Letters To My Grandchildren

Reinhold Knoll, Kenneth Quandt

• Publisher: Academica Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781680538748
• eBook ISBN:
  9781680538755
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Distinguished Austrian sociologist Reinhold Knoll’s letters to his grandchildren, written daily during the Covid-19 pandemic, evolved into an obituary of European culture, politics, and society. They also embody a gesture of thanks to the United States, which took a different path from Europe and then saved it in World War I and World War II. Like Beethoven’s piano sonatas, some of Professor Knoll’s letters are light and humorous while others plumb the depths of the human psyche. But each brings the past into the present, often enhanced by Viennese ironic wit, with recondite and penetrating observations on enlightenment and revolution, art and music, social thought, the devolution of the museum, the status of the church, migration, fashions in pedagogy, and the role of technology in society. This is the remarkable work of a balanced conscience in troubled times. America owes most of its cultural and spiritual traditions to the erstwhile European stewardship of a legacy that goes back to Athens, Jerusalem, and Rome – the subject, verb, and predicate of our human story, – though Europe now finds itself in a crisis of confidence with profound warnings for the American reader.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Apology of the Translator
• 1. The First Step in Science
• 2. How Knowledge Builds
• 3. The Reality of Nature and the Reality of Society
• 4. Fruitful Doubt
• 5. Politics and Philosophy
• 6. Between Marxism and Phenomenology
• 7. Consciousness a Creature of Technology
• 8. What is an Hypothesis?
• 9. What is a Theory?
• 10. A Plea for Humor
• 11. Politics and Philosophy Again
• 12. What is Luck?
• 13. Are We Still of Any Use?
• 14. Non schola sed vita discimus…
• 15. Who Teaches Us Human Rights?
• 16. A Sketch of Industrial Culture
• 17. Enlightenment in a Good Sense
• 18. Remembrance and Memory
• 19. Does a Theory of History Exist?
• 20. On Responsibility
• 21. Conceptions of Humanity
• 22. History as a Fantasy
• 23. What Can Empiricism Resolve?
• 24. Were the “Good Old Days” Good?
• 25. Signs of an End Time?
• 26. Shadows of Modernity
• 27. A Crisis of Credibility
• 28. On Language and Speaking
• 29. De amicitia
• 30. The Encounter with Painting
• 31. Who Determines our Social Abilities?
• 32. The Problem of Comprehensibility
• 33. Understanding History through Music
• 34. Portrait of an Aunt
• 35. Stories about Little Rascals
• 36. How History Influences Political Philosophy
• 37. What Does Architecture Tell Us?
• 38. The Old Relation between Art and Politics
• 39. State of Mind as a Virtue
• 40. Pedagogy Offsides
• 41. “Culture” as a Political Instrument
• 42. A Refusal to Look?
• 43. A View on the Sociology of Religion
• 44. Bruno Kreisky – Politics and Emotion
• 45. A Glimpse into My Life-World
• 46. Reconstruction of a Family
• 47. Cold Feet
• 48. Schools and Education Policy
• 49. Thoughts on Music
• 50. Is Social Integration Failing?
• 51. Sociology as a Department
• 52. The Fate of Language
• 53. Theater and Politics
• 54. From Cultural Competence to Knowledge
• 55. An Excursion through European History
• 56. You Can Always Resist!
• 57. Can a University be Reformed?
• 58. Science – the “Second Nature”
• 59. A Second Gift: Life
• 60. A Grotesque
• 61. Is Art Prophetic?
• 62. What is Consciousness?
• 63. … if I may start from myself …
• 64. Remarks on Beethoven
• 65. On Pitch, Sound, and Silence
• 66. What is To Be Painted?
• 67. Language between the Dyslexic and the Infantile
• 68. Christmas as Rebirth
• 69. Troubles with Technology
• 70. An Etymology of Peace
• 71. The Lodge: a Mysterious Organization
• 72. Does Information Change Anything?
• 73. Is It All Meaningless?
• 74. A Political Miscellany
• 75. What Can Be Known?
• 76. A Shock in Washington
• 77. On the End of Emperors and the Sultan
• 78. How Rare is Political Virtue?
• 79. Is There Social Politics After All?
• 80. Looking Back on a Lecture
• 81. Does our Present Have Historical Substance?
• 82. What Kind of a Present Do We Have?
• 83. Another Look at Vienna
• 84. How Prussia Became “Germany”
• 85. Social Reality in a Crime Novel
• 86. Are Crime Novels Frivolous?
• 87. Natura naturans, natura naturata
• 88. Why Property Cannot be Theft
• 89. The Political Message of Music
• 90. A Monument for Johann Strauss
• 91. Sociology as a Department in Decline
• 92. May One Be a Model Student?
• 93. Florence
• 94. The Return of Antiquity and the Gods
• 95. What Disappears with the Word “modern?”
• 96. What Does a “Fail” at School Mean?
• 97. The Messages of Music
• 98. Thoughts on the Biosphere
• 99. The Holy Landscapes: Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome
• 100. On Astonishment
• 101. “How happy it is still to be a child” – Albert Lortzing
• 102. What is Politics? Again
• 103. The Church’s Crisis is Also Our Crisis
• 104. On the University
• 105. On Reading
• 106. Hope Against Hopelessness
• 107. From Painting to Poetry
• 108. What is the Significance of Beauty?
• 109. The Calamity of Aesthetics
• 110. On the Question of Power
• 111. A Closing Cadence
• Afterword
• Index of Names and Family Tree