From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also Ernest Bloch the composer.

Ernst Simon Bloch (IPA: [ɛɐnst zɪmɔn blɔx], July 8, 1885 – August 4, 1977) was a German Marxist philosopher and atheist theologian. He was born in Ludwigshafen, the son of an assimilated Jewish railway-employee. After studying philosophy, he married Else von Stritzky, daughter of a Baltic brewer in 1913, who died in 1921. His second marriage with Linda Oppenheimer lasted only a few years . His third wife was Karola Bloch, a polish architect, whom he married 1934 in Vienna. When the Nazis came to power, they had to flee, first into Switzerland, then to Austria, France, Czechoslovakia, and finally the USA. Bloch returned to the GDR in 1949 and got a chair for philosophy in Leipzig. When the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, he did not return to the GDR, but went to Tübingen in West Germany, where he received an honorary chair in Philosophy. He died in Tübingen.

Bloch was deeply influenced by Hegel and Marx. He was also interested in music (Mahler) and art (expressionism). He established friendship with Georg Lukacs and Bertolt Brecht. Bloch's work focuses on the concept that in a utopic human world where oppression and exploitation is banned there will always be a truly ideological revolutionary force.

Contents 1 Works 1.1 Books 2 Further reading 3 External links

Bloch's work became very influential in the course of the student protest movements in 1968 and in liberation theology. It is cited as a key influence by Jürgen Moltmann in his Theology of Hope (1967, Harper and Row, New York), and by Ernesto Balducci.

Bloch's Principle of Hope was written during his emigration in the USA. Bloch originally planned to publish it there under the title "Dreams of a Better Life". The Principle of Hope tries to give an encyclopedic account of mankind's and nature's orientation towards a socially and technologically improved future. Due to Bloch's marxistic view it also contains such declarations as:

"Ubi Lenin, ibi Jerusalem" [Where Lenin is, there is Jerusalem]

and

"the Bolshevist fulfillment of Communism" is part of "the age-old fight for God."

• Geist der Utopie (1918) The Spirit of Utopia, Stanford, 2000.
• Spuren (Berlin 1930)
• Erbschaft dieser Zeit (Zürich 1935)
• Das Prinzip Hoffnung (Frankfurt 1959) The Principle of Hope, MIT Press, 1986.
• Naturrecht und menschliche Würde (Frankfurt 1961) Natural Law and Human Dignity, MIT Press 1986
• Tübinger Einleitung in die Philosophie (1963)
• Atheismus im Christentum (1968) Atheism in Christianity, 1972.
• Experimentum Mundi (1975)
• Subjekt-Objekt, Erläuterungen zu Hegel
• Thomas Münzer als Theologe der Revolution

• Hudson, Wayne, (1982) The Marxist philosophy of Ernst Bloch, New York, St. Martin's Press
• Münster, Arno. Ernst Bloch, (1989) messianisme et utopie, PUF, Paris
• Münster, Arno, (2001) L'utopie concrète d'Ernst Bloch, Kimé, Paris
• Geoghegan, Vincent (1996), Ernst Bloch, Routledge

• Illuminations: Ernst Bloch, Utopia and Ideology Critique By Douglas Kellner
• Ernst-Bloch-Zentrum
• Ernst Bloch Assoziation