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Digital 18003
- Edited by Patricia Anne Simpson, Birgit Tautz
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 27
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 28 October 2020
- Print publication:
- 15 June 2020, pp 243-250
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Summary
WRITING AT THE dawn of the computer age, the famous logician Kurt Gödel looked back to the period around 1800 in order to describe the developments in mathematics around 1900. Gödel's fame rested on his incompleteness theorems of the early 1930s, which showed that any formalized system of mathematics will contain statements that cannot be proven true or false by the axioms that define that system. And, yet, the constraints implied by his work regarding the solvability of every mathematical problem disappear, Gödel wrote in 1961, if one continues to add new axioms to the system—an idea that “agrees in principle with the Kantian conception of mathematics.” Indeed, Kant's claims regarding mathematics, made most notably at the outset of The Critique of Pure Reason, are “incorrect if taken literally, since Kant asserts that in the derivation of geometrical theorems we always need new geometrical intuitions,” Gödel continues, and “therefore a purely logical derivation from a finite number of axioms is impossible. That is demonstrably false. However, if in this proposition we replace the term ‘geometrical’—by ‘mathematical’ or ‘set-theoretical,’ then it becomes a demonstrably true proposition.” For Gödel, it was “a general feature of many of Kant's assertions that literally understood they are false but in a broader sense contain deep truths.” Although Gödel himself was not involved in the birth of the digital computer, these passages suggest that the mathematicallogical developments of the early twentieth century that led to the first computers are essentially an extension of the Kantian project. In fact, there exists an oblique yet significant relationship of um 1800 to a group of thinkers who created the digital universe and, hence, to our conception of the digital itself.
The relationship between digital computing and um 1800 is reciprocal, perhaps uniquely so, and this reciprocity flips the questions of this forum on its head. It is widely recognized, for instance, that mass digitization has changed not only the methods of researching and analyzing literature, but also cultural histories of both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (as their materials often evade copyright).
Contents
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Associate Professor of German at Stanford, Elisabeth Krimmer, Professor of German at the University of California Davis
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 21
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014, pp v-x
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Thomas P. Saine (1941–2013)
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Associate Professor of German at Stanford, Elisabeth Krimmer, Professor of German at the University of California Davis
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 21
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014, pp xi-xviii
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Book Reviews
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Associate Professor of German at Stanford, Elisabeth Krimmer, Professor of German at the University of California Davis
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 21
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014, pp 255-310
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Summary
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sufferings of Young Werther. Trans. and ed. Stanley Corngold. Norton Critical Editions. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012. 238 pp.
Stanley Corngold's volume for Norton Critical Editions joins Walter Arndt's translation of Faust (edited by Cyrus Hamlin) as the second work by Goethe in this important series. Corngold also translated and edited Kafka's Selected Stories for the series.
To accompany his new translation, Corngold has written an insightful introduction, the flavor of which is manifest in this example: “Note the key terms in this ‘argument,’ for they are original with Goethe: the seat of consciousness is, for want of a more precise physiological or philosophical term, the ‘heart.’ The relation of the self to its intentional object is not that of a concept to a thing but a ‘heart’ to a ‘presence’: the world is ‘present-to’ a type of consciousness other than a conceptual consciousness—one closer to inner sensation than brain or mind” (xii). Rich with perceptive analysis, the introduction as a whole is worth reading even for those well acquainted with Goethe. As “background and contexts,” the book presents relevant excerpts from the correspondence between Goethe and Kestner, lampoons by Nicolai and Thackeray, and helpful sections from Goethe's autobiography.
To represent the voluminous criticism of the novel, Corngold has chosen interesting essays by Harry Steinhauer, Roland Barthes, R. Ellis Dye, David E. Wellbery, Hans Rudolf Vaget, Dirk von Petersdorff, and Christiane Frey and David Martyn. The Barthes text especially gives readers otherwise unaware of the novel's influence a good sense of its importance beyond the German eighteenth century. A chronology and a selected bibliography of English-language criticism of the novel, including ten entries from the Goethe Yearbook, bring the book to a close.
Goethe's first novel has attracted a host of translators, including translations into English by Catherine Hutter (Signet, 1962), Harry Steinhauer (Norton, 1970—like Corngold he translates the title as The Sufferings of Young Werther), Michael Hulse (Penguin, 1989), Victor Lange (Princeton University Press, 1994), and David Constantine, whose translation for Oxford World's Classics appeared almost simultaneously with Corngold’s.
The perils of translation are historically demonstrated by R. D. Boylan's early English version (Bohn's Standard Library, 1854), in which he notoriously has Lotte begging Werther “with broken sobs, to leave her,” not noticing that Werther complies with the request—“bat ihn schluchzend fortzufahren”—by taking up the manuscript to read on.
Das Innere der Natur und ihr Organ: von Albrecht von Haller zu Goethe
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Associate Professor of German at Stanford, Elisabeth Krimmer, Professor of German at the University of California Davis
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 21
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014, pp 191-218
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Summary
Jeder neue Gegenstand, wohl beschaut, schließt ein neues Organ in uns auf.
—WA: II 11 59GOETHES ÄUSSERUNGEN ÜBER DIE ERSCHLIESSUNG neuer “Organe” entfalten ihren vollen Sinn im Kontext einer terminologischen Geschichte (um den Wortstamm organ- und seiner semantischen Metamorphosen), die für unser Verständnis der Goethezeit wesentlich ist. Das Problem der metaphysischen Erkenntnis nach Kant ist dieser Terminologiegeschichte we sentlich verbunden. Ein Organ ist gleichzeitig Ort und Funktion (z.B. das Auge und das Vermögen zu sehen), ein mit internen Regeln ausgestattetes Konkretes, das zugleich einen Bezug zum Allgemeinen hat. Goethe hat— in Auseinandersetzung mit Aristoteles, Kant, und insbesondere Hegel—zu dieser Geschichte gleichsam das Ende beigetragen. Im Folgenden setze ich mich zunächst anhand einer Reihe von Zitaten Albrecht von Hallers mit der Geschichte des Begriffs “Organ” auseinander. Hallers Aussagen über das nicht zu begreifende “Innere” der Natur sind prototypisch für die Naturphilosophie der Frühaufklärung, sie implizieren zudem eine Herausforderung für die nächste Generation: welche Werkzeuge eignen sich zum begreifenden Erfassen der Natur bzw. ermöglichen dieses erst?
Einen Schlüsselmoment dieser Terminologie- und Geistesgeschichte finden wir in Kants Polemik gegen Leibniz in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (im Folgenden: KdrV). Im Anhang “Amphibolien der Reflexionsbegriffe” (B316– 49/A260–922) erläutert Kant: “Ins Innere der Natur dringt Beobachtung und Zergliederung der Erscheinungen, und man kann nicht wissen, wie weit dieses mit der Zeit gehen werde…” (B334/A278). Die “Dogmatik” der Rationalisten bestehe darin, das “Innere” der Dinge schlechthin (also ohne kritische Zergliederung des Beobachteten) wissen zu wollen. Weil aber “Natur” bei Kant aus analysierbaren Einheiten besteht, die wir im Verschmelzen von Anschauung und Begriff im Urteil konstituieren, reicht seine Analyse (Zergliederung) durchaus bis in die “Natur” hinein—wie weit, wissen wir nicht, denn wir bestimmen mit diesem Konstituieren nicht die von der Anschauung gelieferte Materie selbst. Entscheidend ist eine semantische Verschiebung: Der Begriff des “Inneren” verschiebt sich terminologisch—die Natur, und unser Wissen von ihr, bezieht sich bei Kant bekanntlich nicht mehr auf das problematische Ideal einer (wie auch immer gearteten) direkten begrifflichen Erkenntnis der Dinge (daher der Terminus: “ noumenon”), sondern auf unser (kritisch geläutertes) Wissen um die konstituierte erfahrbare Welt der “Erscheinungen,” zwischen dem apperzeptiven Ich und der ungeformten Materie der Sinne.
Wie auch an anderer Stelle differenziert Kant die Sätze der Rationalisten gemäß ihrer Quellen in der Erkenntnis.
Goethe Yearbook 21
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Elisabeth Krimmer
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- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014
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The Goethe Yearbook is a publication of the Goethe Society of North America, encouraging North American Goethe scholarship by publishing original English-language contributions to the understanding of Goethe and other authors of the Goethezeit while also welcoming contributions from scholars around the world. Volume 21 contains eleven articles, including contributions by leading scholars David Wellbery and Katharina Mommsen; innovative work on the reception of Goethe's works around 1900, on women writers, and on Goethe's contemporary Albrecht von Haller; theoretically sophisticated interpretations, including articles on concepts of space in Alexis and Doraand on notions of sacrifice in Faust; and interdisciplinary pieces ranging from a discussion of contemporary psychological and medical theories of ill humor in relation to Goethe's Werther and an economic reading of Goethe's Faust to an analysis of illustrations of Goethe's works. The review section collects responses by eminent scholars to a wide swath of recent books on Goethe and his age, both in German and English. Contributors: Liesl Allingham, William H. Carter, Sarah Vandegrift Eldridge, John B. Lyon, Waltraud Maierhofer, Catherine Minter, Katharina Mommsen, David Pan, Michael Saman, Leif Weatherby, David E. Wellbery. Adrian Daub is Associate Professor of German at Stanford. Elisabeth Krimmer is Professor of German at the University of California Davis. Book review editor Birgit Tautz is Associate Professor of German at Bowdoin College.
Frontmatter
- Edited by Adrian Daub, Associate Professor of German at Stanford, Elisabeth Krimmer, Professor of German at the University of California Davis
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- Book:
- Goethe Yearbook 21
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 02 June 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 July 2014, pp i-iv
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