The philosophers who imagined a new world
In the 1920s they walked the walk, as well as doing a lot of dizzying talk
Time of the Magicians: The Invention of Modern Thought, 1919-1929. By Wolfram Eilenberger. Translated by Shaun Whiteside.Penguin; 432 pages; $30. Allen Lane; £25.
TIMES OF CRISIS breed upheavals in intellectual as well as social life. So Wolfram Eilenberger’s survey of high thoughts and low politics among German-language philosophers of the 1920s is a salutary tale for today, not just a gripping panorama of century-old dreams and feuds. The founding editor of Germany’s Philosophie Magazin, Mr Eilenberger follows four men who aspired to “process the intensity of the experience of war” into revolutionary forms of peacetime thought and action.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "New speak"
From the September 10th 2020 edition
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