Time of the Magicians
The Great Decade of Philosophy, 1919-1929
Published on 18. August 2020
Book
Hardback
432 pages
978-0-241-35216-8 (ISBN)
Description
AN ECONOMIST, GUARDIAN AND NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 2020
A gripping narrative of the intertwined lives of the four philosophers whose ideas reshaped the twentieth century
The year is 1919. Walter Benjamin flees his overbearing father to scrape a living as a critic. Ludwig Wittgenstein, scion of one of Europe's wealthiest families, signs away his inheritance, seeking spiritual clarity. Martin Heidegger renounces his faith and aligns his fortunes with Husserl's phenomenological school. Ernst Cassirer sketches a new schema of human culture on a cramped Berlin tram. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama. Over the next decade the lives and thought of this quartet will converge and intertwine, as each gains world-historical significance, between them remaking philosophy.
Time of the Magicians brings to life this miraculous burst of intellectual creativity, unparalleled in philosophy's history, and with it an entire era, from post-war exuberance to economic crisis and the emergence of National Socialism. With great art, Wolfram Eilenberger traces the paths of these titanic figures through the tumult. He captures their personalities as well as their achievements, and illuminates with singular clarity the philosophies each embodied as well as espoused. It becomes an intellectual adventure story, a captivating journey through the greatest revolution in Western thought told through its four protagonists, each with their own penetrating gaze and answer to the question which has animated philosophy from the very beginning: What are we?
A gripping narrative of the intertwined lives of the four philosophers whose ideas reshaped the twentieth century
The year is 1919. Walter Benjamin flees his overbearing father to scrape a living as a critic. Ludwig Wittgenstein, scion of one of Europe's wealthiest families, signs away his inheritance, seeking spiritual clarity. Martin Heidegger renounces his faith and aligns his fortunes with Husserl's phenomenological school. Ernst Cassirer sketches a new schema of human culture on a cramped Berlin tram. The stage is set for a great intellectual drama. Over the next decade the lives and thought of this quartet will converge and intertwine, as each gains world-historical significance, between them remaking philosophy.
Time of the Magicians brings to life this miraculous burst of intellectual creativity, unparalleled in philosophy's history, and with it an entire era, from post-war exuberance to economic crisis and the emergence of National Socialism. With great art, Wolfram Eilenberger traces the paths of these titanic figures through the tumult. He captures their personalities as well as their achievements, and illuminates with singular clarity the philosophies each embodied as well as espoused. It becomes an intellectual adventure story, a captivating journey through the greatest revolution in Western thought told through its four protagonists, each with their own penetrating gaze and answer to the question which has animated philosophy from the very beginning: What are we?
Reviews / Votes
A tremendous feat of scholarship, but more pertinently it is also a technical masterpiece, knitting together the four men's love lives, money troubles, ontological anxieties and the wider ferment of the Weimar republic with uncommon dexterity -- Oliver Moody * The Times * A group portrait of four brilliant young philosophers in the aftermath of the first world war ... Eilenberger tells it with free-wheeling gusto -- Jonathan Ree * Guardian * A fascinating tour through the lives and thought of some of the most challenging philosophers of the twentieth century: Benjamin, Cassirer, and those two matching gnomic magi, Wittgenstein and Heidegger. It is a book of riches - full of stories as well as ideas, all brought together with a fine light touch -- Sarah Bakewell Packed with personal stories as well as erudition, this is a book that teaches us both how to live through a time of crisis, and how to think about it - skills we now need once again -- Anne Applebaum Fluently blending biography with intellectual history, Time of the Magicians reveals catastrophe as the mother of modern philosophy. It is hard to imagine a more bracing way to reflect on our own times -- Pankaj Mishra Recalls an age when philosophers reinvented a world in full meltdown - one that needed to be remade down to its very punctuation - and turns famous names into all too human characters -- Benjamin Moser A tour de force. Eilenberger unfolds new paths for philosophy itself -- Susan NeimanMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Penguin Books Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 162 mm
Thickness: 39 mm
Weight
691 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-241-35216-8 (9780241352168)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Wolfram Eilenberger
Time of the Magicians
Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Cassirer, Heidegger and the Great Decade of Philosophy
E-Book
08/2020
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€11.99
Available for download
Person
Wolfram Eilenberger was the founder and for many years Editor-in-Chief of Philosophie Magazin. He has taught philosophy at the University of Toronto, Indiana University, the Berlin University of the Arts and ETH Zuerich. His previous books include a study of the thought of Mikhail Bakhtin and guides to the application of philosophy in everyday life. This book, his ninth, was a bestseller on publication in Germany, where it won the prestigious Bayerischer Buchpreis, as well as Spain and Italy, and it has been translated into more than twenty languages.