Traces

by Ernst Bloch, Anthony A. Nassar (Translator)

Written between 1910 and 1929, Traces is considered Ernst Bloch's most important work next to The Principle of Hope and The Spirit of Utopia . This book, which collects aphorisms, essays, stories, and anecdotes, enacts Bloch's interest in showing how attention to "traces"—to the marks people make or to natural marks—can serve as a mode of philosophizing. In an elegant example of how the literary can become a privileged medium for philosophy, Bloch's chief philosophical invention is to begin with what gives an observer pause—what seems strange and astonishing. He then follows such traces into an awareness of the individual's relations to himself or herself and to history, conceived as a thinking into the unknown, the "not yet," and thus as utopian in essence. Traces , a masterwork of twentieth-century philosophy, is the most modest and beautiful proof of Bloch's utopian hermeneutics, taking as its source and its result the simplest, most familiar, and yet most striking stories and anecdotes.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Politics, German Literature

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Ernst Bloch was one of the great philosophers and political intellectuals of twentieth-century Germany. Among his works to have appeared in English are The Spirit of Utopia (Stanford University Press, 2000), Literary Essays (Stanford University Press, 1998), The Utopian Function of Art and Literature: Selected Essays (1987), and The Principle of Hope (1986).

Reviews

[Metemorfoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bloch'un kullandığı, yaklaştığı "hikmet dili" itibarı ile çeviri epey aksıyor. Peki, tamam. Ancak benzer bir dil kullanan Benjamin'in çevirilerinde bu denli boş sayfalar okumadım. Çok merak ederek okumayı beklediğim biri idi Bloch, bir miktar hayal kırıklığı yaşadım bu eserinde ama "Umut İlkesi" için halen beklentilerim yüksek. Bilemiyorum belki de kişisel sebepler ile zihinsel olarak dünyasına giremedim, mümkün. Olumsuzluklardan ibaret değil pek tabi bende kalan bu eserden, tüm kitabı okumanızı öneremeyeceğim ama not aldığım şu bölümler muhteşemler gerçekten : "Talihin rokokosu", "Henüz oluşum halindeki ruh ","Uzun bakış","Bağlantısız tekrar karşılaşma","Doğrudan doğruya can sıkıntısı","Bunun yanında: Deliler meyhanesi","Bir şubat akşamının montajları","Selam ve görünüş/yanılsama","Ek:Hiç kimsenin lkesi".
Giderek fakirleşen, sadece pratik kullanımları gelişen bir dil kullanıyor olduğumuzu hissettim/düşündüm bu metni okurken. Zihinsel çöküşün ardında dağılan yapbozu gördüm.

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die ultimative philosophische Konfekt-Box für Romantiker, Karl-May-Fans, Wagnerianer und allerlei Freunde von leichtem Grusel und einer Ahnung von Bedeutung.

[jerical · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Neither illusion nor reality; often the one merges into the other in this seething world"

"Only one who tempts, who is tempted, can be truly pious; he knows he mystical lights through the world, but also the scars from the illusion withstood on the way there"

"The nowadays massive unbelief in things unseen (or rather the still unseen) is certainly as mad as the massive belief in heavenly flesh and blood"

"There is much gold that glitters and has never been dug up"

Bloch's ability to work a cultural/social fragment (fairy tales, news events, reminiscences, dreams, anecdotes, etc.) up to a moment of clarity by mediating across history, philosophy, and of course political economy pays off in spades. While the works of German contemporaries like Benjamin (One-Way Street) and Adorno (Minima Moralia) come to mind, so too should Vallejo (Aphorisms) and Cardenal (Zero Hour and Apocalypse). Many of these passages will seem rather obfuscatory at first, but Bloch's Marxist demand that a fragmented world can somehow be put back together and reveal a path forward steadies things. "Just as there is no true way without a goal, there is no goal without the power of a way toward it, indeed one preserved in the goal itself."

[Göker Makaskıran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tanıl Bora'nın çevirisi ve dipnotlar için bile okunmalı.

[staś naraniecki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wspaniałe opowiadania. Ćwiczenia z materialistycznej wyobraźni

[Uğur · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was one of the books that is one of the best examples of politicized philosophy and that I personally like very much. In particular, the author has created a more aggressive form of philosophy by politicizing the philosophical stance, which we can call a kind of blend of the philosophy of being and existentialist philosophy.

"Man is something that has yet to be found."by saying that, he has put people in a utopian point. He argued that this utopian identity opens the way for a person and humanity to surpass themselves with the accumulations they have acquired at the point of knowledge and experience. Therefore, when we look at the titles of art, ideology and religion, which he often opens up about in the book, we can see that there is a constant state of development and change because people are always looking for the better in these areas.

The author's views on existence form the most shocking points of the book. Especially the examples given from everyday life caught me quite a lot. A very effective* book. I recommend that you read it.

[Nurbanu · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Artık selamlaşmayan dostlar, tâ en baştaki konumları itibariyle birbirlerine yabancı değil, aksine düşman olmuşlardır, çürümüş aşk da fevkalade zehirlidir. Dostlarınla münasebetinde birgün düşmanların olabileceklermişcesine davran, onları asla düşman haline getirtmemek için pek zarif bir tedbir." diyor Block bize İzler'de, yaşamımızda iz bırakan birçok şeye ithafen.

[Zeitwaise · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

[Hans Reuter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Feine Beobachtungen. Mir war zu viel Schwadronieren dabei