Books by Agnes Heller

Hvad binder os sammen som europæere? Er det muligt for de europæiske nationalstater at finde en fælles identitet? Og må den identitet nødvendigvis være på bekostning af resten af verden – af de ”fremmede”? Ágnes Heller, en af det 20. og 21. århundredes mest betydningsfulde europæiske filosoffer, gennemlevede en af de mest dramatiske og voldelige perioder i kontinentets historie. I sit livs sidste tre essays leverer hun en glasklar analyse af, hvorfor Europa står i vejen for sig selv, og stiller en række afgørende spørgsmål til Europas fortid, nutid og fremtid. ANMELDELSER: “En af Europas mest beundringsværdige filosoffer og dristige systemkritiker.” – Judith Friedlander

A Short History of My Philosophy is an autobiographic account of Agnes Heller's intellectual and academic career. While the narration mainly traces the development of ideas, we also learn how they occurred in the context of challenging life circumstances. Agnes Heller presents the life of her ideas is four stages: the first, 'years of apprenticeship,' details both the pre- and post-Hungarian revolution period during which she studied under Gyrgy Lukcs; the second, 'years of dialogue,' describes the relationships of the 'Budapest school' in terms of their shared work and contributions; the third, 'years of building and intervention,' gives insight into important works written while living in Australia, along with Agnes Heller's political engagements during this period; and finally, the fourth, 'years of wandering,' describes the various projects Agnes Heller has undertaken as a world-traveler at conferences since the departure of her late husband, Ferenc Fehr.

Immortal Comedy is the first book to 'think' philosophically about the comic phenomenon in general. Although author Agnes Heller had written a book that is both deeply scholarly and meditative on the subject of the comic form in film, literature, and life her writing is eminently approachable. In both its subject and style, Immortal Comedy is a seminal book. In it, Heller takes us on a journey through theories of comedy beginning with classical thought. She then detours through foundational political thinkers who refer to, for instance, laughter and power. We are also introduced to modern systematic approaches to thinking comedy, psychological approaches, and existential approaches. The discerning combination of Heller's individual taste for the pantheon of comedic work and, also, what critics may consider 'less significant' work gives this book a character apart from all others. It is the detail with which Heller makes her discussion, how and where she locates 'the comic,' and probably most significantly her discussion of comedy and our own lives that makes Immortal Comedy a principal book for the entire range of humanities scholars and enthusiasts.

The main purpose of this book is to explicate the problematic relationship between the heterogeneity of what is experienced as beautiful and the homogeneity of the conceptualization of that experience, or attempt at such a conceptualization in the era of modern philosophy. While the heterogeneity of what is experienced as beautiful was permitted, and indeed celebrated, in the dominant ancient conception-for example, in the Symposium and Phaedrus of Plato-the need for homogenization in the later appropriation of Plato and in the Enlightenment period relegated the beautiful to the privileged domain of artworks. In her analysis Agnes Heller provides a unique and significant emphasis on the original life content of the experience of the beautiful, which becomes lost in the modern system of the arts. This book details the history of the concept of the beautiful, starting with what Agnes Heller distinguishes between the warm metaphysics of beauty and the cold one-inspired by Platos Janus-faced relationship to beauty-and ending with a fragmented yet hopeful vision propagated by Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno, among others. In between these two historical parentheses-the metaphysical Plato on one hand and the post-metaphysical Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Adorno on the other hand-lay a plenitude of figures and intellectual developments, all of which contributed to the demise of the concept of the beautiful in the Western metaphysical tradition. The most important of these figures and developments are examined in this book.

A Theory of Feelings examines the problem of human feelings, widely understood, from phenomenological, analytic, and historical perspectives. It begins with an analysis of drives and affects, and pursues the nature of 'feeling' itself, in all of its variability, through a close study of the distinctive categories of emotions, emotional dispositions, orientive feelings, and the passions. As such, the starting point of the anlysis entails an examination of the characteristics of human involvement, or our ways of being in the world. Building upon this assessment of the conditions of human involvement, the philosophical history and emotional economy characteristic of modern relationships is treated, and the nature of expression, social division, suffering, and responsibility is evaluated in light of the theory of feeling presented here. The book is recommended to anyone interested in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and cognitive science.

This work covers the Shakespearean ouvre from a philosophical perspective, finding that Shakespeare's historical dramas reflect issues and reveal puzzles which were later taken up by philosophy proper.