Concepts of Contradiction I

Lilli Hasche & Helen Stephan

10/17/2023 2:30 pm –4:45 pm

GRA 2 0030 & online

As members of the RTG Contradiction Studies we all work in the field of or with contradictions. But what does this concept mean? What does it mean to work with contradiction(s) as a concept, method or tool? How can we come together using contradiction(s)? In two sessions we invite the members of the RTG to discuss their understandings of contradiction(s). We want to enhance finding partners for collaboration who think in similar ways and think about interdisciplinarity as translation – how to translate?

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problem to be solved

“Contradiction is not primarily a problem to be solved but a motor we cannot do without.”

Martin Nonhoff
paradox

“The basis of law is not an idea as a systematic unified principle but a paradox.”

Andreas Fischer-Lescano
coherence in thought

“The imperative of non-contradiction generally produces a coherence in thought that is often at odds with social complexities.”

Yan Suarsana
Afterlife of colonialism

“Contradiction comes in many different forms. None is so debilitating than when the coloniser transitions, textually not politically, to decoloniality without taking the responsibility for the afterlife of colonialism, which they continue to benefit from. Self-examination and self-interrogation of the relations of coloniality, a necessity, seem nearly impossible for the coloniser who continues to act as beneficiary, masked in the new-found language of White fragility, devoid of an ethical responsibility of the very system of White domination they claim to be against.” (Black Consciousness and the Politics of the Flesh)

Rozena Maart
Is contradiction eurocentric?

“Is contradiction a eurocentric concept, operational phenomenon, and instrument of power?”

Kerstin Knopf