In this inquiry I pursue two tasks. First, I locate the roots of Heidegger's philosophical project historically within a specific theological discourse bent on redefining the relation between religion and politics. Heidegger's main, if covert, intent was to combat the egalitarian, pluralistic impulses carried by a tradition of critical Christology, which leads from F.W.J. Schelling's (1775-1854) Philosophy of Revelation to the work of the radical theologian-philosopher Paul Tillich (1886-1965). These egalitarian impulses spring from a broadened understanding of religious community as a material communication community unified through the use of shared symbols into a community of understanding, knowledge, and interests. The theoretical expansion and deepening of such a communication model, I detect in the writings of the renegade Neogrammarian, Hermann Paul, here considered in light of the "neo-Idealist" initiative of one of Paul's most prominent critics, the Romanist Karl Vossler. Prior to the advanced theological exposition of symbolically mediated communication, in works such as Tillich's book Dynamics of Faith (2001; Engl. orig.1957), the Neogrammarian movement in language studies, I argue, holds the key to accessing the cloaked Christological subtext of Heidegger's thought. Second, after thus locating Heidegger's philosophical agenda within its intellectual-historical context, I expose how Heidegger manipulates philosophical rhetoric to achieve the suspension of Schelling's theological legacy. My analysis of Heidegger's rhetorical behavior is focused on his Letter on Humanism (written 1946, published 1949), a text very overt in both its philosophical biases and its politics. The Humanismusbrief comes the closest to revealing Heidegger's own self-positioning within his generation. The work's conclusion provides a brief look ahead, or Ausblick, to indicate the main features of how these findings about the Letter can be brought to bear on Heidegger's masterpiece fragment, Being and Time. Through this approach, Heidegger's inherently political philosophy gains a much clearer profile in the context of its formative phase in the waning days of the Weimar Republic and opens a new perspective on later attempts by its author to "re-apply" his philosophical program to the cultural situation of postwar Germany, as well as to the ethical-epistemological problems remaining after twelve years of German isolationism. / text

Αντικείμενο μελέτης της εργασίας είναι η διαχρονία της ανύψωσης φωνηέντων στη Νεότερη Ελληνική. Αρχικά, παρουσιάζεται η ιστορική πορεία του φαινομένου και διατυπώνεται μια πρόταση για τη χρονολόγησή του. Κατόπιν, εξετάζονται συγχρονικά οι όροι εφαρμογής και η γεωγραφική κατανομή του φαινομένου στη Νέα Ελληνική και επιχειρείται μια σύγκριση των ελληνικών δεδομένων με δεδομένα άλλων γλωσσών. Επίσης, υιοθετείται μια ανάλυση στο πλαίσιο της Θεωρίας του Βέλτιστου και συζητώνται τα μειονεκτήματά της. Τέλος, με αφετηρία την ανύψωση φωνηέντων της Ελληνικής, θίγονται ορισμένα θεωρητικά θέματα σε σχέση με τη φωνολογική μεταβολή και τους τρόπους με τους οποίους αυτή εξαπλώνεται. / This study examines the diachrony of vowel raising in Greek. First, it presents the historical evolution of this phenomenon and deals with its dating. Then, it describes the conditioning environment of raising and its geographical distribution in Modern Greek. Moreover, Greek data is compared to relevant cross-linguistic data. An Optimality theoretic analysis is presented and its drawbacks are discussed. Last but not least, it is argued that the Greek phenomenon under scrutiny can contribute to a better understanding of sound change and how it spreads.