ABSTRACT

From Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Poetics to Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, the theme of tragedy has been subject to radically conflicting philosophical interpretations. Despite being at the heart of philosophical debate from Ancient Greece to the Nineteenth Century, however, tragedy has yet to receive proper treatment as a philosophical tradition in its own right.
Philosophy and Tragedy is a compelling contribution to that oversight and the first book to address the topic in a major way. Eleven new essays by internationally renowned philosophers clearly show how time and again, major thinkers have returned to tragedy in many of their key works. Philosophy and Tragedy aks why it is that thinkers as far apart as Hegel and Benjamin should make tragedy such an important theme in their work, and why, after Kant, an important strand of philosophy should present itself tragically. From Heidegger's reading of Sophocles' Antigone to Nietzsche and Benjamin's book-length studies of tragedy, Philosophy and Tragedy presents an outstanding and original study of this preoccupation.
The five sections are organised clearly around five major philosophers: Hegel, Holderlin, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Benjamin

part |47 pages

Hegel

chapter |27 pages

Hegel

Or the tragedy of thinking

chapter |19 pages

Self-dissolving seriousness

On the comic in the Hegelian concept of tragedy

part |79 pages

Hölderlin

chapter |29 pages

A small number of houses in a universe of tragedy

Notes on Aristotle's περὶ ποιητικῆς and Hölderlin's ‘Anmerkungen’

part |27 pages

Nietzsche

chapter |12 pages

Aesthetically limited reason

On Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy

chapter |14 pages

Zarathustra

The tragic figure of the last philosopher

part |22 pages

Heidegger

chapter |21 pages

A ‘scarcely pondered word'. The place of tragedy

Heidegger, Aristotle, Sophocles

part |27 pages

Benjamin

chapter |26 pages

Fatalities

Freedom and the question of language in Walter Benjamin's reading of tragedy

part |19 pages

Last Words

chapter |18 pages

Aphasia

Or the last word