Friday, 16 June 2017

My Attempt

So this is my attempt at translating Dr Karl Wollf's little essay on Zufall/coincidence from his book "ABC Buch des Herzens"/"ABC book of the Heart" and it is of course listed under "Z" almost at the end, only Zweifel/doubt will follow.

first part

Coincidence

Actually there is no coincidence: that's what the educated Europeans of the 20th century are strongly convinced of. The expression coincidence only shows that the chain of causes that led to a certain event cannot be observed and predicted yet. The coincidental is the utterly unexpected; flatly the thing that "mir zu-fällt" (literally falls to me, happens to me), like it has been cast down from some dark distance: there all of a sudden it is lying in my way, in my life. That doesn't mean that it isn't essentially conditioned, like any other event. An effect without a cause, this would be no coincidence anymore, this would be a miracle - and there is certainly no talk of this.

to be continued

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