In Defense of the Accidental: Philosophical Studies

144 Pages·1991·7.77 MB·English

by  Odo Marquand

IN DEFENSE OF
THE ACCIDENTAL
ODEON
JOSUE V. HARARI AND VINCENT DESCOMBES
General Editors
HERMENEUTICS AS POLITICS
Stanley Rosen
FAREWELL TO MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE
Philosophical Studies
Odo Marquard
THE LACANIAN DELUSION
Francois Roustang
A THEATER OF ENVY
William Shakespeare
Rene Girard
IN DEFENSE OF THE ACCIDENTAL
Philosophical Studies
Odo Marquard
In Defense of
the Accidental
Philosophical Studies
ODO MARQUARD
Translated by Robert M. Wallace
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1991
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1991 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
zoo Madison Avenue, New York, New York 1001 6
Original title of German edition:
Apologie des Zufalligen
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Library of Congress Cataioging-in-Publkation Data
Marquard, Odo.
[Apologie des Zufalligen. English]
In defense of the accidental : philosophical studies /
Odo Marquard ; translated by Robert M. Wallace.
p. cm. — (Odeon)
Translation of: Apologie des Zufalligen.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-505632-9
ISBN 0-19-507252-9 (pbk.)
i. Philosophy. 2. Culture—Philosophy. I. Title.
B29.M367745I3 199.1
193 — dc20 90-41998 CIP
246897531
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Author's Note, vii
1. Skeptics: A Speech of Thanks, 3
2. Unburdenings: Theodicy Motives in
Modern Philosophy, 8
3. On The Dietetics of the Expectation of Meaning:
Philosophical Observations, 29
4. Universal History and Multiversal History, 50
5. The Age of Unworldliness? A Contribution to
the Analysis of the Present, 71
6. On the Unavoidability of the Human Sciences, 91
7. In Defense of the Accidental:
Philosophical Reflections on Man, 109
Note on the Selections, 130
Name Index, 131
Subject Index, 133
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Author's Note
This little volume is a collection of seven essays written for various
occasions between 1982. and 1986. All of them—without any particu-
lar order—advocate the same position, which is the philosophy of a
skeptic and "usualist" who derives from, and has never entirely es-
caped, the hermeneutic school. Consequently all of them aim—directly
or indirectly, and with the brevity of human life as their argument—at
the thesis that what we human beings are is always more our accidents
than our choice. Beyond that, almost all of these essays have a special
relationship to the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg [Institute for Advanced
Study], of which I was a fellow during its second year. Almost all were
either completed or begun there. Here, as in other areas, I have much to
be grateful for: "Wenn ich bedenke, wie man wenig ist, / und was man
ist, das blieb man andern schuldig" [When I consider how little one is—
and what one is, one owes to other people] (Goethe, Torquato Tasso,
lines 105—6).
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IN DEFENSE OF
THE ACCIDENTAL
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