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.

This classic work by Hans-Georg Gadamer-now translated into English for the first time-offers an extensive and imaginative interpretation of Plato's Philebus. Gadamer's earliest book, it also provides an ideal introduction to his thinking, showing how his influential hermeneutics emerged from his application of his teacher Martin Heidegger's phenomenological method to classical texts and problems.

Plato's Dialectical Ethics, Gadamer's earliest work, has now been translated into English for the first time. This classic book, published in 1931 and reprinted in 1967 and 1982, is still important today. It is one of the most extensive and imaginative interpretations of Plato's Philebus and an ideal introduction to Gadamer's thinking. It shows how his influential hermeneutics emerged from the application of his teacher Martin Heidegger's phenomenological method to classical texts and problems. The work consists of two chapters. The first, which puts Socratic/Platonic dialectics and ethics in...