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Author: wastian

On the Passing of Jürgen Habermas and Alexander Kluge

Written by Wastian on . Published in General.

“Especially in the crisis of the Enlightenment, we cannot afford to lose heart.” So said Alexander Kluge in an interview with *Die Zeit* (13/2026) on the death of Jürgen Habermas. In it, he reflects aloud on the social challenges posed by authoritarian tendencies in society and a public sphere in crisis. This sentence conveys a sense of “nevertheless” or “despite all adversities.” For despondency—spreading fear—would amount to giving up on oneself. And so Alexander Kluge, who had been a companion to Jürgen Habermas for 70 years, clings to this impulse to “carry on” after his death. A few days later, Alexander Kluge also passed away.

About the picture hanging in the waiting area at the office

Written by Wastian on . Published in General.

“My wings are ready to take flight
I would gladly return
for if I stayed in this world
I would have little luck.
Gerhard Scholem, Greetings from the Angelus

There is a painting by Klee called *Angelus Novus*. It depicts an angel who looks as if he is about to turn away from something he is staring at. His eyes are wide open, his mouth is agape, and his wings are spread wide. The angel of history must look like this. He has turned his face toward the past. Where a chain of events appears before us , he sees a single catastrophe that ceaselessly piles ruin upon ruin and hurls them at his feet. He would surely like to linger, to rouse the dead and piece together what has been shattered. But a storm blows from Paradise, which has caught itself in his wings and is so strong that the angel can no longer close them. This storm drives him inexorably into the future, to which he turns his back, while the heap of ruins before him grows toward the sky. What we call progress is this storm.

Walter Benjamin: On the Concept of History, XI

Course Announcement for the Summer Semester 2026

Written by Wastian on . Published in General.

In the summer semester of 2026, I will be offering the course “What Is Man? Psychoanalytic Inquiries into Philosophical Anthropology” at the University of Linz. The starting point will be the classic question of the nature of man. According to a well-known classification by Immanuel Kant, philosophy deals with the questions “What can I know?”, “What should I do?”, “What may I hope for?”, and “What is man?” The last question is supposed to arise from the answers to the first three. The ability to orient one’s life according to rational principles is a central aspect of this. This philosophical understanding of humanity is challenged by the basic assumptions of psychoanalysis. The lecture, which will take place on Fridays between April 17, 2026, and May 29, 2026, as a block course from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., will explore these questions raised by psychoanalysis regarding philosophical anthropology.