Georg Picht: A Pioneer in Philosophy, Politics and the Arts

Aimed at an international readership, this book offers a representative collection of essays by the German philosopher Georg Picht (1913-1982), who specialized in Greek philosophy, practical philosophy, and philosophy of religion. Picht's themes address various disciplines, such as ancient philosophy, systematic philosophy, and political analysis, and often contain critical statements on significant developments from the European Enlightenment to the Cold War era. Other essays provide a distinctive interdisciplinary approach characteristic of the author. These contributions are relevant to both philosophy and science as they discuss, for instance, philosophical definitions of space and time or the relationship between history and evolution. Another part of the book includes texts on art that present Picht's authentic definition of art and his theory of the interdependence of art and politics. For the first time, key texts of the German philosopher and political thinker Georg Picht are presented to a global readership in English. Like Nietzsche's philosophy, Picht's work is grounded in his outstanding professionalism in various fields of classics, embracing not only texts and theories of the great thinkers from the pre-Socratic to the post-Aristotelian and Stoic philosophies but also the main currents of ancient literature. Picht's importance as a political author and public adviser is exceptional, which may explain why his lifelong friend Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker—another pioneer presented in this series—called him his "teacher.".