Metaphysik der Erziehung im Weltverständnis von Platon und Aristoteles

From 1948 until his retirement in 1971, Eugen Fink gave lectures and seminars on philosophy and educational science at the University of Freiburg i. Br. Their factual unity was indicated by the word “education” (paideia). Yet, he fundamentally questioned traditional educational science, as it left unresolved the question of its own knowledge. It was necessary to clarify the relationship between the two disciplines, although the fundamental importance of philosophy was never in doubt. Fink interpreted Plato‘s ‚Politeia‘ and ‚Nomoi‘ drawing on the allegory of the cave and considering ‚techne‘ and the structuring of ‚paideia‘ (the founding of the state, warriors, archons), specifically from the perspective of age-grouping as a principle of statehood. The main themes of the analysis of Aristotle‘s, Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, were phronesis and the educational goal of eu zēn (the good life). However, it was precisely the fundamental significance of both philosophers for metaphysics that also revealed their limitations: their preference for light and their neglect of the difference between models of things and models of the world.
The complete works of Eugen Fink are being published by Annette Hilt, Cathrin Nielsen, Alexander Schnell, Hans Rainer Sepp and Holger Zaborowski. This critically annotated edition comprises all of Fink‘s published works as well as the largely unpublished writings from his extensive estate.