Günther Anders Explained

Birth Name:Günther Siegmund Stern
Region:Western philosophy
Era:20th-century philosophy
Günther Anders
Birth Date:1902 7, df=yes
Birth Place:Breslau, German Empire (now Wrocław, Poland)
Death Place:Vienna, Austria
Spouse:
    Parents:William Stern
    Clara Joseephy
    School Tradition:Continental philosophy, phenomenology
    Alma Mater:University of Freiburg
    Influences:Cassirer, Heidegger, Husserl

    Günther Anders (pronounced as /de/; born Günther Siegmund Stern, 12 July 1902 – 17 December 1992) was a German-born philosopher, journalist and critical theorist.

    Trained as a philosopher in the phenomenological tradition, he obtained his doctorate under Edmund Husserl in 1923 and worked then as a journalist at the Berliner Börsen-Courier. At that time, he changed his name Stern to Anders. He unsuccessfully tried to get a university tenure in the early 1930s and ultimately fled Nazism to the United States. Back to Europe in the 1950s, he published his major book, The Obsolescence of Humankind, in 1956.

    An important part of Gunther Anders' work focuses on the self-destruction of mankind, through a meditation on the Holocaust and the nuclear threat. Anders developed a philosophical anthropology for the age of technology, dealing with such other themes as the effects of mass media on our emotional and ethical existence, the illogic of religion, and the question of being a thinker. He was awarded the Sigmund Freud Prize shortly before his death, in 1992.[1]

    Biography

    Early life

    Günther Anders (then Stern) was born on 12 July 1902, in Breslau (now Wrocław in Poland), the son of Jewish heritage founders of child developmental psychology Clara and William Stern and cousin to philosopher Walter Benjamin.[2] His parents kept a diary of Gunther and his two sisters and from April 1900, the birth of their first child Hilde, until August 1912.[3] This record-keeping would span a combined 18 years in total.[4] The diaries were mainly an academic exercise in developmental child psychology however they were also a larger glimpse into the lives of the children growing up. The diaries were published in 1914.

    Anders' sister Hilde was at one time married to the German philosopher Rudolf Schottlaender, who was also a student of Edmund Husserl, and later Hans Marchwitza,[5] his other sister Eva would go on to be a part of Youth Aliyah and later worked for people with mental disabilities.[6] However Anders' own parents, arguably his father, was the most significant intellectual influence in his life.

    Anders was an atheist,[7] and although he did not become a member of the Frankfurt School, he did influence the thinking of some of its members.[8] [9] [10]

    In the late 1920s Anders studied with the philosopher Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg. In 1923, Anders obtained a PhD in philosophy; Edmund Husserl was his dissertation advisor. While Anders was working as a journalist in Berlin (Berliner Börsen-Courier[11] ) he changed his nom-de-plume to "Anders" (meaning other or different) which would go on to become his official name.[12] There is more than one reason given in literature as to why he changed his name- one reason is that an editor did not want so many Jewish-sounding bylines in his paper, another reason for changing his surname was that his name would connect him to his popular parents.

    He married, in 1929, a fellow student whom he'd met in Heidegger's seminar: Hannah Arendt. Arendt had previously engaged in an affair with their common mentor.[13] They married in Nowawes and at the time lived on Babelsberg's Merkurstraße 3 in Potsdam.[14]

    In 1930–31 he unsuccessfully attempted a habilitation under Paul Tillich in sociomusicology,[15] and was advised by Max Wertheimer and Karl Mannheim to be patient. In 1931 he started writing Die Molussische Katakombe ('The Molussian Catacomb').[16]

    Exile (1933–1950)

    In 1933, Anders fled Nazi Germany, first to France (where he and Arendt divorced amicably in 1937), and in 1936 to the United States. In 1934 he gave a lecture on Kafka in Paris at the Institut d'Etudes Germaniques; he would go on to engage with Kafka in the coming years.[17] [18]

    In the United States, he spent time in New York and California.[19] He spent his time in a multitude of activities, hired in the United States Office of War Information, as a writer for Aufbau (journal), as a reviewer for a philosophical journal, as a tutor in the house of a famous composer and songwriter, as a worker in a factory, as a costume and theatrical property boy in Hollywood, as a tour guide at Metropolitan Museum of Art, as a failed scriptwriter, among others. He was a lecturer in The New School for Social Research.[20]

    Anders married a second time, in 1945, to the Austrian writer Elisabeth Freundlich, whom he had met in New York.

    1950s: return to Europe

    Anders returned to Europe in 1950 with his wife to live in her native Vienna. While Germany had been the first choice, the political situation was not appropriate and an academic post in Halle no longer a choice. He often wrote for Merkur.[21]

    There Anders wrote his main philosophical work, whose title translates as The Obsolescence of Humankind (1956). He became a leading figure in the anti-nuclear movement and published numerous essays and expanded versions of his diaries, including one of a trip to Breslau and Auschwitz with his wife. Anders' papers are held by the University of Vienna, and his literary executor is former FORVM editor Gerhard Oberschlick. He and his second wife divorced in 1955.

    In 1957, Anders married a third time, to American pianist Charlotte Lois Zelka.[22] [23] Gunther knew how to play the piano and violin.

    Philosophy

    Günther Anders has called his philosophy "occasional philosophy"[24] (Gelegenheitsphilosophie);[25] and "impressionistic philosophy". He never held an academic rank in Europe. A professorship from Free University of Berlin was declined. A lack of academic rank influenced his work, causing it to deviate from the usual academic style. Anders has also called himself a "critical theorist of technology". He also used Diskrepanzphilosophie (philosophy of discrepancy) in an attempt to classify himself.[26] Anders is well known in Europe and has been published and researched to a considerable extent in the German language. Some of his work has been translated into other languages such as French and Spanish. As compared to his presence in Europe, his presence in the English language has been minimal. Gunther wrote mostly in German.

    Anders was an early critic of the role of technology in modern life and in this context was a trenchant critic of the role of television. His essay "The Phantom World of TV", written in the late 1950s, was published in an edition of Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White's influential anthology Mass Culture.[27] In it he details how the televisual experience substitutes images for experience, leading people to eschew first-hand experiences in the world and instead become "voyeurs". His dominant metaphor in this essay centers on how television interposes itself between family members "at the dinner table".[28]

    The Obsolescence of Humankind

    See main article: The Outdatedness of Human Beings.

    His major work, of which only a few essays have been translated into English,[29] is acknowledged to be Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen (literally "The Antiquatedness of the Human Being"; while "obsolescence" was a typical translation early on, "antiquatedness" is considered more suitable). By the end of the 20th century, both volumes had sold about 140,000 copies.[30] This wide readership dwarfed scholarly interactions. The essay argues that a gap has developed between humanity's technologically enhanced capacity to create and destroy, and our ability to imagine that destruction. Anders devoted a great deal of attention to the nuclear threat, making him an early critic of this technology as well. The two-volume work is made up of a string of philosophical essays that start with an observation often found in Anders' diary entries dating back to his exile in the US in the 1940s.

    To provide an example from the first chapter of volume one: "First Encounter with Promethean Shame – Today's Prometheus asks: 'Who am I anyway?'"; "Shame about the 'embarrassingly' high quality of manufactured goods." What are we embarrassed about? Anders' answer to this question is simply "that we were born and not manufactured." Don Ihde suppressed an English translation of the two volumes.

    Prometheanism

    See main article: Promethean gap. In 1942, Anders wrote of having found signs of a new form of shame which he provisionally called Promethean shame, that is "the shame when confronted by the humiliatingly high quality of fabricated things". He would later go on to express doubts about the existence of this kind of shame. Another iteration of the shame was "the incapacity of our imagination to grasp the enormity of what we can produce and set in motion". Promethean shame can be seen in posthumanism, in the comparisons we make with our creations. Anders utilizes the story of Prometheus and draws parallels to modern technology. For him, Prometheus means "he who thinks ahead".

    The variations of the Promethean disjunction Anders referred to included the gap between the maximum that we can produce and imagine as compared to the maximum we use and need, which are in comparison "shamefully small". It is a disproportion between the capacities for destruction and construction where "we can construct much more than we are capable of destroying; that it is easy to build but very difficult to destroy". The Promethean gap refers to the incapacity to imagine the consequences of our creations.[24] [31] [32]

    Open Letter to Klaus Eichmann

    Just as Arendt in her Eichmann in Jerusalem elucidated the Banality of Evil by pointing out that most heinous crimes can be committed by quite ordinary people, Anders explores the moral and ethical ramifications of the facts brought to light in the 1960–61 trial of Adolf Eichmann in We Sons of Eichmann: Open Letter to Klaus Eichmann (the son of the noted Nazi bureaucrat and genocidaire). He suggests that the appellation "Eichmann" properly designates any person who actively participated in, ignored or failed to learn about, or even knew about, but took no action against the Nazis' mass murder campaigns against Jews and others. He explained to his audience in Austria and Germany, among them young writers searching for ways to empathize with their parents' generation, that "there was but one viable alternative not only for Eichmann's son Klaus but all 'Eichmann sons', namely to repudiate their fathers since mourning them was not an option."[33]

    Mensch ohne Welt

    In Mensch ohne Welt, Anders engages in a critique of the contemporary western commodity-society which he deems a society unfit for human beings. He views this perspective as negative-ontological. This world is a world for capital, not human beings, especially not for those who don't have the "great honor" to participate in labour. One is deemed adequate when one sells labour, the human being very far from being viewed as an end in herself, due to a kind of non laboro ergo non sum type of logic.

    Honors

    Günther Anders Prize for critical thinking

    Günther Anders Prize for critical thinking (Preis für kritisches denken) is a biannual award given by the International Günther Anders Society and sponsored by Verlag C. H. Beck.[39] Constituted in 2018, winners include Joseph Vogl, Corine Pelluchon and Dietmar Dath.

    Works

    Bibliographies

    List of selected works

    Correspondence and conversations

    Prose

    Anthologies

    References

    Works cited

    Secondary literature

    Biography

    In English

    Other languages

    German
    Italian
    French
    Spanish

    External links

    Notes and References

    1. Web site: Sigmund-Freud-Preis . 9 January 2013 . Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung.
    2. Armon . Adi . 12 January 2017 . The Parochialism of Intellectual History: The Case of Günther Anders . The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book . en . 62 . ybw022. 10.1093/leobaeck/ybw022 . 0075-8744. free .
    3. Web site: Levelt . Willem J. M. . Willem Levelt . 2011 . The Stern Diaries . 31 July 2022 . Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguists.
    4. Wobick-Segev . Sarah . 2014 . "The Religion We Plant in Their Hearts": A Critical Exploration of the Religiosity of a German Jewish Family at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century . Jewish History . 28 . 2 . 159–185 . 10.1007/s10835-014-9214-1 . 24709716 . 145765941 . 0334-701X . JSTOR.
    5. Web site: Marchwitza, Hans . 7 August 2022 . Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung . . de.
    6. Web site: Dawsey . Jason . 25 June 2019 . The Life of a Rescuer: Eva Michaelis-Stern in Dark Times . 7 August 2022 . The National WWII Museum, New Orleans . en.
    7. Book: Bauman . Zygmunt . Of God and Man . Obirek . Stanislaw . 21 July 2015 . John Wiley & Sons . 978-0-7456-9570-9 . limited . Google Books.
    8. "Arendt had her haters and admirers, and the Frankfurt School had its members. Anders, however, did not have a mediator in academia who would assume responsibility for the transfer of knowledge between continents and languages." Armon . Adi . 12 January 2017 . The Parochialism of Intellectual History: The Case of Günther Anders . The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book . en . 62 . ybw022. 10.1093/leobaeck/ybw022 . 0075-8744. free.
    9. According to Babich, Anders was one of the first founders of the Frankfurt School. Babette Babich: Günther Anders' Philosophy of Technology - From Phenomenology to Critical Theory, Bloomsbury Academic 2021. pp. IX–X.
    10. [Martin Jay]
    11. Web site: Greffrath . Mathias . 4 July 2002 . Lob der Sturheit. Eine Erinnerung an Günther Anders – den Philosophen und Pamphletisten, den Analytiker und Kämpfer, der am 12. Juli 100 Jahre geworden wäre. . Praise of Stubbornness. A memory of Günther Anders – the philosopher and pamphleteer, the analyst and fighter, who would have been 100 on July 12th . registration . 3 June 2022 . Zeit Online . . German.
    12. Jonas . Hans . Fox . Brian . Wolin . Richard . 2006 . Hannah Arendt: An Intimate Portrait . New England Review (1990–) . 27 . 2 . 133–142 . 40244828 . 1053-1297.
    13. Book: Ettinger, Elżbieta . 1995 . Yale University Press . 978-0-300-07254-9 . 31 . Elzbieta Ettinger.
    14. Book: Grunenberg, Antonia . Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: History of a Love . 17 July 2017 . Indiana University Press . 978-0-253-02718-4 . 84 . Birmingham . Peg . Lebedeva . Kristina . Birmingham . Elizabeth von Witzke.
    15. Web site: Ellensohn . Reinhard . February 2014 . Austrian Science Fund (FWF) . Günther Anders' Musikphilosophie . German.
    16. Wolfe . Katharine . 2009 . Introduction to Günther Anders' 'The Pathology of Freedom' . Deleuze Studies . 3 . 2 . 274–277 . 10.3366/E1750224109000646 . 45331702 . 1750-2241 . JSTOR.
    17. Book: Gellen, Kata . Kafka, Pro and Contra: Günther Anders's Holocaust Book . Kafka, Pro and Contra . 2016 . Kafka and the Universal . 283–306 . Cools . Arthur . 1 . De Gruyter . j.ctvbkjt9v.18 . 31 July 2022 . Liska . Vivian.
    18. Anders . Günther . Steer . A. . Thorlby . A. K. . 1970 . Reflections on My Book Kafka—Pro und Contra . Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature . 3 . 4 . 59–72 . 24776232 . 0027-1276.
    19. Web site: Exiled in Hollywood: A Coordinate System for the Anders Experience . 31 July 2022 . Goethe-Institut.
    20. Web site: Volume 8: The Life and Work of Günther Anders . 3 June 2022 . Center Austria . The University of New Orleans . en-US.
    21. Book: Dawsey, Jason . Where Hitler's Name is Never Spoken: Günther Anders in 1950s Vienna . Where Hitler's Name is Never Spoken . 2012 . Austrian Lives . 21 . 212–239 . Bischof . Günter . University of New Orleans Press . j.ctt1n2txnx.13 . 978-1-60801-092-9 . 31 July 2022 . Plasser . Fritz . Maltschnig . Eva.
    22. Web site: Charlotte Zelka (1930 – Oct. 6, 2001).
    23. Web site: Günther Anders: biography, texts and links, by Harold Marcuse . 13 May 2022 . UC Santa Barbara.
    24. Book: Fuchs, Christian . Marxist Humanism and Communication Theory . 2021 . Media, Communication and Society . Routledge . 978-1-000-34553-7 . 1 . en . Chapter 7. Günther Anders' critical theory of technology . Christian Fuchs (sociologist) . https://books.google.com/books?id=ua4WEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT100.
      Previously published in Fuchs . Christian . 2017 . Günther Anders' Undiscovered Critical Theory of Technology in the Age of Big Data Capitalism . . 15 . 2 . 582–611 . 10.31269/triplec.v15i2.898. free .
    25. News: 17 November 1959 . Günther Anders: "Der Mann auf der Brücke". . de . Der Spiegel . 1 June 2022 . 2195-1349.
    26. Book: Dries, Christian . Die Welt als Vernichtungslager . transcript Verlag . 2012 . 978-3-8376-1949-2 . 63 . German.
    27. Book: Anders, Günther . Mass Culture . The Free Press of Gelcoe . 1957 . Rosenberg . Bernard . The Phantom World of TV . White . David Manning . https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.114669/page/n407 . archive.org.
    28. Book: Anders, Günther . Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen: Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution . 2002 . C.H.Beck . 978-3-406-47644-0 . 97–193 . de . The World as Phantom and Matrix. Philosophical Observations on Radio and Television . 1956. link
    29. Günther Anders, 'The Obsolescence of Privacy', CounterText 3:1
    30. Müller . Christopher John . Mellor . David . 2019 . Utopia inverted: Günther Anders, technology and the social . Thesis Eleven . en . 153 . 1 . 3–8 . 10.1177/0725513619865638 . 203107887 . 0725-5136. free .
    31. Pardo . Rafael I. . 2021 . On Bankruptcy's Promethean Gap: Building Enslaving Capacity into the Antebellum Administrative State . Fordham Urban Law Journal . 48 . 4 . 801 . The concept, created by German philosopher Günther Anders, focuses on "the discrepancy between the tremendous power of humanity's inventions and the limited ability of any single person to comprehend, let alone control, the moral and practical implications of that power.".
    32. Web site: Sandvik . Hannah Monsrud . 3 March 2018 . Apocalyptic Blindness and the Atomic Bomb . 27 May 2022 . Teknovatøren . nb-NO . The only solution, according to Anders, is a radical expansion of our imagination – we have to bridge the promethean gap.
    33. Dagmar Lorenz. The Established Outsider: Bernhard. in: The Companion to the Works of Thomas Bernhard. Camden House, 2002. (Studies in German Literature, Linguistics, and Culture) Matthias Konzett editor.
    34. Web site: Albo d'oro – Premio Letterario "Della Resistenza" – Città di Omegna . Roll of honor – Omegna "Della Resistenza" Award . 31 May 2022 . Premio Omegna . it-IT.
    35. Web site: Die Preisträger 1951–2008. Verband der deutschen Kritiker . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090307002628/http://www.kritikerverband.de/Die_Preistraeger.htm . 7 March 2009 . 31 May 2022.
    36. Web site: Thomas-Mann-Preis der Hansestadt Lübeck und der Bayerischen Akademie der Schönen Künste . 31 May 2022 . Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts . de.
    37. Web site: Günther Anders: Existential "Occasional Philosophy" with a Critical Approach . 29 May 2022 . Goethe-Institut . en.
    38. Web site: The Life of Günther Anders (1902–1992) . 29 May 2022 . Günther Anders Gesellschaft.
    39. Web site: Der Anders Preis. Günther Anders-Preis für kritisches Denken . 31 May 2022 . Günther Anders Gesellschaft . de-DE.

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