Abstract

Falko Schmieder: From One Extreme to the Next: On the History of a Controversial Concept This essay reconstructs the profound transformations of the concept of the extreme, particularly in the wake of the French Revolution. While ancient ethics of moderation and virtue excluded the extreme from the just order of things, modern disciplines of knowledge conceive of the concept of the extreme as a force that is both integrating and disintegrating, constantly shifting the borders of the existing order. These conceptual transformations often follow political fault lines. At the same time, the increasing differentiation of the semantics of the extreme indicates a general trend towards normalizing the state of exception, a trend that makes it increasingly difficult to separate the middle from the extreme.