Aimed at an international readership, this book offers a representative collection of essays by the German philosopher, Georg Picht (1913-1982), who was a specialist in Greek philosophy, practical philosophy and philosophy of religion. Picht's themes address different 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 offer 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 the different fields of classics, embracing not only textsand 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, and may explain why his lifelong friend Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker ¿ another pioneer presented in this series ¿ called him his ¿teacher¿.

Chapter 1. Prologue: Atonal Philosophy - In Memory of Theodor W. Adorno (1969).- Part I. Ancient Greek PhilosophyChapter.- Chapter 2. The Epiphany of the Eternal Present (1960).- Chapter 3. The Irony of Sokrates (1971).- Chapter 4. The Concept of energeia in Aristotle (1959).- Part II. Ethics, Politics and Right.- Chapter 5. Kant's Transcendental Grounding of International Right (1971).- Chapter 6. The Intellectual-historical Background of the Doctrine of Human Right (1957/1980).- Chapter 7. Philosophy and Politics (1972).- Chapter 8. The Philosophical Concept of Ethics (1978).- Part III. Time and History.- Chapter 9. Time and Modalities (1971).- Chapter 10. The Historical Nature of the Human Being (1976).- Part IV. Art and Myth (1972/1973).- Chapter 11. The Conflict Between Art and Society.- Chapter 12. Absolute Art and Politics.- Chapter 13. The Crisis of European Art and the Emergence of Esthetics.- Chapter 14. Myth and Affect.- Book backmatter.