Negotiating Free Will: Hypnosis and Crime in Early Twentieth-Century Germany

The history of free will has yet to be written. With few exceptions, the literature on the subject is dominated by legal and philosophical works, most of which recount the ideas of prominent thinkers or discuss hypothetical questions far removed from specific historical contexts. The following article seeks to redress the balance by tracing the debate on hypnosis in Germany from 1894 to 1936. Examining responses to hypnosis is tantamount to recording common understandings of autonomy and heteronomy, self-control and mind control, free will and automaticity. More specifically, it is possible to identify distinct philosophical positions related to the question as to whether hypnosis could surmount free will or not. The article demonstrates that the discourse often centred on the perceived struggle, located within a particular personality', between an individual's character' or soul' and the infiltration by a foreign or hostile force. While one group (compatibilists) emphasized the resilience of the moral inhibitions', another group (determinists) doubted that these were sufficient to withstand hypnosis

The mind of a rationalist: German reactions to psychoanalysis in the Weimar Republic and beyond.

In this article, the author seeks to trace the various attempts on the part of well-known German psychologists in the Weimar Republic to emphasize the rational side of psychoanalysis. In doing so, the author tries to demonstrate that the early reception in this period often resembled a critique of Freud's rationalism. It is possible to discern one particular form of criticism that emerged time and again, namely the association of psychoanalysis with the rationalist mind. If researchers wish to pinpoint further what lay beneath this purported connection, then it is possible to perceive a pronounced desire to prevent analysis of what many deemed to be sacred and beyond scientific scrutiny: the soul. It is precisely this discontent with Freud's thought that survived well into the Federal Republic, when other forms of critique had been discredited or no longer commanded serious attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved

Jüdische Geschichte. Alte Herausforderungen, neue Ansätze (Ed. Eli Bar-Chen and Anthony Kauders)

Was ist jüdische Geschichte? Eine Gruppe von WissenschaftlerInnen unterschiedlicher Bereiche – Historiker, Kunsthistoriker, Sprachwissenschaftler und Philosophen – haben in diesem Buch diese Frage von verschiedenen Perspektiven beleuchtet. So werden Themen behandelt, die im allgemeinen Bewusstsein eine größere Rolle spielen. Stereotype Vorstellungen und Vorurteile über die Juden werden von den zahlreichen Beiträgen widerlegt, ohne dass dabei ein gegenteiliges Klischee aufgebaut wird. Jeder Beitrag versucht, einen Einblick in die Thematik zu bieten, den Forschungsstand wiederzugeben und traditionelle Sichtweisen zu hinterfragen bzw. zu relativieren

German Politics and the Jews: Düsseldorf and Nuremberg, 1910-1933

This book is a scholarly reassessment of the ‘Jewish Question’ in Germany (1910–1933). It challenges the view that, following Hitler's rise to power, anti-Semitism radically increased among the majority of Germans. It argues that the Weimar Republic was also very influential in changing people's attitudes towards the Jews and their place in German society. Through a study of Düsseldorf and Nuremberg, two German cities of comparable size but disparate regional, religious, and economic characteristics, it explores the attitudes of journalists, politicians, clerics, and ordinary people. Using local and national archival material, the book is able to show that, whereas before the First World War most Germans would distance themselves from racial anti-Semitism, after 1918 many Germans agreed with völkisch agitators that Jews were, in a variety of ways, alien to the national community