue Herausforderungen. Die intensive, z.T. auch praktische Beschäftigung der bildenden Künste mit dem Tanz zeugt vom Nachvollzug der Entstehungs- und Wahrnehmungsprozesse von Kunstwerken als zeitlich, räumlich sowie sinnlich bedingte Entitäten. Doch auch Tänzer zeichneten und modellierten und fassten Bilder als Bindeglied zwischen Stillstand und Bewegung auf.

Die Studie untersucht die Interaktion beider Medien in dieser Zeit, beleuchtet Unterschiede und fruchtbare Einflüsse und arbeitet die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen ihnen heraus. Dabei steht insbesondere die Abstraktion als modernes Experimentierfeld im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen.

Ausgehend von der bekannten Beobachtung, dass die festlandgermanischen Sprachen ein reiches Inventar von Modalpartikeln (z.B. dt. eigentlich, auch, denn) haben, die romanischen aber nicht, wird argumentiert, dass die Funktion der Modalpartikeln in romanischen Sprachen mit anderen Mitteln ausgedrückt wird. Als "Tertium comparationis" wird eine kommunikative Definition der Modalität entwickelt; diese erlaubt es, unabhängig von Übersetzungsvergleichen Abtönungsformen in romanischen Sprachen zu identifizieren. Es wird sodann in detaillierten Einzelstudien exemplarisch gezeigt, dass die Abtönungsformen, seien sie Partikel oder nicht, diachron in einem spezifischen Sprachwandeltyp rekrutiert werden. Dies wird belegt für die französische Partikel quand même, für portugiesische Diminutive, prosodische Konturen im Französischen und Spanischen sowie für die syntaktische Konstruktion der Rechtsversetzung im Italienischen.

This book presents the first critical edition and translation into a European language of a text that has been largely overlooked by scholars: the Solution to the Doubts about Galen, by Abū al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zuhr, a physician dwelling in twelfth-century al-Andalus. He composed it to defend Galen against Abū Bakr al-Rāzī's (d. 925) attacks in his Doubts about Galen (published in the same series). The Solution is of threefold interest: firstly, regarding Graeco-Arabic studies, it includes numerous testimonies of treatises by Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 216 CE) lost in Arabic, but also sometimes in Greek. The most famous of these lost texts is without a doubt Galen’s most important logical treatise, On Demonstration. The Solution is thereby a veritable goldmine for Graeco-Arabic studies and our reconstruction of the Arabic Galen. Secondly, even though Abū al-ʿAlāʾwas a physician more than he was a philosopher, his answers to Rāzī contribute to our understanding of the history of Islamicate philosophy: they provide access to several arguments circulating in the twelfth century on topics related to epistemology and natural philosophy, such as the existence of the void, for example. Finally, Abū al-ʿAlāʾ includes colorful - and pitiless - comments on the medical milieu of his time. The book will be useful for students and scholars of ancient and medieval medicine and philosophy, as well as those engaged in the study of the classical world, Graeco-Arabic studies or Islamic studies.

This book provides a critical edition as well as a French translation of the Doubts About Galen, a polemical treatise written by Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, one of the most innovative clinicians and philosophers of the Arabo-Islamic Middle Ages. His Doubts stand at the cross-roads of metaphysics, natural philosophy and medicine. The edition includes a comprehensive introduction which discusses the treatise’ most significant philosophical features.

Abu Hanifah Nu'man ibn Thabit was one of the greatest pioneers in the history of Islamic Law, particularly in legal reasoning. The Hanafi Legal School that he founded has become the most widely followed among the world's Muslims. Based on primary sources, this study of the life and legacy of Abu Hanifah also surveys the evolution of Hanafi legal reasoning (fiqh) in different regions of the Islamic world and assesses its historical distinctiveness.

"Based on primary sources, this study...surveys the evolution of Hanafi legal reasoning (fiqh) in the Islamic world and assesses its historical distinctiveness." -Islamic Horizons

Al-Fārābīs 942-43 entstandene Schrift Die Prinzipien der Ansichten der Bewohner der vortrefflichen Stadt ist eine philosophische Summe, die zentrale Themen der frühen islamischen Philosophie in maßgeblicher Form erörtert. Dazu zählen Gott als Erste Ursache und Prinzip alles Seienden, der Kosmos als Resultat des göttlichen Denkens, Entstehung und Aufbau der sublunaren Welt, der Mensch mit seinen körperlichen, seelischen und geistigen Vermögen, das Verhältnis von Philosophie, Prophetie und Religion sowie der Staat, der vortrefflich aufgebaut und von einem Philosophen-Propheten gelenkt sein sollte, damit alle Bürger den Weg zur Erkenntnis und zum ewigen Glück finden können. Al-Fārābīs Darlegungen zu diesen Themen werden von international anerkannten Fachleuten analysiert und erläutert. Hinzu kommen Kapitel, in denen sein Leben und Werk, der Aufbau der Prinzipien, die Struktur der Argumentation, der philosophische Hintergrund sowie die Wirkungsgeschichte des Textes, die bis in die Gegenwart reicht, thematisiert werden. Auf diese Weise wird ein Werk zugänglich gemacht, das prägenden Einfluss auf die Geschichte der Philosophie in der islamischen Welt hatte und als Schlüssel zu deren Kenntnis dienen kann.