Die Moderne als Weltkrieg: Der Krieg bei Heidegger und Patočka
Die Moderne als Weltkrieg: Der Krieg bei Heidegger und Patočka

Summary/Abstract: In the article “The Modern Age as World War” Heidegger’s and Patocka’s considerations of the First and the Second World War are interpreted as a reflection on the modern age. The historical background of this reflection goes back through an important influence of Ernst Jünger to Heraclitus’ thought of an all-ruling polemoj, which brings forth the close affinity between Heidegger and PatoËka. Here it is unavoidable to pay heed to the question, whether war that is understood on the basis of the Heraclitean polemoj is a historical (geschichtli ches) event or not. Besides this, Heidegger’s and Patocka’s philo sophical approaches to the world war are set back in the context of their thoughts, which we can find by Hobbes, Kant, Hegel, or Clausewitz. In the end, we argue that Heidegger’s and Patocka’s thinking of war is a contribution to the almost refused self-knowledge of the modern age itself.

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