During meditation, I often watch my thoughts, let them come and go and try to slow them down. Thoughts come and go, and often I don't understand where they come from and why they are replaced at some point by a completely different thought. What chain of associations is at work here? These chains of thought seem to [...]
Ich hatte immer Bauchschmerzen mit einer atomistischen Weltanschauung. Wir lernen in der Schule, dass die kleinsten Bauteile des Universums Atome seien. Nun ist die Physik weiter, wir sprechen von Protonen, Elektronen, Positronen, Quarks und Strings etc. … Im Kern bleibt die Idee aber dieselbe: Die Welt sei aus kleinsten Teilen von Materie zusammengesetzt. Dies ist […]
One of the most serious misunderstandings of recent generations is the confusion between economic and political theory. It seems to be almost a consensus that capitalism is understood as a political theory. There may be many reasons why capitalism needs to be understood politically. There are certainly also reasons why capitalism is often thought of together with democracy. For many [...]
I love complexity, but sometimes I also like radical simplification - to get some clarity. For example, the history of ideas in the visual arts. In Europe, after the great migration of peoples, the history of art can be sketched in woodcut form as the history of ideas: In medieval art, stories were told visually - mainly the stories of the Bible. Most people [...]
When I came back 'home' from India for the first time, I looked at my library and saw that almost nothing in it interested me anymore. What had happened? What is in this library and what is not? My library is that of a philosopher and art historian who has taught in Europe and the USA. It contains many [...]