Inaug.-dis. - Berlin. / Lebenslauf.

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Thesis--Münster. / Die Dissertation bildet die Paragrahen 15 und 17 des Buches Schulenburg-Kehnert unter Friedrich dem Grossen, das als erster Band der ... Sammlung "Preussische Staatsmänner" ... erscheinen wird. Includes bibliographical references.

Controversies invoking the concept of canonicity tend not merely to jump the gun - they assume that there is actually something to debate or discuss, that there are canons or canonical objects which can be deconstructed or preserved, analysed or appreciated. This thesis offers an approach to canonicity which rejects this assumption, but without abandoning the concept. It reconceives the basis of canonicity, through an analysis of the idea of incommensurability and of the hermeneutic or interpretive ideal of openness, by locating the concept and its applications within a semantics of interpretation and recovery which dismisses the very idea of shared structures of canonical meaning. In this way the approach follows Donald Davidson's well-known efforts to avoid a reification of linguistic meaning. The reconception of canonicity offered, however, owes perhaps more to the hermeneutic theories of Hans-Georg Gadamer and to Friedrich Nietzsche's conception of self-transformation. Drawing on all three philosophers it makes canonicity a function of the application of openness within certain kinds of incommensurable discourses, ones which are shaped by and reshape a subject's historical ground; in addition it suggests a resolution to a problem of openness and incommensurability which fundamentally reconceives both concepts.

Thesis--Giessen. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 126-150).

My paintings emerge from within a context best explained by reference to Nietzsche's perspectivism. That is an intellectual attitude that deprivileges rationalism and accommodates scepticism or unknowing as an acceptable starting point From this standpoint art/language can be seen as being in a state of becoming rather than as representing a state of being. This thesis aims to demonstrate, not only by a philosophical encounter with Giorgio de Chirico's work: ie. his use of myth, his Nietzschean perspectivism and his enigmatic interpretation of figuration, that the most helpful context and understanding of my work can be realied. De Chirico's art, like Nietzsche's philosophy seeks in its processes to explore the possible unity of Dionysian aesthetic force with the Apollonian. Neither Nietzsche nor de Chirico considered within a post-Socratic world that this unity was realizable. Nevertheless they both share in their respective art forms a need to represent the relentless struggle to enact the disjunction of the two aesthetic forces in a secular world. The artist’s enigmatic imagery is characterized by a consideration of appearance and reality and it is for this reason that the work was selected as a model for investigating the nature of enigma. His use of seemingly straightforward, ordinary images suggests a sense of accessibility, yet at the same time they are irreducible to knowing and my own image-making was greatly expanded by investigating these concerns. I am not arguing that de Chirico was influenced by Nietzsche but instead that Nietzsche's philosophical point of view and his use of poetic language to express these views lay in discovering the qualities and substance of the Dionysian spirit As well as working within a Nietzschean world-view set out in The Birth of Tragedy, de Chirico has also drawn on the Italian unification, specifically the Risorgimento and the lineage of these political and mythical figures were endemic to his art and they interface the with his use of the Apollonian-Dionysian disunity first explored by Nietzsche. The focus of the exegesis will be to present the poetic and philosophical use made of the latter in de Chirico’s art It is anticipated that this philosophical encounter with the aesthetic, social and political world of de Chirico will, not only assist in interpreting his life's work anew, but will also provide a context in which my paintings of enigma might be interpreted.

Habilitationsschrift--Cologne. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 216-226).