A talk on the conceptual history of “responsibility” in the lectures series of the Forschungskolloquium Zeitgeschichte.

Genealogy has become a lively debated method but is currently stripped from some of its defining features: (a) the destruction of the origin; (b) the emphasis on conflicts in which ideas, concepts and practices emerge; (c) the spotlight on the bodies on which this violent history leaves its mark.

A talk on Foucault’s concepts of experience.

Please read the syllabus carefully!

The lecture introduces students to philosophy of science by looking at the most important problems and debates: What are sciences, and how are they related to philosophy? How do scientific explanations work? Are there laws of nature? What roles do empirical accuracy, curiosity, diversity and other values play in scientific practices? Does science discover what is real?

Bitte lesen Sie den Seminarplan sorgfältig!

This seminar will introduce students to early Frankfurt School Critical Theory and its subsequent developments. While a comprehensive overview is impossible in just one semester, we will cover a mixture of canonical and less well-known topics relevant for the contemporary debates in critical theory. The seminar will focus four core aspects:

Bitte lesen Sie den Seminarplan sorgfältig!

Feministische Erkenntnistheorie benennt ein weites Feld von Epistemologien, die bei allen Unterschieden drei Gemeinsamkeiten haben: Erstens gehen sie davon aus, dass epistemische Phänomene – Überzeugungen, Wissen, Rechtfertigungen usw. – situiert sind, d.h. eingebettet in soziale Praktiken und nicht einfach von diesen ablösbar. Im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Erkenntnistheorien verbieten sich daher beispielsweise Definitionen von Wissen, die ein generisches, abstraktes Subjekt voraussetzen.

The aim of this colloquium is to discuss epistemologies beyond the beaten tracks of European philosophy. This does not mean to neglect ideas from classical “western” epistemology wholesale, but to bring them into dialogue with epistemological arguments from other traditions of thought. Thus, philosophy has to consider texts and authors from beyond its canon and seek interdisciplinary exchange. The colloquium provides a room for doing so – what happens in it will be up to those who come.

A conversation with Jan Groos of Future Histories about the public at the conference Politische Öffentlichkeit: Strukturen in Erfurt.

In this article, I argue for a materialist picture of truth as a force that emerges from social practices but is not reducible to them, that is weak in comparison to other forces, that exclusively targets subjectivities and that has a ‘ratchet effect’ on these subjectivities.

The argument presented in the talk aims to show that intertwining epistemology with social and political theory must transforms of both sub-disciplines, due to three basic requirements: minimal materialism, radical self-reflection and epistemic non-sovereignty.

The argument presented in the talk aims to show that intertwining epistemology with social and political theory must transforms of both sub-disciplines, due to three basic requirements: minimal materialism, radical self-reflection and epistemic non-sovereignty.

In diesem Vortrag untersuche ich verschiedene Varianten von Beispielkritik in der Philosophie, wobei ich mich auf die Art von Wirklichkeit konzentriere, die Beispiele in die Philosophie einführen. Kritik verdienen sie vor allem, so möchte ich zeigen, wenn sie diese Wirklichkeit vorschnell von Konflikt und Kontingenz reinigen.

Der Vortrag untersucht nicht, warum wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse gelten, sondern woher die Idee kommt, sie als geltend zu beschreiben.

In this article, I argue for a broad but critical conception of political epistemology characterised by three foundational commitments: minimal materialism, radical self-reflexivity, and epistemic non-sovereignty.

Prof. Dr. Frieder Vogelmann (Albert‐Ludwigs‐Universität Freiburg) wird sein Buch „Umkämpfte Wissenschaften“ und ihre Bedeutung in der Gesellschaft vorstellen. Der Vortrag findet am Montag, 21. Oktober 2024, 19 Uhr im Vortragssaal des Stadtarchivs Stuttgart statt.

Der Reader versammelt klassische und aktuelle Texte der feministischen Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorien, viele davon erstmals in deutscher Übersetzung.

Genealogy has become a lively debated method but is currently stripped from some of its defining features: (a) the destruction of the origin; (b) the emphasis on conflicts in which ideas, concepts and practices emerge; (c) the spotlight on the bodies on which this violent history leaves its mark.

Course Description

This course offers an overview of contemporary epistemology with a primer on the basics of philosophical logic (propositional and predicate logic). At the same time, it introduces non-philosophy students to philosophy in the sense of working on conceptual problems, questions and arguments.

The aim of this colloquium is to discuss epistemologies beyond the beaten tracks of European philosophy. This does not mean to neglect ideas from classical “western” epistemology wholesale, but to bring them into dialogue with epistemological arguments from other traditions of thought. Thus, philosophy has to consider texts and authors from beyond its canon and seek interdisciplinary exchange. The colloquium provides a room for doing so – what happens in it will be up to those who come.

Course Description

Buchrezensionen sind ein wichtiges Medium einer Public Sociology und zugleich ein ausgezeichnetes Lernfeld für wissenschaftliches Schreiben. Im Rahmen dieses als Schreibwerkstatt angelegten Seminars sollen gemeinsam sozial- und geisteswissenschaftliche Neuerscheinungen diskutiert und von den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern rezensiert werden. Grundlage der Teilnahme ist die Bereitschaft, selbst Buchbesprechungen zu verfassen und die eigenen Texte im Seminar zur Diskussion zu stellen.

Course Description

Like children, scholarly work is driven by why-questions—and by giving answers to these questions. More than that: The structure and content of academic texts should answer why-questions: it should give arguments for the concepts used or discarded, the positions defended or attacked, for the interpretations advanced or undermined. The same holds true of essays, term papers and virtually any text students are asked to write at the university. However, it is surprisingly difficult to give good–sound, easy to understand—arguments. It is even harder to come up with a structure for texts that supports the arguments given in it.

In this article, Martin Saar and I explore what a contemporary philosophical practice after and following Foucault might look like.

Nobody would call for a policy that is not based on evidence, but instead completely disregards whether its decisions can be implemented in the given situation or whether they will actually have the desired effects. Or do they?

A short essay on the concept of “populismus” as part of the glossarium of the present.

We crtically assess the recent idea of a “European” political epistemology.

In this talk, I present an interpretation of Michel Foucault’s philosophical method.

A roundtable on the “diversity trumps ability” (DTA) theorem by the economists Lu Hong and Scott E. Page (2004) with Peter Niesen, Kai Spiekermann, Lisa Herzog, Charles Girard & Frieder Vogelmann.

Book Launch at the Research and Teaching Area Political Theory at Humboldt University Berlin.

Talk and roundtable discussion with Prof. Dr. Christian Meyer & Prof. Dr. Sven Reichardt (Universiy Konstanz).

Gegen den nostalgischen Positivismus, der die »spontane Philosophie« der Wissenschaften dominiert, argumentiere ich für ein realistisches Verständnis wissenschaftlicher Praktiken – das allerdings die Umstellung auf eine nicht-souveräne Erkenntnistheorie erfordert, deren Grundidee ich in dem Vortrag skizziere.

Roundtable at the congress Demokratie in Sachsen at the Else Frenkel-Brunswik Institut.

Against the nostalgic positivism that dominates the currrent “spontaneous philosophy of science”, I argue for a realistic understanding of scientific practices. That, however, requires a non-sovereign epistemology, the outlines of which I will sketch in this talk.

With talks by Viktoria Huegel (Wien), Martin Nonhoff (Bremen), Rieke Trimçev (Erlangen) and Frieder Vogelmann (Freiburg).

Lorenzini elucidates Foucault’s lifelong project of a history of truth, situates Foucault’s late analysis of parrhesia within that …

Please read the syllabus carefully!

The lecture introduces students to the philosophy of science by looking at the most important problems and debates: What are sciences, and how are they related to philosophy? How do scientific explanations work? Are there laws of nature? What roles do objectivity, rationality and other values play in scientific practices? Does science discover what is real?

The aim of this colloquium is to discuss epistemologies beyond the beaten tracks of European philosophy. This does not mean to neglect ideas from classical “western” epistemology wholesale, but to bring them into dialogue with epistemological arguments from other traditions of thought. Thus, philosophy has to consider texts and authors from beyond its canon and seek interdisciplinary exchange. The colloquium provides a room for doing so – what happens in it will be up to those who come.

Obwohl ihr Werk in der deutschsprachigen Philosophie erst seit wenigen Jahren verstärkt diskutiert wird, zählen Linda Martín Alcoffs Bücher und Aufsätze seit den 1990er Jahren zu den innovativsten Beiträgen zu einer radikal auf die Gegenwart bezogenen Philosophie. Diese Bezeichnung erscheint uns passend: nicht, weil Alcoff in ihren philosophischen Texten die Geschichte (nicht nur der Philosophie) ignorieren würde, sondern weil sie jeweils von real existierenden sozialen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen ausgeht. Die im Seminartitel genannten drei Themen sind dafür gute Beispiele und deuten zudem das Spektrum von Alcoffs Arbeiten an. Sie alle eint die sozial-situierte Herangehensweise, die historische, materielle und strukturelle Aspekte miteinbezieht:

From Konrad Lorenz to Protagoras: a lecture by Paul Feyerabend from the year 1985.
Review of Paul Feyerabend (2023): Historische Wurzeln moderner Probleme. Vorlesung an der ETH Zürich 1985. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, March 12, 2024.

Responsibilisation of thought means the domination of a certain usage of “responsibility” that hides the objectification of power relations within subjects in order to let them feel sovereign despite all their limitations.

A discussion between Frieder Vogelmann and Melanie Altanian about the new book Umkämpfte Wissenschaften – zwischen Idealisierung und Verachtung in jos fritz bookshop in Freiburg.

Against science denialism and uncritical idealisation of the sciences, I argue for a realistic understanding of scientific practices.

The argument presented in the talk aims to show that intertwining epistemology with social and political theory must transforms of both sub-disciplines, due to three basic requirements: minimal materialism, radical self-reflection and epistemic non-sovereignty.

My contribution to the 100^th anniversary of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt considers the necessary yet unrealisable expectations towards an institutionalisation of critical theory.

Eine Diskussion zwischen Frieder Vogelmann und Regina Schidel über das Buch Umkämpfte Wissenschaften – zwischen Idealisierung und Verachtung in der Karl Marx Buchhandlung in Frankfurt am Main.

Against the twin trends of science denialism and of a dangerously one-dimensional understanding of sciences, Vogelmann argues for a more realistic account of scientific practices.

How should we react to untruths in politics, if we do not want to affirm the false diagnosis of a “posttruth era”?

The argument presented in the talk aims to show that intertwining epistemology with social and political theory must transforms of both sub-disciplines, due to three basic requirements: minimal materialism, radical self-reflection and epistemic non-sovereignty.

In our contribution, Martin Saar and I discuss how Michel Foucault’s philosophical thought stands vis-à-vis ontology.

Please read the syllabus carefully!

Almost forty years after his early death, Michel Foucault is still one of the towering figures of the 20th century in the humanities and social sciences. A controversial thinker, his works continue to polarise scholars. The seminar offers an in-depth introduction to his unique way of intertwining wide-ranging philosophical ideas with detailed histories which un-earth “subjugated knowledge” in the service of sharp political critique.

The aim of this colloquium is to discuss epistemologies beyond the beaten tracks of European philosopy. This does not mean to neglect ideas from classical “western” epistemology wholesale, but to bring them into dialogue with epistemological arguments from other traditions of thought. Thus, philosophy has to consider texts and authors from beyond its canon and seek interdisciplinary exchange. The colloquium provides a room for doing so – what happens in it will be up to those who come.

Please read the syllabus carefully!

This course offers an overview of contemporary epistemology with a primer on the basics of philosophical logic (propositional and predicate logic). At the same time, it introduces non-philosophy students to philosophy in the sense of working on conceptual problems, questions and arguments.

My contribution the international conference Futuring Critical Theory at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt/Main, on the occasion of its 100^th anniversary.

In this talk, I will show how philosophy produces the widespread, if often implicit, claim that there is a contradiction between the truth and the effectiveness of knowledge. Once we see how the supposed contradiction is constituted, we will be able to free ourselves from it and arrive at a concept of knowledge as effective and true.

What are the requirements for conceptions of academic freedom beyond a narrow legal conceptualisation?

How does politics relate to science – and should politics relate to science?

The article, in which I inquire into the appropriate relationship between the world and philosophy, is based on my inaugural lecture at the University of Freiburg on 21 July 2022.

What are the requirements for conceptions of academic freedom beyond a narrow legal conceptualisation?

Die populäre Diagnose eines »postfaktischen Zeitalters« trifft auf gravierende historische, begriffliche und erkenntnistheoretische Einwände und verbreitet ein idealisiertes Bild einer einheitlichen Wissenschaft. Dagegen entwickele ich im Vortrag eine Alternative.

A Workshop on my book Die Wirksamkeit des Wissens. Eine politische Epistemologie at the Research Initiative “ConTrust: Trust in Conflict – Political Life under Conditions of Uncertainty”.

A Workshop on my book Die Wirksamkeit des Wissens. Eine politische Epistemologie at the Potsdam Center for Post-Kantian Philosophy.

Please read the syllabus carefully!

In the most basic sense, “epistemic injustice” means that someone is wronged in her capacity as a knower. Examples abound: attributing less credibility to certain knowers because of their gender, race or class, silencing others’ voices in specific social situations, or hindering whole communities to develop an adequate vocabulary to describe their social suffering are just a few forms that epistemic injustice can take.

The aim of this colloquium is to discuss epistemologies beyond the beaten tracks of European philosopy. This does not mean to neglect ideas from classical “western” epistemology wholesale, but to bring them into dialogue with epistemological arguments from other traditions of thought. Thus, philosophy has to consider texts and authors from beyond its canon and seek interdisciplinary exchange. The colloquium provides a room for doing so – what happens in it will be up to those who come.

Bitte lesen Sie den Seminarplan aufmerksam, bevor Sie Fragen dazu stellen!

»›Was ist Wahrheit?‹ sagte Pilatus spöttisch und wollte nicht bleiben, um die Antwort zu hören.« (John L. Austin, »Wahrheit«, 1950)

The lecture introduces students to the philosophy of science by looking at the most important problems and debates: What are sciences, and how are they related to philosophy? How do scientific explanations work? Are there laws of nature? What roles do objectivity, rationality and other values play in scientific practices? And does science discover what is real?

Truth is a contested concept, yet that concept takes place in an idealist picture leading to a sovereign understanding of truth. In light of the problems it creates, I propose a materialist picture that helps us to understand the internal conception between truth and politics.

Vortrag auf dem Workshop Welches Wissen (und welche Wissenschaft) braucht die Politik? Herausforderungen wissensbasierter Demokratie

Buchvorstellung und Diskussion mit Nadja Germann, Nicola Gess und Daniel Loick; moderiert von Ulrich Bröckling.

Vortrag im Rahmen der Vorlesungsreihe Im Dialog. Wissenschaften und ihr Publikum

Frieder Vogelmann, interviewed by Thomas Steiner from Badische Zeitung

What are the requirements for conceptions of academic freedom beyond a narrow legal conceptualisation?

How to defend scientific practices against the rise of untruth in politics without succumbing to scientism?

Truth is a contested concept, yet that concept takes place in an idealist picture leading to a sovereign understanding of truth. In the talk, I propose a materialist picture instead that helps us to understand the internal conception between truth and politics.

Lecture for the lecture series “Michel Foucault und die Philosophiegeschichte”

Wie wirken Wissensbestände wirklich auf Gesellschaft und Individuen ein? Frieder Vogelmann nimmt unsere Begriffe in seinem neuen Buch genauer in den Blick.

Talk at the conference “Transformations of the Political. Radical Democratic Theory for the 2020s”

Vortrag auf der Tagung “Rationalität und Demokratie”

Please read the syllabus carefully!

This lecture offers an overview of contemporary epistemology and introduces the basics of philosophical logic (propositional and predicate logic). At the same time, it introduces non-philosophy students to philosophy in the sense of working on conceptual problems, questions, and arguments. Students of all disciplines will profit from the introduction to conceptual thinking and logic.

Please read the syllabus carefully!

We have a rough and ready idea what sciences are and that some methods to gain knowledge are “scientific” whereas others are “unscientific.” Conducting a social survey, doing experiments in behaviour economics or constructing computer models to predict how the climate changes is scientific, relying on hearsay, following gut intuitions or compiling knowledge from randomly selected search results on google is not. Moreover, we consider some fields of knowledge to be “pseudo-sciences.” Astrology is a prime example, although it was consider being a science for a long time.

Buchrezensionen sind ein wichtiges Medium einer Public Sociology und zugleich ein ausgezeichnetes Lernfeld für wissenschaftliches Schreiben. Im Rahmen dieses als Schreibwerkstatt angelegten Seminars sollen gemeinsam sozial- und geisteswissenschaftliche Neuerscheinungen diskutiert und von den Teilnehmerinnen und Teilnehmern rezensiert werden. Grundlage der Teilnahme ist die Bereitschaft, selbst Buchbesprechungen zu verfassen und die eigenen Texte im Seminar zur Diskussion zu stellen.

To aptly conceptualise the internal relationship between truth and knowledge on one side, and politics and society on the other side, political epistemology must reformulate the concepts of epistemology and social and political theory. For the concept of knowledge, this task implies to consider the truth and the force of knowledge equally.

If you are interested, email us and come to the initial meeting on the 25^th of October.

Inaugural lecture at the Faculty of Humanities of Albert-Ludwigs-University and University College Freiburg.

Input for the workshop Theorie im “postfaktischen Zeitalter”

In this chapter, I suggest that we should understand “political Epistemology” as a name for the task to intertwine epistemology with social and critical theory.

In this article, I argue for a realistic understanding of sciences, which based on a materialist epistemology can acknowledge the plurality, historicity and contextuality of scientific practices.

A short commentary on Iaan Reynolds’ article »The Dialectic of Progress and the Cultivation of Resistance in Critical Social Theory« for the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective.

A look at the relationship of authority and reason in Horkheimer’s early articles and contemporary accounts of the new authoritarianism.

The diagnosis of a “post-truth era” is popular but wrong: historically, conceptually, politically. Yet there is a grain of truth in it: we should be concerned with the rise of untruth in politics. I argue that non-sovereign conceptions of truth and knowledge from feminist epistemology can help to defend scientific practices epistemically against science denialism without succumbing to scientism.

“Ideology” is as central a concept in critical theory as it is contested. In many critical theories, it has been and still is a key concept because they understand themselves as practicing ideology critique. The debate about “ideology” therefore provides a keyhole through which we can un-derstand the development of critical theories in general, as well as their fierce disagreement over conceptions of critique.

The lecture introduces students to the philosophy of science by looking at the most important problems and debates: What are sciences, and how are they related to philosophy? How do scientific explanations work? Are there laws of nature? What roles do objectivity, rationality and other values play in scientific practices? And does science discover what is real?

In twelve contributions, political theorists investigate the relationship between truth and politics against the background of the current discussions about ‘post-truth,’ conspiracy theories and desinformation.

Radical critiques of reason are possible, I argue, if we turn our attention to the practices of criticizing, if we refrain from a sovereign epistemology, and if we pluralize reason without trivializing it.

(Queer-)feministische und anti-rassistische Positionen treffen derzeit auf den Vorwurf, sie würden die Wissenschaftsfreiheit gefährden. Doch dieser vermeintlichen Freiheitsbedrohung liegt eine selektive, politisch motivierte Dramatisierung von Einzelfällen zugrunde, die Machtasymmetrien ausblendet. Ein emanzipatorisches Verständnis von Wissenschaftsfreiheit führt zu einer anderen Lageeinschätzung.

Is it possible that the concept of “autonomy,” as an unquestioned cornerstone of political rationality, has turned into an obstacle for our political imagination?

Das ist nicht die Wissenschaftsfreiheit, die wir meinen. Unsere Intervention zur grassierenden anti-woken, anti-cancel-culture, kurz: rechten Verteidigung des Status quo.

In diesem Vortrag stelle ich am Beispiel der Diskussion über das »postfaktische Zeitalter« und die Rolle der Wissenschaften vor, was politische Epistemologie ist und wofür wir sie brauchen.

Internationale Fachtagung unter der wissenschaftlichen Leitung von Privatdozent Dr. Christian Schmidt (Berlin) und Professor Dr. Benno Zabel (Bonn).

Ein Kurzvortag zum Zusammenhang von Wissen, Wahrheit und Wissenschaften aus der Perspektive der politischen Epistemologie.

Die Feministische Wissenschaftskritik (Feminist Science Studies) entwickelte sich im Kontext der sogenannten zweiten Welle des Feminismus in den frühen 1980er Jahren, in der sich mit einem breiten Themenspektrum rund um Sexualität, Reproduktion, körperliche Autonomie und Familienstrukturen befasst wurde. Die Unterscheidung zwischen Sex und Gender war dabei von zentraler Bedeutung für die Bewegung und für feministische Theoriebildung.

This lecture offers an overview of contemporary epistemology and introduces the basics of philosophical logic (propositional and predicate logic). At the same time, it introduces non-philosophy students to philosophy in the sense of working on conceptual problems, questions, and arguments. Students of all disciplines will profit from the introduction to conceptual thinking and logic.

In a spectacularly short time, the concept of responsibility has risen from obscurity to prominence: Coined as a political concept in the debates surrounding the democratic revolutions in America and France, it was used to rethink the relation between the government and the people or the government and the parliament. These beginnings as well as the subsequent developments of the concept—its individualization in ethics (Max Weber), its usage in Germany to cope with an unbearable past after World War II (Karl Jasper), its connection to sustainability (Hans Jonas) and its newest offspring in international relations, the “responsibility to protect”, to name only a few stages—are the first set of core themes in this seminar.

Bold, brave and too short!

Eine Podiumsdiskussion über Universitäten im postfaktischen Zeitalter.

In this article, I argue that (a) “force” and “normativity” are two paradigms the confrontation of which (b) repeats the struggle between neo-Kantian Normativism and life-philosophy in the 19th century but (c) changes the role of subjectivity fundamentally.

In dem Vortrag präsentiere ich eine realistische Betrachtung wissenschaftlicher Praktiken gegen ihre Verleugnung und Verherrlichung.

In diesem Vortrag entwickle ich ein philosophisches Bild von Wahrheit als epistemischer Kraft, die aus sozialen Praktiken emergiert. …

Kritische Theorie soll die Gesellschaft emanzipieren, statt sie wie herkömmliche Forschung nur zu erfassen. Die Grundzüge dieser engagierten Wissenschaft skizziert Max Horkheimer in seinem berühmten Aufsatz von 1937 in der Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung. Das Nachwort hilft, die schwierigen Konsequenzen dieser einfachen Idee nachzuvollziehen. Frieder Vogelmann stellt zudem die wichtigste Kritik an Horkheimers Argumenten sowie deren Weiterentwicklung in der Frankfurter Schule vor.

Das Kolloquium Soziologische Theorie dient der vertieften Diskussion von Abschlussarbeiten (BA und MA), Forschungsprojekten und neuer Literatur aus dem Bereich der Sozialtheorie. Die Kolloquiumsplanung findet in der ersten Sitzung statt.

Angelogen zu werden ist empörend: es verletzt soziale Normen. Manche Wahrheiten ungeschminkt gesagt zu bekommen ist ebenso empörend: auch damit werden soziale Normen übertreten. An die Vielfalt von Formen der Falschheit wollen wir in diesem Seminar soziologisch herangehen. Dazu untersuchen wir erstens mehr oder minder alltägliche Formen von Falschheit wie Höflichkeit, Diplomatie oder (Not)Lügen, zweitens soziale Formen der Falschheit in der Wirtschaft, von Werbung bis hin zu Korruption, sowie drittens soziale Formen von Falschheit in der Politik, wie Propaganda oder Ideologien.

Anhand des produktiven Streits zwischen Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie und Jürgen Habermas Gesellschaftstheorie des kommunikativen Handelns werden wir in diesem Seminar grundsätzliche Differenzen in der Architektur von Gesellschaftstheorien diskutieren. Dabei werden wir einerseits die zentralen Streitfragen über Objektivität, Normativität und die Rolle des Subjektbegriffs in der Gesellschaftstheorie behandeln. Andererseits werden wir immer wieder danach fragen, welche Argumentationsverfahren die soziologische Theorie zu Verfügung stellt, um solche grundsätzlichen Differenzen in der Perspektive auf Gesellschaft zu diskutieren, statt zur Geschmackssache verkommen zu lassen.

Welche Rolle spielen Werte in den Sozialwissenschaften – und welche sollten sie spielen? Unbestritten ist, dass die wissenschaftliche Arbeit nicht wertfrei vonstattengehen kann. Davon zeugen ethische Grundsätze für gute wissenschaftliche Praxis, die sowohl Anforderungen an den Umgang mit Versuchspersonen, Informant_innen und den erhobenen Daten stellen als auch Sanktionen für das Fälschen von Forschungsergebnissen oder Plagiate enthalten. Darüber hinaus werden epistemische Werte wie empirische Adäquatheit, Objektivität, Einfachheit, Widerlegbarkeit als regulative Ideale für wissenschaftliche Praxis anerkannt. Aber wie sieht es mit explizit politischen Werten wie Inklusivität oder Diversität aus? Welchen Platz haben sie in der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit, welchen sollten sie haben, und wie vertragen sie sich mit den epistemischen Werten? Im Seminar werden wir dazu einführende Texte und Originalbeiträge aus verschiedenen Debatten über Werte in den Wissenschaften diskutieren, vom Werturteilsstreit über den Positivismusstreit bis zu zeitgenössischen Debatten in der feministischen Wissenschaftstheorie.

Ein Kommentar zu Joseph Vogls Artikel »Finanzregime und Plattformökonomie«.

Gess bietet mit “Halbwahrheiten” einen interessanten Begriff als Instrument an, um die Genese und Funktion solcher Behauptungen zu erhellen, die sowohl faktische als auch fiktive Anteile enthalten und gerade aus dieser Amalgamierung Kapital schlagen.

The article shows that Amy Allen’s diagnosis of a too idealistic account of reason forms the backbone of her critique of contemporary Frankfurt School critical theory, before it discusses her criteria for an adequate conceptualization of the intertwinement of reason and power.

How can we diagnose and criticize “untruth in politics” without idealising the sciences or a supposedly singular “scientific method”?.

Dieser Band nimmt die vollständige Veröffentlichung der 13 Vorlesungen zum Anlass, sie sowohl als Ganzes als auch jede einzelne Vorlesung zu betrachten. Damit bietet er tiefe Einblicke in Foucaults Vorlesungen und liefert zugleich eine umfassende Einführung in diesen Teil von Foucaults Werk.

The rise of untruth in politics has mostly been met by a stout defense of a robust notion of truth and an equally robust notion of the sciences. Yet all too often, this answer sacrifices the results of critically examinations of actual practices in the sciences and humanities. This article outlines a response for critical theories that enables them to defend truth and objectivity against organized climate change denialists or political propagandists without embracing a naïve positivism about ‘the scientific method’ or objectivity.

In diesem Vortrag rekonstruiere ich die eigenständige Form kritischer Philosophie, die Martin Saar in den letzten Jahren Schritt für Schritt entwickelt hat.

In the talk I argue that political epistemology should include four often neglected research traditions with similar ambitions: Frankfurt School Critical Theory, Feminist Epistemology, Poststructuralism and Postcolonial Theory.

The goal of this section is to reconsider the relationship between knowledge and politics.

A critical reading of Robert Brandom’s usage of the concept of responsibility to explicate normativity’s binding force.
Update August, 2020: Finally, the article has left the ‘onlineFirst’-limbo and found a home in issue 48.8!

Can the concept of propaganda help us to understand digital publics? My essay considers early analyses of propaganda by Alfred and Elizabeth Lee, Leo Löwenthal and Norbert Guterman and Victor Klemperer to shed light on the agitational logic of digital publics on twitter.

A proposal for an understanding of truth as an epistemic force that emergates in social practices.

In seinem später aus verworfenen Überlegungen in Erkenntnis und Interesse tritt Habermas das Erbe der älteren kritischen Theorie an. Insbesondere in Anknüpfung an Horkheimers klassischen Essay “Traditionelle und kritische Theorie” versucht Habermas darzulegen, warum und wie Gesellschafts- und Erkenntnistheorie miteinander verflochten sind. Im Seminar werden wir Habermas’ (anspruchsvolles!) Buch ebenso gründlich diskutieren wie die Kritik daran – nicht zuletzt auch Habermas’ Selbstkritik, die ihn schließlich dazu führte, seine Fassung der kritischen Theorie auf andere, nämlich sprachphilosophische Grundlagen zu stellen.

Das Seminar bietet einen Einstieg in die moderne soziologische Theorie, indem darin klassische und zeitgenössische Texte zu wichtigen Begriffen und Themen diskutiert werden, die die Debatte der soziologischen Theorie nachhaltig geprägt haben. Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt liegt auf den Themen Herrschaft, Handlungsfähigkeit und Kritik sowie der Frage, welche Position soziologische Beobachter_innen gegenüber den beobachteten Individuen, Gruppen und Praktiken einnehmen.

Der Begriff “Populismus” ist heute in aller Munde – doch aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Sicht ist alles andere als klar, was genau damit gemeint ist. Im Seminar werden wir die wichtigsten, aktuellen Theorie des Populismus diskutieren und vor allem danach fragen, wie Populismus als soziales (und nicht allein politisches) Phänomen zu verstehen ist: welche sozialen Probleme sprechen Populismen an, welche neuen Denk- und Verhaltensweisen erschaffen sie? Gegen Ende des Seminares werden wir uns zudem ansehen, welche Konsequenzen die unterschiedlichen Theorien des Populismus für den Umgang mit diesem strittigen Sozialphänomen haben.

Was ist und wozu treiben wir Gesellschaftstheorie? Im Seminar beschäftigen wir uns anhand verschiedener Formen von Gesellschaftstheorie – eben von Marx bis Luhmann – mit dieser Frage. Dabei diskutieren wir auch das ursprüngliche Programm einer umfassenden, materialistischen Theorie der Gesellschaft, das Max Horkheimer in den 1930er Jahren zum Programm des Instituts für Sozialforschung machte.

Der Vortrag beleuchtet die gravierenden Probleme der Diagnose eines “postfaktischen Zeitalters” und erinnert an die Vor- und Nachteile alternativer Begriffe zu Diagnose von Unwahrheit in der Politik.

Roundtable discussion on critiques of reason

Selbst wenn viele Rechtskritiken die Gewalt des Rechts mindern, ja Strafe abschaffen wollen, schrecken sie davor zurück, Schluss mit …

Michel Foucault’s first volume of his “history of sexuality” is a modern classic. In it, Foucault develops his concept of power vis-à-vis the historical material he analyzes. Foucault presents three far-reaching theses: First, sexuality is not a natural yet repressed phenomena; it rather is a modern invention of the 19th century, systematically nurtured by the dominant powers. Thus struggles against the repression of sexuality are far less liberating than they take themselves to be. On the contrary, they are actually complicit with the power they want to fight against. Second, this power is no longer the sovereign power political theory usually speaks of, and even is not only the disciplinary power Foucault described in Discipline and Punish (1975). Instead, it must be conceptualized as “bio-power”: the power to foster life and to let die. Third, this bio-power is no less deadly than other forms of power; the legitimation of ever larger massacres will now be found in a new form of state racism.

Wie von keiner anderen Gesellschaftswissenschaft wird von der Soziologie erwartet, nicht nur Gesellschaftstheorien bereitzustellen, sondern auch ihre jeweilige Gegenwart in griffigen Zeitdiagnosen zu bündeln. Im Seminar werden wir einen solchen aktuellen Versuch – Andreas Reckwitz: Das Ende der Illusionen (2019) – intensiv lesen. Reckwitz’ Diagnose bietet sich an, weil sie einen leichten Einstieg auch in seine Gesellschaftstheorie ermöglicht. Sie kann zudem als “Fenster” dienen, um auch auf alternative Theorien etwa zum Wandel der Arbeitswelt, der Politik oder der Kultur zu blicken. Nicht zuletzt werden wir in der Diskussion über Reckwitz’ Gegenwartsdiagnose diese mit alternativen soziologischen Gegenwartsdiagnosen konfrontieren.

Der Werturteilsstreit widmet sich grundsätzlich der Frage, inwiefern Wissenschaften wertfrei vorgehen müssen oder dies gerade nicht können – und was unter “wertfrei” genau zu verstehen ist. Schon in der Kontroverse zwischen Max Weber und Gustav Schmoller geht es nicht nur darum, ob und wie Wissenschaftler_innen als Wissenschaftler_innen normative Urteile vorbringen dürfen, sondern auch darum, welche Vorstellung wir uns von wissenschaftlichen Praktiken machen, um diese Frage zu beantworten. Sowohl im Zuge des Positivismusstreits zwischen Theodor W. Adorno und Karl R. Popper (aufgegriffen und zugespitzt von Jürgen Habermas und Hans Albert) als auch der neueren Debatte, die wesentlich aus der (analytischen) Philosophie stammt, kommen weitere Themen und Argumente hinzu. Das Seminar widmet sich diesen Auseinandersetzungen vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Debatte über die Rolle von wissenschaftlichen Fakten in der Politik.

Spätestens seitdem 2001 der “practice turn” ausgerufen wurde, sind Begriffe wie soziale Praktiken, Praxistheorie oder Praxeologie in aller Munde. Doch was genau sind soziale Praktiken? Welche bestehenden Probleme löst die Konzentration auf soziale Praktiken – und welche neuen Probleme stellen sich einer Praxistheorie, die als Sozialtheorie antritt? Wichtige Themen für nahezu alle Ansätze aus dem extrem heterogenen Feld der Praxistheorie lassen sich in den Begriffspaaren sozialer Wandel und Beharrung, Subjektivierung und Objektivierung, Materialität bzw. Körperlichkeit und Diskursivität ausmachen. Im Seminar wollen wir uns anhand dieser Schwerpunkte sowohl einen Überblick über die verschiedenen zeitgenössischen Varianten der Praxistheorie verschaffen als auch ihre historische Entwicklung und einige wichtige Weiterentwicklungen ansehen.

Basiert auf der Veranstaltung “Vernunftkritik in der kritischen Theorie”.

Amy Allen’s book The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory returns us to the core of the …

The role played by the diagnosis of an “era of post-truth” in political, scientific and medial struggles necessitates a critique of reason.

The chapter analyses demands for transparency as a specific way of exercising power.

The task of diagnosing the present explains how Foucault’s critique functions as a philosophical practice, and by making explicit in which ways it emancipates us, it gives us reasons why we might be interested in doing critique like that.

A defense of radical critiques of reason against the champions of “post-critical” thinking and the decriers of “post-truth”.

Drei Lesarten von Michel Foucaults Position zur Ontologie des Politischen.

Radical critiques of reason are possible, I argue, if we turn our attention to the practices of criticizing, if we refrain from a sovereign epistemology, and if we pluralize reason without trivializing it.

More information coming soon.

In diesem Seminar soll eine besondere Episode Kritischer Theorie ideengeschichtlich und systematisch untersucht werden: Der Zusammenhang von Theorie und Praxis in den 1960/70er Jahren, wie er sich in den Auseinandersetzungen zwischen Herbert Marcuse und Jürgen Habermas darstellt. Beide, so die Ausgangsvermutung, sind unzufrieden angesichts des von Theodor W. Adorno und Max Horkheimer bestenfalls zögerlich hergestellten Übergangs von Theorie und Praxis; beide verstehen, dass die politische Situation nach mehr verlangt als dem Aufruf zur Besonnenheit. Dennoch geben Marcuse und Habermas sehr unterschiedliche Antworten – die vielleicht heute auf neues Interesse stoßen angesichts einer neu entstehenden Schüler_innen- und Studierendenbewegung. Denn: Was sagt die Kritische Theorie beispielsweise zu Fridays for Future? Wie stellt sie heute den Bezug von Theorie und Praxis her?

“Vernunftkritik” klingt heute altmodisch, nach einer abgelegten Debatte aus den 1980er Jahren. Doch sind die Fragen, die in der eher unglückselig verlaufenden sogenannten “Foucault-Habermas-Debatte” gestellt wurden, nie wirklich abgegolten worden. Im Seminar werden wir daher die Rolle von Vernunftkritik in der ganzen Bandbreite der Kritischen Theorie – von Theodor W. Adorno bis Amy Allen, von Albrecht Wellmer bis Herta Nagl-Docekal – untersuchen und den Versuch unternehmen, die verschiedenen Vorgehensweisen einer Vielzahl von Vernunftkritiken möglichst so zu rekonstruieren, dass sie zunächst in ihrem Selbstverständnis nachvollzogen werden können, bevor wir sie unsererseits der Kritik unterziehen.

Das Seminar widmet sich der Debatte um den Kritikbegriff – einer für die Kritische Theorie zweifelsohne zentralen Auseinandersetzung, geht es doch um nicht weniger als die Vorgehensweise, ihre Rechtfertigung und damit letztlich um die Gestalt Kritischer Theorie. Das Seminar beginnt daher mit dem grundsätzlichen Bedenken, heute überhaupt noch an den Kritikbegriff anzuschließen, den Bruno Latour in “Elend der Kritik” vor einiger Zeit wirkmächtig geäußert hat. Im Anschluss werden wir einerseits rekonstruieren, wie der dominante Strang der Debatte den Begriff der Kritik anhand des Gedankens “normativer Maßstäbe” engführt, und andererseits auf die Alternativvorschläge eingehen, die dagegen versuchen, Kritik pluralistischer zu verstehen.

Im Workshop sollen anhand von Foucaults Vorlesungen seine methodologischen Vorschläge diskutiert werden, zu einer anderen Form philosophischer und historischer Forschung zu gelangen.

Die Responsibilisierung unseres Denkens führt zur Herrschaft eines bestimmten Gebrauchs von “Verantwortung”, der unsere Denk-, Handlungs-, und Seinsweisen bestimmt.

The chapter describes the specific knowledge articulated in diagnoses of our times by looking at the critique of such diagnoses voiced in sociology and philosophy.

Seit 250 Jahren antwortet die politische Philosophie auf die Frage, wie so regiert werden kann, dass die Regierten keine Angst vor den Regierenden haben müssen, mit dem Prinzip der Autonomie. Es ist damit als unhintergehbares Lösungsprinzip der politischen Philosophie zur Sackgasse für unsere politische Vorstellungskraft geworden.

A workshop on some preliminary chapters from my new book Effective Knowledge. Rethinking a Basic Concept of Political Epistemology.

How can we govern so that those governed need not fear those governing? And what if the familiar answer of political liberalism, namely “autonomy,” turns out not to meet this criterion?

Frieder Vogelmann, interviewed by Catherine Newmark

Der Roundtable ist Teil des Workshops “Hochschullehre in der Politischen Theorie und Ideengeschichte: Selbstverständnis, Praxis, Perspektiven”, organisiert von Andreas Busen, Dannica Fleuß und Alexander Weiß mit Unterstützung des Arbeitskreises Hochschullehre der DVPW.

Der Gebrauch von “Verantwortung” unterliegt einem Wandel, der sich entgegen prominenter Diagnosen weder als “Diffusion” noch als “Individualisierung” begreifen lässt. Vielmehr intensiviert er den Selbstbezug von Verantwortungsträger_innen und die Machtasymmetrien zwischen ihrer Subjektposition und jener der Verantwortungszuschreiber_innen. Der Vortrag diskutiert die Folgen dieses Vorgangs.

Ideologie ist ein so zentraler wie kontrovers diskutierter Grundbegriff kritischer Theorien; ja, insofern diese sich oft als wesentlich ideologiekritische Praxis verstehen, lässt sich am Leitfa-den des Ideologiebegriffs und der Konzeptionen von Ideologiebegriff etwas über die Ent-wicklung kritischer Theorien insgesamt lernen. Doch am Anfang stehen Fragen: Ist Ideologie “wie Mundgeruch immer das, was die anderen haben” (Terry Eagleton) oder ist Ideologie universell? Gibt es Ideologie noch in der klassenlosen Gesellschaft? Schwingt im Ideologie-begriff unvermeidlich ein gewisser Paternalismus mit, weil die Kritikerin sich jenseits eines “epistemologischen Bruchs” situieren muss, der sie von denjenigen trennt, die noch in der Ideologie gefangenen sind?

More information coming soon.

“Selbstauflösung der Vernunft als geistiger Substanz beruht auf innerer Notwendigkeit. Theorie heute hat den Prozeß, die gesellschaftlich bedingte Tendenz zum Neopositivismus, zur lnstrumentalisierung des Gedankens, sowie die vergeblichen Rettungsversuche zu reflektieren und auszusprechen.” (Horkheimer, Zur Kritik der instrumentellen Vernunft, 22)

Michel Foucault ist unstrittig einer der wichtigsten Denker des 20. Jahrhunderts – und zugleich einer der umstrittensten. Seine Texte haben Einfluss über alle Fächergrenzen hinweg auf ganz unterschiedliche Disziplinen gehabt, gelten allerdings als schwer verständlich und voller Brüche in seinen Begrifflichkeiten, Methoden und Themen. Tatsächlich übersieht man schnell die vorgebrachten Argumente in der Fülle historischer Details, verwechselt im herbeizitierten Stimmengewirr die Sprecher_innen und verirrt sich im ständigen Wandel von Foucaults Terminologie.

Discourse analysis is critical, I argue, if it produces “unwieldy knowledge”.

Review of Romy Jaster und David Lanius (2019): Die Wahrheit schafft sich ab. Wie Fake News Politik machen. Stuttgart: Reclam.

An interview with Clelia Minnetian and Janosik Herder on the relationship between politics and truth.

“Post-truth” is a failed concept, both epistemically and politically because its simplification of the relationship between truth and politics cripples our understanding and encourages authoritarianism.

Remarks on the position paper “Nachhaltigen Nachwuchsförderung” by DGPhil and GAP.

Crime fiction novels are anti-emancipatory, or shorter and more brutal: they are politically right-winged.

“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” (Salman Rushdie)

The right to free speech is one of the classic liberal rights. We are used to hearing it defended as such in the public. Yet at the same time, sharp controversies over its scope persist. If Salman Rushdie is right, then there is no claim to any protection from one’s most cherished values being maligned, be they religious or not. Or is there a right to have others limit their use of the right to free speech in such a way as to avoid harm?

“Post-truth,” voted as the word of the year 2016 both in English and German, has become a popular concept, although the exact meaning of the diagnosis of our times as a “post-truth era” remains somewhat elusive.

I argue that the reasons both for the way ‘biopolitics’ stirred Foucault’s readers and for his subsequent abandonment are to be found in the relation between Foucault’s model of critique and the role ‘biopolitics’ plays in it: it names the counter-truths derived from Foucault’s critical diagnosis of the dispositif of sexuality

Review of Mark G. E. Kelly: For Foucault: Against Normative Political Theory. State University of New York Press, 2018. 202 pages, …

Responsible party pursuant to data protection laws, in particular the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is

Prof. Dr. Frieder Vogelmann
Professor for Epistemology & Theory of Science
University College Freiburg
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Bertoldstr. 17
D-79098 Freiburg
E-Mail: frieder-{dot}-vogelmann-{at}-ucf-{dot}-uni-freiburg-{dot}-de
Telefon: +49 761 203 67617

Prof. Dr. Frieder Vogelmann

Professor for Epistemology & Theory of Science
University College Freiburg
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Bertoldstr. 17
D-79098 Freiburg
E-Mail: frieder-{dot}-vogelmann-{at}-ucf-{dot}-uni-freiburg-{dot}-de
Telefon: +49 761 203 67617

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Karl Marx certainly is one of the most influential political theorists of all times. Yet this is already subject to debate, for is Marx really a political theorist? Is he not, first and foremost, an economist, a philosopher—or a revolutionary? Thus, we find very different ideas how to interpret Marx’ texts lurking behind these questions. In our seminar, we will focus on Marx’ political thought—which of course can neither be simply separated from his economic theory nor from his philosophical foundations. At the same time, the seminar is intended as an introduction to Marx. Hence we will read texts from all periods of his work, from On the Jewish Question (1843) and his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844) to the first volume of Capital (1867). Precisely because Marx writing is as brilliant as it is difficult, his texts must be interpreted. Hence we will also look at how his texts have been read – for only the debate how to interpret Marx accounts for his actually in the 200th year after his birth.

This is a tutorial for the lecture “Introduction to political Theory” by Prof. Dr. Martin Nonhoff.

Speaking of an “era of post-truth” is popular but wrong.

What is the significance of the fact that ‘responsibility’ now plays such a central role in, for example, work, the welfare state, or the criminal justice system? What happens when individuals are generally expected to think of themselves as ‘responsible’ agents? And what are the consequences of the fact that the philosophical analysis of ‘responsibility’ focuses almost exclusively on conditions of agency that are mostly absent from real life?

The article traces genesis and changes of the concept of political responsibility in the practices in which it is used

Feminist political philosophy does have its favourite topics – including, but not limited to, gender justice, the politicization of the seemingly private or the debates on pornography or abortion, among others. Yet feminist political philosophy cannot be defined by these topics, for it aims at a different kind of political philosophy by incorporating questions concerning the oppression of women because of their gender into its methods of inquiry. The resulting theories are in deliberate tension to a traditional, value-free or neutral idea of science, thus requiring additional reflexivity. By reading classic texts of feminist political philosophy in the seminar, we will analyse both the substantial topics as well as the methodological implications embedded in feminist interventions in political theory. For above all, feminist political philosophy is a politicization of theory.

Democracy and critique belong together—at least this is the working hypothesis of this seminar. In the course of the 14 weeks, we will analyse the relation between democracy and critique from its two sides: On the one hand, we will read and discuss different forms of contemporary, as well as historically influential, critique directed against democracy. Here, we find both objections against specific conceptions of democracy—for example, against representative democracy or against the current “post-democratic” state of democracy—and fundamental critique of democracy as such, e.g. because it is said to turn necessarily into anarchy or mob rule.

Review of Michel Foucault: Subjektivität und Wahrheit. Vorlesungen am Collège de France 1980–1981, 414 pp., Suhrkamp, Berlin 2016 …

This volume gathers together English translations of seminal ordoliberal texts as well as analyses of contemporary issues in light of ordoliberal thought.

Interpretations of Foucault’s critique have not payed full attention to all three of Foucault’s methodological imperatives which he calls nihilism, nominalism and historicism. The article offers such a reading of Foucault’s critique.

The articles in this special issue of Foucault Studies originate from the conference “Überwachen und Strafen heute”, held in November 2015 at the University of Bremen, Germany. An account of the conference (in German) can be found on the website Soziopolis.

This introduction diagnoses two tendencies among Foucaultian scholars with regard to Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.

Was leistet die philosophische Begriffsanalyse? Inwiefern ist dies ein Beitrag zur Erkenntnis der Welt? Ist sie das zentrale Werkzeug der Philosophie? Wo liegen ihre Grenzen?

How can we change the miserable situation of “young” researchers at German universities - and in what way?

Michel Foucault’s first volume of his project of a “history of sexuality” is a modern classic. In it, Foucault systematizes and further develops the concept of power he has been working on since the beginning of the 1970s. Using historical material to sharpen the concept, Foucault arrives at three ambitious, far-reaching and hugely influential theses: First, sexuality is not a natural yet repressed phenomena; it rather is a modern invention of the 19th century, systematically nurtured by the dominant powers. Thus struggles against the repression of sexuality are far less liberating than they take themselves to be. On the contrary, they are actually complicit with the power they want to fight against. Second, this power is no longer the sovereign power political philosophy usually speaks of, and even is not only the disciplinary power Foucault described in Discipline and Punish (1975). Instead, it must be conceptualized as “bio-power”: the power to foster life and to let die. Third, this bio-power is no less deadly than other forms of power; the legitimation of ever larger massacres will now be found in a new form of state racism.

After distinguishing three pictures of the activity of critique – measuring, disrupting and emancipating critique – I discuss the theoretical activities these pictures commit critical theorists to.

Why “post-truth” is the wrong concept, analytically and politically.

This seminar is the second part of an introduction to French political philosophy since 1945. Having focused on Existentialism (mostly on Sartre, Camus and Beauvoir) as well as Structuralism (mostly on Althusser and Barthes) in the previous semester, this semester will revolve around Post-Structuralism widely understood (especially Foucault, Deleuze and Derrida). Although the seminar continues straightforwardly from the previous discussions, it is explicitly open for new students. It three general aims are: Firstly, we want to get an overview of the rapid development in French political philosophy. Secondly, we want to see what commonalities we can find in the (fervid) disputes between the different theorists: What are the shared themes, concepts or problems from which we can understand the different theories? Thirdly and finally, we will analyse the respective concepts of politics and the respective tasks attributed to political theory as they appear in the thoughts of the different theorists.

The purpose of the course is to discuss key questions of modern social theory by studying classic and contemporary texts that have shaped the current debate. On the basis of these texts, we will elaborate central concepts for the analysis and evaluation of modern societies. Topics for discussion include the methodological status of social theory, different characterizations of modern society, the relation of agency and structure, the critique of certain features of modern society and the relevance of the categories of race and gender. The course will serve as a general introduction to modern social theory – it does not require any previous knowledge of this field, but the willingness to engage with complex theoretical texts and their arguments.

A systematic and philosophical reading of Foucault.

Review of Daniel Zamora/Michael C. Behrent (Hrsg.): Foucault and Neoliberalism and Mitchell Dean/Kaspar Villadsen: State Phobia and …

This seminar is the first part of an introduction to French political philosophy since 1945. It has three aims: Firstly, we want to get an overview of the rapid development in French political philosophy. Secondly, we want to see what commonalities we can find in the (fervid) disputes between the different theorists: What are the shared themes, concepts or problems from which we can understand the different theories? Thirdly and finally, we will analyse the respective concepts of politics and the respective tasks attributed to political theory as they appear in the thoughts of the different theorists.

In 1976, Michel Foucault closes a depressing interview about prisons in the USSR with his diagnosis that actually existing socialism had never invented its own governmental rationality (and neither had Marxism as a whole). Instead, it would govern through a totalitarian bureaucracy, and hence Foucault concluded that it would be urgent to invent new ways of governing which should be neither liberal nor totalitarian: “[T]o invent a way in which power can be exercised without instilling fear. That would be a true innovation.” The liberal answer to that question is well-known; in a simplified Habermasian version it is the combination of public and private autonomy in a democracy under the rule of law. In the seminar, we will examine arguments to the effect that this combination of self-government in legal form is not as free of fear as it pretends to be. We will also look at alternative answers to the liberal question from heterodox traditions like anarchism and assessment whether they do indeed instill less fear.

A framework for writing the history of “responsibility” in philosophy.

Der Beitrag untersucht das von liberalen Theorien produzierte Wissen. Er folgt dazu drei Selbstbeschreibungen des politischen …

Is political theory’s irritating silence regarding today’s crises a result of a political liberalism that turns political …

Der Schwerpunkt Verantwortung – ein umkämpfter Begriff versammelt vier Beiträge zum Vorantwortungsbegriff von Nicola Lacey, Julia Eckert, Eva Buddeberg und Frieder Vogelmann.

Die Debatte um die Differenz von “Verantwortung” und “Pflicht” ist kein bloßer Streit um Wörter, geht es doch um Begriffe, für die der …

Dieses Seminar, unterstützt durch ein Tutorium, verfolgt das Ziel, Sie in die Grundlagen politikwissenschaftlichen Arbeitens und der politikwissenschaftlichen Forschungslogik einzuführen. Dabei geht es darum, Ihnen das elementare Rüst- oder Handwerkszeugs zu vermitteln, das Sie in die Lage versetzt, künftig selbständig zu arbeiten und zu forschen. Bis Ende des Semesters sollten Sie insbesondere gelernt haben:

Plato’s Politeia is one of the most fundamental texts for political philosophy, and modern political theory still struggles with it. Hence, interpretations abound: On the one hand, Plato has been and is criticized for being a totalitarian thinker or for being anti-democratic because politics in his view should be ruled by philosophy. On the other hand, others still defended his thesis that politics must strive to establish a just order. The seminar will therefore have two parts: We will read Plato himself, before turning to interpretations from Popper to Badiou.

This article belongs to Axel Honneth’s special issue “Stoner - Ambivalenzen einer Sozialfigur”.

Political knowledge might mean very different things: knowledge that is politically dangerous (e.g. because it might damage a rival’s chances in an election campaign), or knowledge that is politically contested (how to do a census, how the poverty report should be published, what records are handed over to an inquiry commission). In addition, it might mean knowledge about politics, whether the knowledge of political actors or the knowledge produced by political science. The seminar has two aims: On the one hand, it will give an overview of the different forms of political knowledge and how they are conceptualized in political theory. On the other hand, the seminar aims to take seriously the self-reflexive dimension of its topic: For when political theory asks about political knowledge it automatically asks about its own doing. But what methods does political theory have to address this task? And what would be a critical theory of political knowledge?

This is a tutorial for the lecture “Introduction to political Theory” by Prof. Dr. Martin Nonhoff.

Eutopia is offline.

The power of the modern state becomes manifest particularly in its capability to produce subjectivities of citizen. One obvious but little researched means of state subjectivation is taxation.

Klaus Günther’s discourse theory of law links the concept of criminal responsibility with the legitimacy of democratic law. Because …

Most people would agree that we should behave and act in a responsible way. Yet only 200 years ago, ‘responsibility’ was only of …

If democracy is not simply the name of a institutional type of government, but an endless insurgent against the state (Abensour), the true name of politics as a disruption (Rancière) or an event to which one decides to be faithful (Badiou), then we can speak of an anarchic element within democracy. These (and other) theories of radical democracy highlight a moment of ungovernableness which is said to be constitutive of democracy. From another direction, anarchism has rethought democratic forms of self-organisation which function independent of repressive state-apparatuses.

Power is a fundamental concept of political science – but what is “power”? From the beginning of political thought, power has been repeatedly reconceptualized and has been subject to a long, complex and on-going debate. Because different concepts of power make a profound difference the analysis of political phenomenon, we aim at making this debate accessible. Therefore, we will investigate the different theories of power from thinkers such as Aristotle or Machiavelli to Arendt, Luhmann or Foucault.

Die folgenden Überlegungen fragen, ob Habermas über die begrifflichen Ressourcen verfügt, nicht nur die politischen Grundlagen der …

Does truth have a history? Whereas Bernard William denies it and only allows a history of truthfulness, I defend the possibility of a …

Within Jürgen Habermas’ philosophical work, political philosophy is of central importance. Habermas has, however, always reworked both his theoretical fundaments and the answers they provide to questions concerning the rule of law in a democratic state, the connecting between capitalism and democracy or politics beyond the nation-state. His last great theoretical effort produced Between Facts and Norms (1992) which forms the backbone of his current political philosophy. The seminar therefore starts with discussions of selections from Between Facts and Norms, before it focuses on different political questions in Habermas’ more recent writings (such as the future of the European Union or democratic capitalisms/capitalist democracy) and some important objections.

What does Political Theory do—and how? The question shows the difficulty in talking of “methods” in Political Theory, for it already seems hard to name the objects it studies. Because the objects and the methods used to analyze them are internally related, the seminar will have to take up both questions: what methods Political Theory uses and what Political Theory is.

An overview of the debates about the concept of power.

The European Union’s ongoing “crisis” has forcefully turned attention to the problematic relation between democracy and capitalism. We …

Die philosophischen Reflexionen zu “Verantwortung” erfolgten in den 1980er Jahren an drei Brennpunkten und lassen sich als …

The relationship between truth and democracy has always been a troubled one: On the one hand, democracy seems to ignore what is true, since democracy is the rule not of truth but of majority. On the other hand, democracy is often seen as a “truth machine”, for it requires deliberation before decision. Both sides still affirm truth as unproblematic, but if we start with democracy instead, too much truth seems equally threatening: for then the rule of the demos turns into the rule of experts, technocracy – or in the rule of truth itself, captured in the image of the philosopher king. And yet, democracy seems bound to the power of truth. So these (and further) dimensions of the problematic relation between truth and democracy will be at the heart of the seminar.

The revival of political philosophy in the 20th century is to no small extended due to the work of John Rawls. Published in 1971, A Theory of Justice first offered a conception of justice as fairness that Rawls later works – Political Liberalism (1993) and The Law of Peoples (1999) – further developed, refined and generalized to the international sphere. Thirty years later, in Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, Rawls integrates his later work systematically into to a restatement of his theory of justice. Thus, this book serves as an ideal entry into Rawls’ thought.

In a spectacularly short time, the concept of responsibility has risen from obscurity to prominence: Coined as a political concept in the debates surrounding the democratic revolutions in America and France, it was used to rethink the relation between the government and the people or the government and the parliament. These beginnings as well as the subsequent developments – its individualization in ethics (Max Weber), its usage to cope with an unbearable past after World War II (Karl Jasper), its connection to sustainability (Hans Jonas) and its newest offspring in international relations, the “responsibility to protect” – are the core themes of this seminar.

Feminist political philosophy does have its favourite topics – which include gender justice, the politicization of the seemingly private or the debates on pornography or abortion, among others. But the feminist political philosophy cannot be defined by these topics, for it aims at a different kind of political philosophy by incorporating questions concerning the oppression of women because of their gender into its methods of inquiry. The resulting theories are in deliberate tension to a traditional, value-free or neutral idea of science, thus requiring additional reflexivity. By reading classic texts of feminist political philosophy, the seminar intends to analyse both the substantial topics as well as the methodological implications embedded in feminist interventions in political theory. For above all, feminist political philosophy is a politicization of theory.

Vielleicht sind wir uns bereits dort zu sicher, wo wir noch zweifeln. Vielleicht wurde Burnout ja vorschnell zur “Volkskrankheit” …

Die Behauptung, dass Verantwortung eine Subjektform sowie die Technik zu ihrer Herstellung bezeichnet, wird kaum Erstaunen auslösen. …

The relationship between capitalism and democracy is a fragile one, even before the current crisis in Europe that so forcefully reminded many of that fact. While Chancellor Merkel is confident that “we’ll find ways to redesign the Parliament to make it conform to markets” (Press conference September 1st, 2011), thus trying to resolve the relationship so as to establish a market-conform democracy, others – like Attac – insist that it is time to unleash democracy instead of markets. Both presuppose the relationship between capitalism and democracy to be antagonistic, making them incompatible. It seems that believe in a “peace formula” (Offe) – like the social state once promised to be – has been exhausted.

Michel Foucault is without doubt one of the most influential thinkers in the 20th century whose writings have been read and reread to further political analyses. But do they amount to a political philosophy? Foucault’s interpretation of the relationship between politics and philosophy is controversial: because there are many rivaling readings of what he offers, but, more important, because his account of this relationship puts him in opposition to most of what is considered political philosophy today.

In seinen letzten beiden Vorlesungen untersucht Foucault anhand der historischen Praxis des freimütigen Sprechens auch seine eigenen …

The article explains the conceptual conditions that Focuault’s notion of practices must meet and considers the methodological implications.

What constitutes the originality of governmentality as a state analytical framework? We argue that it is the specific kind of ‘unwieldy knowledge’ it produces.

Although the governmentality literature has occasionally acknowledged the importance of the concept of a liberal truth-regime, there …

A critical examination of the power that demands for transparency exert

2002 wurde die “Ich-AG” zum Unwort des Jahres gewählt, doch ihre Bedeutung geht weit darüber hinaus. Sie ist der Schlüsselbegriff der …

A review of various books on Michel Foucault

Review of two books on Jürgen Habermas