The article outlines the basic lines of a phenomenology of driving. The starting point is the thesis that “driving” does not occur in nature and is therefore a form of movement reserved for humans, which is linked to the invention of the wheel. This invention expanded the possibilities of mobility in technical and social terms. We argue that, on the one hand, travelling on wheels strengthens individuality and the feeling of freedom, but on the other hand it has a strong (...) socio-political component that is often ignored: Efficient driving requires a dense road network, and this only emerges as the achievement of a community. Referring back to Matthew B. Crawford’s philosophy of driving and Günther Anders’ philosophy of technology, the question of whether the “autonomous car” restricts or expands the freedom of drivers is discussed. Finally, it is shown that the concept of driving, as manifested above all in the automobile, has also had a significant influence on our concept of social progress. However, this concept has fallen into crisis due to the ecological collateral damage of combustion technology. (shrink)

When we talk about making the everyday world more aesthetically pleasing, we generally mean all attempts to enrich daily life with art, design and aesthetic aspects. But there also is a certain aesthetic dimension to the banality of daily life. In the first part of the essay, I suggest that two aspects dominate aesthetics in daily life: Beauty is in everyday life either short-term and peripheral or is that to which we are used and which is omnipresent. Either it is (...) surprising but ungraspable or it is always with us but has long since lost its allure. In both cases it does not result in a strong aesthetic experience but in short-term aesthetic sensitivities that alternate between excitement and boredom, interest and disinterest, attention and ignorance. In the second part of the essay I examine what it means if demanding aesthetic and artistic concepts are confronted with everyday life. Art can either be seen as interrupting daily life or can be integrated into the ordinary. Then art must follow the rules of the ordinary and can only be perceived as peripheral. Still, beauty emerges as a decisive category in the aesthetics of everyday living. (shrink)

Gut verständliche Einführung in das Leben und Denken des Philosophen und Schriftstellers Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

The paper explores the relationships and interconnections in the philosophical and sociopolitical concepts of Günther Anders and Hannah Arendt. Both philosophers, who were married to each other for a short time, not only shared a similar fate in that they both had to flee from National Socialism, but both dealt with similar questions, albeit in different manners: with Auschwitz and the Holocaust, with the problem of totalitarianism, with the development of the Modern, which is defined by technology and industrial labour. (...) A comparison shows that many themes in the thinking of these philosophers are near to each other, but the methods and foci are other. At the foreground of Anders’ thinking is the question of the destructive influence of modern technology and weapons of mass destruction. However, Arendt concentrates on totalitarian political structures and the possibility of people to take action. Nevertheless, they both are concerned that people’s humanity is at risk under the political and technological conditions of the Modern. (shrink)