This book is the latest addition to the Odeon series, a multidisciplinary series devoted to original works and translations by European writers in the areas of literature, criticism, philosophy, history and politics.
An English translation of the German best-seller Abschied vom Prinzipiellen, the book offers a series of essays that present a philosophy of human morality critical of philosophical utopianism. Marquard, widely considered the heir of Gadamer, Habermas, and Blumenberg, describes his role as "skeptical philosopher" and discusses the 18th-century formation of such...

The seven essays collected in this book address the history of modern ideas and contemporary cultural issues. The first is the discourse of Marquard's acceptance of the Sigmund Freud prize; the second addresses the equivalence of modernity and the theodicee; the third confronts the idea of "meaning"; the fourth considers the notion of world history; the fifth addresses world alienation; the sixth deals with the human sciences; and the seventh is a mediation on chance and luck as essential aspects of the human condition.

Neben der berhmten Studie zu Lachen und Weinen umfat dieser Band eine Reihe wichtiger Arbeiten zur sthetischen Anthropologie und anthropologischen sthetik, die Aspekten des menschlichen Ausdrucks, der Mimik des Menschen, aber auch dem Lcheln, der Nachahmung und dem nichtsprachlichen Ausdruck gewidmet sind.

Die hier zusammengefaten Studien zur Anthropologie profilieren das philosophische Projekt Plessners: die in den einzelnen mit dem Menschen befaten Fachdisziplinen verstreuten und zerstckelten Forschungen zu einem Gesamtbild zu formen und den ganzen Menschen in das Blickfeld zu rcken.