The definitive scholarly edition of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s philosophical aphorisms.
Admired by philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Freud, Benjamin, and Wittgenstein, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) is known to the English-speaking world mostly as a satirist. An eminent experimental physicist and mathematician, Lichtenberg was knowledgeable about the philosophical views of his time, and interested in uncovering the philosophical commitments that underlie our common beliefs. In his notebooks (which he called his Waste Books) he often reflects on, challenges, and critiques these philosophical commitments and the dominant views of the Enlightenment, German idealism, and British empiricism. This scholarly collection of Lichtenberg’s philosophical aphorisms contains hundreds of trenchant observations drawn from these notebooks, many of which have been translated into English here for the first time. It also includes a historical and philosophical introduction to his writings, situating him in the history of philosophy and ideas, and is supplemented with a chronology, suggestions for further reading, and extensive introductory and textual notes explaining his references.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Note on the Edition, Text, and Translation
Introduction
PHILOSOPHICAL WRITINGS SELECTED FROM THE WASTE BOOKS
Notebook A: 1765–1770
Kέρας ’Aμαλθείας: 1765–1772
Notebook B: 1768–1771
Notebook C: 1772–1773
Notebook D: 1773–1775
Notebook E: 1775–1776
Notebook F: 1776–1779
Notebook G: 1779–1783
Notebook H: 1784–1788
Golden Notebook: Winter 1789
Notebook J: 1789–1793
Notebook K: 1793–1796
Notebook L: 1796–1799
Notes
Further Reading
Index
About the author
Steven Tester is a joint Ph D candidate in philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin and in German at Northwestern University..
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