1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910136423003321

Autore

Harrington Austin <1970->

Titolo

German cosmopolitan social thought and the idea of the West : voices from Weimar / / Austin Harrington

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2016

ISBN

1-316-45230-1

1-316-45518-1

1-316-45566-1

1-316-45614-5

1-316-45662-5

1-316-45854-7

1-316-45806-7

1-316-27565-5

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 439 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Disciplina

301.094309045

Soggetti

Sociology - Germany - History - 20th century

Social sciences - Germany - Philosophy

Sociologists - Germany - History - 20th century

East and West - Sociological aspects

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 08 Mar 2016).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Half title; Endorsements; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface; Introduction; German thought and the West; Social theory and the relevance of Weimar; 1 Social theory and the West; Rescuing German "protest at the West"; Weimar idioms of social theory: reclaiming a radicalism of the political centre; Theorizing twentieth-century European modernity; Defending Weimar thought today: Europeanism or Eurocentrism?; 2 Europa in Weimar; Weimar history after the Sonderweg thesis; A German problem of culture and politics?; German ideas of Europe in the 1920s

After 1918: Europe and the German experience of fragmented civilization3 Weimar liberal social theorists; Geist and politics: Simmel, Scheler, Curtius, Jaspers; The Republic affirmed: Alfred Weber, Tönnies,



Troeltsch; Value conflict and the quest for synthesis: Max Weber and his critics; Heidelberg cosmopolitanism: Karl Mannheim and his peers; Diagnosing European societies: the inter-war "crisis of culture"; 4 European nations and the Great War; Simmel and the nation; Scheler, Tönnies and the nation; Troeltsch, Alfred Weber and the nation

Ethics and the European nation-state: problems with Max Weber5 A Romano-Germanic nexus; Troeltsch and European religious history; Excursus: challenging Max Weber's Anglophilia; Simmel and Europe; Curtius, Theodor Buddeberg and Europe; Weimar social thought between East and West; 6 Universal history; Max Weber and universal history; Troeltsch: Europe after historicism; Worldviews, world religions, world history; Universal history reframed; 7 Humanism and Europe; Mannheim: Europe after the sociology of knowledge; Curtius and Mannheim

Mannheim, Heidegger, Jaspers: intellectuals, Germany and Europe8 European nihilism?; Nihilism - Weimar - 1933: against demonic continuity; "Charisma"; Liberal theorists and the German public sphere, 1918-1933; Trahison d'un clerc, I: Carl Schmitt; Trahison d'un clerc, II: Leo Strauss; Mandarin mentality in German thought reconsidered; 9 Protesting the West: yesterday and today; Social science "beyond methodological nationalism"?; Globalization and philosophical-historical totality; Spectres of the East; "European union"; Weimar and now; References; Index

Sommario/riassunto

There has been considerable interest in recent years in German social thinkers of the Weimar era. Generally, this has focused on reactionary and nationalist figures such as Schmitt and Heidegger. In this book, Austin Harrington offers a broader account of the German intellectual legacy of the period. He explores the ideas of a circle of left-liberal cosmopolitan thinkers (Troeltsch, Scheler, Tönnies, Max Weber, Alfred Weber, Mannheim, Jaspers, Curtius, and Simmel) who responded to Germany's crisis by rejecting the popular appeal of nationalism. Instead, they promoted pan-European reconciliation based on notions of a shared European heritage between East and West. Harrington examines their concepts of nationhood, religion, and 'civilization' in the context of their time and in their bearing on subsequent debates about European identity and the place of the modern West in global social change. The result is a groundbreaking contribution to current questions in social, cultural and historical theory.