Eugen Fink


Eugen Fink was a German philosopher.

Biography

Fink was born in 1905 as the son of a government official in Germany. He spent his first school years with an uncle who was a Catholic priest. Fink attended a grammar school in Konstanz where he succeeded with his extraordinary memory. After his graduation exam in 1925, he studied philosophy, history, German language and economics, initially at Münster and Berlin and then at Freiburg with Edmund Husserl.

Philosophy

As Husserl's assistant from 1928, he was a representative of Phenomenology (philosophy) and at the same time he became familiar with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. From early on, Fink was critical recipient of their positions, thereby developing his own approach as a philosophical "cosmology". He approached the problem of Being as a manifestation of the cosmic movement of worldliness with man being a participant in this movement. Fink called the philosophical problems pre-questions, that are never ready-made problems with predetermined factors such as in natural sciences but have to be created in a genuine act of philosophical reflexion.

Works

Vom Wesen des Enthusiasmus, Freiburg 1947Zur ontologischen Frühgeschichte von Raum - Zeit - Bewegung, Den Haag 1957Alles und Nichts, Den Haag 1959Spiel als Weltsymbol, Stuttgart 1960Nietzsches Philosophie, Stuttgart 1960Metaphysik und Tod, Stuttgart 1969Heraklit. Seminar mit Martin Heidegger, Frankfurt/Main 1970Erziehungswissenschaft und Lebenslehre, Freiburg 1970Natur, Freiheit, Welt : Philosophie der Erziehung, Wuerzburg, 1992Sein und Mensch. Vom Wesen der ontologischen Erfahrung, Freiburg 1977Grundfragen der systematischen Pädagogik, Freiburg 1978Grundphänomene des menschlichen Daseins, Freiburg 1979Grundfragen der antiken Philosophie, Würzburg 1985VI. Cartesianische Meditation. I: Die Idee einer Transzendentalen Methodenlehre Dordrecht 1988Welt und Endlichkeit, Würzburg 1990Hegel, Frankfurt 2006Eugen Fink Gesamtausgabe edited by Cathrin Nielsen and Hans Rainer Sepp in collaboration with Franz-Anton Schwarz, Freiburg: Alber, 2006-
  • Published volumes:
  • * Vol. 1. Nähe und Distanz. Studien zur Phänomenologie ;
  • * Vol. 3.1 Die Doktorarbeit und erste Assistenzjahre bei Husserl ;
  • * Vol. 3.3 Grammata: zu Husserls Krisis-Schriften, Dorothy Ott-Seminare, Interpretationen zu Kant und Hegel, Notizen zu Gesprächen im Umkreis der Freiburger Phänomenologie. ;
  • * Vol. 7 Spiel als Weltsymbol ;
  • * Vol. 13 Epilegomena zu I. Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft.

English translations

Fashion: Seductive Play. Eds. Stefano Marino and Giovanni Matteucci. Translated by Christopher Turner and Ian Alexander Moore. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2023.Play as Symbol of the World. And Other Writings. Translated with an introduction by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016.Sixth Cartesian meditation. The Idea of a Transcendental Theory of Method with textual notations by Edmund Husserl. Translated with an introduction by Ronald Bruzina, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995Nietzsche's Philosophy translated by Goetz Richter London, New York: Continuum, 2003Heraclitus Seminar. with Martin Heidegger,, Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1993
  • Cairns, Dorion, Conversations with Husserl and Fink. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976
  • "Oasis of Happiness: Thoughts toward an Ontology of Play". Translated by Ian Alexander Moore and Christopher Turner. Purlieu: A Philosophical Journal 1, no. 4, pp. 20–42.