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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Modern Western philosophy, c 1600 to the present > Western philosophy, from c 1900 -
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The Laughter of the Thracian Woman - A Protohistory of Theory (Paperback)
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The Laughter of the Thracian Woman - A Protohistory of Theory (Paperback)
Series: New Directions in German Studies
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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This is the first translation into English, with annotations and a
critical introduction, of Hans Blumenberg's "The Laughter of the
Thracian Woman." Blumenberg's book describes the reception history
of an anecdote, found in Plato's Theatetus dialogue, wherein the
early astronomer and proto-philosopher Thales of Miletus observes
the stars while walking one night, until, failing to see a well in
front of him, he tumbles down--perhaps to his death. A Thracian
servant-girl laughs at how he tried to see what was above him
without noticing what was right in front of his nose. This story
and its variants recur in texts by Diogenes Laertius, then by
Church Fathers Tertullian and Eusebius, Medieval and
Renaissance-era preachers, Enlightenment figures Voltaire,
Montaigne, Bacon, and Kant, and later by Feuerbach, Nietzsche,
Heidegger, and Blumenberg's own colleagues. Whether the philosopher
citing this anecdote sympathizes with Thales' priorities or
chastises his negligence, Blumenberg shows how the story stands in
for the unknowable history leading up to the intellectual attitude
now known as "theory." This improbable story fills the gap to
greater satisfaction than a philosophical claim would, precisely
because it is malleable. The story can express various
philosophers' subjective attitudes about which passions are worth
falling for and which mistakes are absurd enough to laugh at. By
retelling the anecdote, philosophers reveal their distinctive
values regarding absorption in curiosity, philosophy's past, and
the demand that theorists abide by sanctioned methods and
procedures. "The Laughter of the Thracian Woman: A Protohistory of
Theory" implicitly relies on Blumenberg's theory of metaphor. He
locates the metaphors most beloved among generations of
philosophers, and then, by observing their historically changing
meanings, he shows how these have become indispensable to
philosophy "as metaphors," that is, as representations whose
meanings remain undefined.
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