Heinrich Meier

Justin Gottschalk

A Philosophical Confrontation

What Is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?

Heinrich Meier’s work on Carl Schmitt has dramatically reoriented the international debate about Schmitt and his significance for twentieth-century political thought. In The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, Meier identifies the core of Schmitt’s thought as political theology—that is, political theorizing that claims to have its ultimate ground in the revelation of a mysterious or suprarational God. This radical, but half-hidden, theological foundation underlies the whole of Schmitt’s often difficult and complex oeuvre, rich in historical turns and political convolutions, intentional deceptions and unintentional obfuscations. In four chapters on morality, politics, revelation, and history, Meier clarifies the difference between political philosophy and Schmitt’s political theology and relates the religious dimension of his thought to his support for National Socialism and his continuing anti-Semitism. New to this edition are two essays that address the recently published correspondences of Schmitt—particularly with Hans Blumberg—and the light it sheds on his conception of political theology.

Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political Theology and Political Philosophy

The Lesson of Carl Schmitt

Seth Benardete

On Plato's "Symposium"

Die Rêveries sind das schönste und das gewagteste Buch von Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Sie zeigen das Feuer der Philosophie im Widerschein des Wassers, in den Spiegelungen des Unbegrenzten, das näherer Bestimmung, des Unauffälligen, das sorgfältiger Betrachtung, der Oberfläche, die eingehender Auslegung bedarf. Sie gipfeln in einer poetischen Darstellung des Glücks, das das philosophische Leben eröffnet. Heinrich Meiers eindringliche Auseinandersetzung mit der letzten und am wenigsten verstandenen Schrift Rousseaus besteht aus zwei Büchern, die sich gegenseitig erhellen. Das erste unternimmt es, in ständiger Rücksicht auf die Rêveries das philosophische Leben zu denken. Seine sieben Kapitel sind überschrieben: Der Philosoph unter Nichtphilosophen, Glaube, Natur, Beisichselbstsein, Politik, Liebe, Selbsterkenntnis. Das zweite gibt eine neue Auslegung des umstrittensten Werkes von Rousseau, des Glaubensbekenntnisses des Savoyischen Vikars, das ein gelungenes nichtphilosophisches Leben grundzulegen sucht. Die Rêveries verweisen den Leser nachdrücklich auf das Glaubensbekenntnis, das 1762 als Teil des Emile erschienen war und Rousseau die politische Verfolgung durch die kirchlichen und weltlichen Autoritäten seiner Zeit eintrug.

Reflexionen zu Rousseaus Rêveries in zwei Büchern

Über das Glück des philosophischen Lebens

Carl Schmitt was the most famous and controversial defender of political theology in the twentieth century. But in his best-known work, The Concept of the Political, issued in 1927, 1932, and 1933, political considerations led him to conceal the dependence of his political theory on his faith in divine revelation. In 1932 Leo Strauss published a critical review of Concept that initiated an extremely subtle exchange between Schmitt and Strauss regarding Schmitt’s critique of liberalism. Although Schmitt never answered Strauss publicly, in the third edition of his book he changed a number of passages in response to Strauss’s criticisms. Now, in this elegant translation by J. Harvey Lomax, Heinrich Meier shows us what the remarkable dialogue between Schmitt and Strauss reveals about the development of these two seminal thinkers. Meier contends that their exchange only ostensibly revolves around liberalism. At its heart, their “hidden dialogue” explores the fundamental conflict between political theology and political philosophy, between revelation and reasonand ultimately, the vital question of how human beings ought to live their lives. “Heinrich Meier’s treatment of Schmitt’s writings is morally analytical without moralizing, a remarkable feat in view of Schmitt’s past. He wishes to understand what Schmitt was after rather than to dismiss him out of hand or bowdlerize his thoughts for contemporary political purposes.”—Mark Lilla, New York Review of Books

The Hidden Dialogue

Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss

Thus Spoke Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s most famous and most puzzling work, one in which he makes the greatest use of poetry to explore the questions posed by philosophy. But in order to understand the movement of this drama, we must first understand the character of its protagonist: we must ask, What Is Nietzsche’s Zarathustra? Heinrich Meier attempts to penetrate the core of the drama, following as a guiding thread the question of whether Zarathustra is a philosopher or a prophet, or, if he is meant to be both, whether Zarathustra is able to unite philosopher and prophet in himself. Via a close reading that uncovers the book’s hidden structure, Meier develops a highly stimulating and original interpretation of this much discussed but still ill-understood masterwork of German poetic prose. In the process, he carefully overturns long-established canons in the academic discourse of Nietzsche-interpretation. The result is a fresh and surprising grasp of Nietzsche’s well-known teachings of the overman, the will to power, and the eternal return.

What is Nietzsche's Zarathustra?

Rousseau s "Reveries" has been primarily viewed much more as an autobiographical text, than as a philosophical one. Heinrich Meier s book argues that it is in fact a work of philosophy, specifically on the happiness that results from leading a philosophic life. With the "Reveries" constantly in view, the first part of Meier s volume explores the philosophic life more generally: its foundations, distinctive features, political conditions, and the happiness it provides. Meier then turns in the second part of his volume to discuss a famous section of Rousseau s "Emile," the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar. It is this section that led to the book being banned in Paris and Geneva.. Meier argues that in this text Rousseau lays out the foundations necessary for one to lead a happy, non-philosophic life. Meier s analysis provides the first detailed philosophic interpretation of this important text as a whole. More generally, Meier also makes a persuasive case for the philosophical significance of Rousseau s thought a position many philosophers do not share and explores in depth his philosophical theology. The fruit of thirty-five years of study of Rousseau Meier is the editor of an acclaimed German critical edition of Rousseau s "Discours sur l inegalite" Meier s volume is an indispensable guide to understanding Rousseau and the nature of the philosophic life."

Reflections on Rousseau's Rêveries in Two Books

On the Happiness of the Philosophic Life

This book, by one of the most prominent interpreters of Leo Strauss's thought, was the first to address the problem that Leo Strauss himself said was the theme of his studies: the theologico-political problem or the confrontation with the theological and the political alternative to philosophy as a way of life. In his theologico-political treatise, which comprises four parts and an appendix, Heinrich Meier clarifies the distinction between political theology and political philosophy and reappraises the unifying center of Strauss's philosophical enterprise. The book is the culmination of Meier's work on the theologico-political problem. It will interest anyone who seeks to understand both the problem caused by revelation for philosophy and the challenge posed by political-religious radicalism. The appendix makes available for the first time two lectures by Strauss that are immediately relevant to the subject of this book and that will open the way for future research and debate on the legacy of Strauss.

Heinrich Meier

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