Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) [Paperback]

Reinhart Koselleck (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0262611570 | ISBN-13: 978-0262611572 | Publication Date: January 1, 1998

Critique and Crisis established Reinhart Koselleck's reputation as the most important German intellectual historian of the postwar period. This first English translation of Koselleck's tour de force demonstrates a chronological breadth, a philosophical depth, and an originality which are hardly equalled in any scholarly domain. It is a history of the Enlightenment in miniature, fundamental to our understanding of that period and its consequences.Like Tocqueville, Koselleck views Enlightenment intellectuals as an uprooted, unrealistic group of onlookers who sowed the seeds of the modern political tensions that first flowered in the French Revolution. He argues that it was the split that developed between state and society during the Enlightenment that fostered the emergence of this intellectual elite divorced from the realities of politics.Koselleck describes how this disjunction between political authority proper and its subjects led to private spheres that later became centers of moral authority and, eventually, models for political society that took little or no notice of the constraints under which politicians must inevitably work. In this way progressive bourgeois philosophy, which seemed to offer the promise of a unified and peaceful world, in fact produced just the opposite.The book provides a wealth of examples drawn from all of Europe to illustrate the still relevant message that we evade the constraints and the necessities of the political realm at our own risk.Reinhart Koselleck is Professor of the Theory of History at the University of Bielefeld and author of Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time. Critique and Crisis is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Koselleck transcends the categories of specialist and generalist, historian and philosopher of history, by his combination of the exacting methods of a scrupulous historical philology with the broad sweep of an imagination capable of bringing the past to life." --Times Higher Education Supplement

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262611570
• ISBN-13: 978-0262611572
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Koselleck's Brilliant Analysis of our Modern World, December 31, 2008

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E. Drake - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

This book was my introduction to Koselleck, and let me just say right off the bat, rarely does someone write such a tight case than this man. To compare to someone in this regard, Foucault comes to mind, except Foucault is more lively. Koselleck is dry, but this does, in no way, take away from how fascinating this book is.

Slight "Spoiler" of Koselleck's wonderfully tight case to follow.
The book does a lot more than simply what the other reviewer has mentioned. In a brief summary, this book goes something like: Koselleck brings us from the Absolutist State, to the beginning stages of the Enlightenment thinkers, to the secretive Illuminati and Freemasons and their development of critiquing the Prince or Absolutist State, to the more outright critiquing of the State (by Rousseau, Voltaire, etc) and eventually the explosion or crisis that began with the French Revolution.

In general anyone interested in anyone of these above things would truly appreciate this book. Also, Koselleck does not end the story where I have, as in his title he writes "Pathogenesis", in other words he hints to the fact that the very ideals of the Enlightenment have ended in a kind of pathological state. In this sense, anyone interested in pathological or of course "crisis" studies would love this book--and I am not just talking to the historically minded.

This book is simply a brilliant analysis of not only our modern/contemporary world, but our modern/contemporary psyches.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crisis: acceptance of an absolute moral responsibility for action, December 17, 2008

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Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution. In Reinhart Kosseleck's book Critique and Crisis, he argued that the word "crisis," whose origin was Greek, has gone through four interpretative derivations. The fourth derivation signified the concept of crisis as an essential means of interpreting historical time. "The use of `crisis' as an epochal concept pointing to an exceptionally rare, if not unique, transition period, has expanded most dramatically since the last third of the eighteenth century." Kosseleck observed that Paine used the word crisis to describe "acceptance of an absolute moral responsibility for action." On the other hand, "In Burke's perspective, crisis as a revolutionary concept of redemption becomes an analytical category for understanding concrete historical situations." Kosseleck thought that both men used the term in its proper form, but feared that mass media has cheapened its meaning and intent. Thus, he warned present day scholars to carefully use the term "crisis."

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and history of the French Revolution.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Crisis: acceptance of an absolute moral responsibility for action, December 17, 2008

By 

Michael A Neulander "Political Philosophy" (VA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Critique and Crises: Enlightenment and the Pathogenesis of Modern Society (Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought) (Paperback)

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution. In Reinhart Kosseleck's book Critique and Crisis, he argued that the word "crisis," whose origin was Greek, has gone through four interpretative derivations. The fourth derivation signified the concept of crisis as an essential means of interpreting historical time. "The use of `crisis' as an epochal concept pointing to an exceptionally rare, if not unique, transition period, has expanded most dramatically since the last third of the eighteenth century." Kosseleck observed that Paine used the word crisis to describe "acceptance of an absolute moral responsibility for action." On the other hand, "In Burke's perspective, crisis as a revolutionary concept of redemption becomes an analytical category for understanding concrete historical situations." Kosseleck thought that both men used the term in its proper form, but feared that mass media has cheapened its meaning and intent. Thus, he warned present day scholars to carefully use the term "crisis."

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and history of the French Revolution.