Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy
Version
Author's Final Manuscript
Publication Date
2022
Abstract
Philosophers today do not think of Goethe’s Faust as an important contribution to the philosophy of money. But to discount the work in this way is a mistake, I argue. Underneath Faust’s lyrical form, Goethe develops a comprehensive view of money that came to be an important influence on left-wing (Karl Marx) and right-wing (Oswald Spengler) discussions of money. Centrally, Goethe argues that modern economic practices have transformed money obsession (long conceived of primarily as an individual vice) into a structural problem: social structures are now set up to systematically require individuals to engage in quasi-obsessive behaviors towards money (e.g. persistently talking about/sacrificing for money) independently, to a significant degree, from their individual choices. This structural power, Goethe proposes, requires a rethinking of how behavior towards money should be morally evaluated – and, importantly, a critique of moral attitudes that individualize what is, in truth, a social problem.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2022.2139748
Citation
Heisenberg, Thimo. 2022. "Goethe’s Faust and the philosophy of money." Inquiry. DOI: 10.1080/0020174X.2022.2139748