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A critical writer, so it seems to me, would also do best to orient his method in accordance with this little adage [Primus sapientiae gradus est, falsa intelligere; secundus, vera cognoscere]. First let him find someone to argue with; he will thereby gradually find his way into the subject matter, and the rest will follow of its own accord.
—g. e. lessing1Close
This book began while I was living and studying in Berlin, where to my astonishment a political and cultural clamor arose in response to the design and unveiling of the memorial in the Neue Wache as the “Central Commemorative Site of the Federal Republic of Germany.” I wrote a journalistic essay on the controversy that grew into an article and eventually Chapter 2 of the present study. I am grateful to my advisors, Karsten Harries, Winfried Menninghaus, and most especially, William Mills Todd, for their valuable advice and friendship over the years. During this time I benefited greatly from conversations with Geoffrey Hartman, Otto Pöggeler, Michael Theunissen, Albrecht Wellmer, and especially Christoph Menke. Wellmer’s “Mittwochskolloquium” at the Institut für Hermeneutik was an ideal forum for debate, dialogue, and intellectual camaraderie during my time in Berlin. This book is also informed by the egalitarian and ecumenical, but no less rigorous spirit of intellectual inquiry I encountered while subsequently studying philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, a spirit that has sustained me throughout this project. For their tuition, generosity, and support, I thank Bob Brandom, Steve Engstrom, Anil Gupta, John McDowell, and Kieran Setiya. Several colleagues and friends, including Lorna Finlayson, Gordon Finlayson, Benjamin Hale, and Chad Kautzer, read parts of the manuscript and offered invaluable suggestions. R. Clifton Spargo and Michael G. Levine revealed themselves as external readers of the manuscript for Fordham University Press; their copious, meticulous, and astute criticisms and recommendations improved the final version in countless ways.
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