Esther Heinrich | University of Vienna (original) (raw)

Papers by Esther Heinrich

Weiter denken. Journal für Philosophie, 2023

Sacrifice and obedience are two concepts that are central to the thinking of the French philosoph... more Sacrifice and obedience are two concepts that are central to the thinking of the French philosopher Simone Weil. She does not always relate these concepts, and even in her references to the Akedah-the "binding of Isaac", the story in Genesis 22-where one would expect both concepts to occur, she only makes the connection between them in a split way: She focuses on the sacrificial aspect in one entry in her Cahiers, and on obedience in another. In Gen. 22 God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Weil refers to this narrative only very rarely; those two of these mentions that will be addressed in this paper seem very different at first glance-not least because one is about sacrifice, the other about obedience-but it will eventually become apparent that, from Simone Weil's point of view, they belong together in a systematic way.

Wittgenstein-Studien, 2022

After a brief overview of Wittgenstein's stock of remarks on the subject of religion from 1949-19... more After a brief overview of Wittgenstein's stock of remarks on the subject of religion from 1949-1951, this article will focus on two particular points: (1) supposedly nonsensical conceptions of God, for instance in the context of proofs of God, (2) definitions of the term "God" by hinting at something. Connections between (1) and (2) both systematically and exegetically within the framework of Wittgenstein's remarks are made.¹

Logique et Analyse, 2022

In this essay I examine the changes in the relationship between Josef Schächter and the Vienna Ci... more In this essay I examine the changes in the relationship between Josef Schächter and the Vienna Circle. For this purpose, I divide his publications into two groups: those before and those after his emigration from Austria to Israel. A shift in Schächter's interests from a philosophy in the spirit of the Vienna Circle to a preoccupation with questions of religious education is clearly recognisable, but must also be put into perspective: From the very beginning, and not only after his emigration, his reflections on religion stand in a certain tension with the views of the Vienna Circle. As a key concept for Schächter's engagement with religion, I present his "language strata".

Säkularismus, Postsäkularismus und die Zukunft der Religionen, 2022

Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament

Description Songs, also called waṣfs, form an important part of the Song of Songs. They show the ... more Description Songs, also called waṣfs, form an important part of the Song of Songs. They show the structure of a two-tiered list, one column of which comprises body parts, while the other column consists of metaphors taken from different domains. This paper explores eight dimensions of the functioning of the waṣfs that depend on this structure, for example the twotiered lists as secret codes, or as a case of mnemonics.

Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society 6/1, 193-215, 2020

JRAT 6 (2020) dictionary says this about transformieren),4 after this the traces are lost until t... more JRAT 6 (2020) dictionary says this about transformieren),4 after this the traces are lost until they are rediscovered (by sociology?)5 in the 19th century, however with a different meaning.6 It is similar in English. E.g. Herbert Spencer uses the word transformation in the First Principles in 1862. The best known occurrence of the term might be in The Great Transformation (1944) by Karl Polanyi: He considers the passage to market economy, which splits economic order from social order and places the former over the latter, as a great, all-changing transformation.

Die Geburt der Moderne aus dem Geist der Religion? Religion, Weltanschauung und Moderne in Wien um 1900, 2020

Wiener ForumfürTheologie undReligionswissenschaft/ Vienna Forumfor Theologyand the StudyofReligio... more Wiener ForumfürTheologie undReligionswissenschaft/ Vienna Forumfor Theologyand the StudyofReligions Band 20 Herausgegeben im Auftrag der Evangelisch-Theologischen Fakultätder UniversitätWien und der Katholisch-Theologischen Fakultätder UniversitätWien vonKarl Baier und Christian Danz Die Bände dieser Reihe sind peer-reviewed.

Mathematical and religious propositions would seem, at first glance, to be located at opposite en... more Mathematical and religious propositions would seem, at first glance, to be located at opposite ends of the spectrum of certainty: the former being considered as the very paradigm of certainty, the latter as highly doubtable and questionable. In the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, however, these two sorts of propositions tend-from an epistemological point of view-to converge. Both can be characterized as hinge propositions: propositions on which large parts of our language and beliefs rest. Both types of propositions are normative. On this view, the initial assumption of radical difference is shown to be misguided. For with both mathematical and religious propositions their normative and foundational status is central, perhaps even characteristic. To get a clearer picture of the similarities and differences between them it is useful, as I will try to show, to distinguish internally different types of each of those kinds of propositions.

Freiburger Zeitschrift für Theologie und Philosophie, 2018

Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 58, 2016

Poetry and Theology, 2018

Während Cusanus heute für seine theologisch-metaphysischen Arbeiten bekannt ist, galt er noch den... more Während Cusanus heute für seine theologisch-metaphysischen Arbeiten bekannt ist, galt er noch den Forschern des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts in erster Linie als Mathematiker. 1 Diesen Ruf brachten ihm seine Bemühungen um die Quadratur des Kreises ein. In mindestens zehn Versuchen beschäftigt er sich mit dem Problem, einen Kreis (mittels Zirkel und Lineal) 2 in ein flächengleiches Quadrat zu verwandeln. 3 In diesen Abhandlungen taucht auch jenes Prinzip auf, das an den Namen Cusanus heute angeheftet scheint und das für meine Überlegungen zentral sein wird: die coincidentia oppositorum. In den mathematischen Schriften wird sie weder begründet noch plausibel zu machen versucht, sondern vorausgesetzt. Cusanus zeigt sich euphorisch über die Ergebnisse, die er auf Basis der coincidentia oppositorum kurze Darstellung, die auch den philosophischen Kontext der Arbeiten bei Cusanus anspricht, findet sich in Jean-Michel Counet: Mathematics and the Divine in Nicholas of Cusa, in: Mathematics and the Divine -A Historical Study, hg. von Teun Koetsier und Luc Bergmans, Amsterdam et al. 2005, 275-290, hier 286-289. Vom Standpunkt des Mathematik-Historikers vermögen Cusanus' Überlegungen zur Kreisquadratur Interesse wecken, aus der Sicht der heutigen Mathematik bleibt nichts von ihnen bestehen, zumal sie sich dem nachweislich unlösbaren Problem der Kreisquadratur widmen und Cusanus Näherungslösungen heute nicht mehr relevant (und fehlerhaft) sind. Auch Cusanus selbst hielt die Quadratur des Kreises -die Konstruktion eines zu einem gegebenen Kreis flächengleichen Quadrats mit Zirkel und Lineal -jedenfalls in gewisser Hinsicht für unmöglich, allerdings aus metaphysischen Gründen, die schon in der Antike formuliert wurden: Kreis und Quadrat sind als gekrümmte und gerade Figur ihrem Wesen nach verschieden. Welchen Standpunkt genau Cusanus zur Kreisquadratur einnimmt, ist allerdings umstritten, vgl. etwa Fritz Nagel: Nicolaus Cusanus und die Entstehung der exakten Wissenschaften, Münster 1984, 61-63; Jean-Michel Counet: Mathématique et dialectique chez Nicola de Cues, Paris 2000, 268-272.

Questions of cooperation, peace and success within a society have been frequently modelled by ite... more Questions of cooperation, peace and success within a society have been frequently modelled by iterated (2 ◊ 2)-bimatrix-games and sets of strategies for such games. In most of the research up to now computer simulations have been used to understand what would happen in somehow idealized societies. This paper introduces an approach relying solely on analytic methods. It is based on the assumption, that the strategies are chosen according to some distribution function. As a first instance of a case, where an explicit solution can be obtained, the case of uniform distribution will be studied. Consider a society, where there is no a priori preference for any particular strategy. What sort of behavior will be successful in such a society? Will there be a 'natural ruler' for such a society and will this person be trustworthy? Will the well-known candidates for good strategies, such as TIT FOR TAT, show a tendency to cooperation, when they are used against many dierent opponents?...

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