Contradiction Studies

Constitution and/or Declaration. Discussing the Question of the (Linguistic) Construction of Contradictions

Nils Kohlmeier, Fiona Makulik, Anna Mattfeldt, Jonas Trochemowitz & Ingo H. Warnke (RTG Contradiction Studies)

07/12/2023 1:30 pm –2:15 pm

U Bremen – GRA 2 0030

In this Lunchbox we want to discuss what it means to consider contradictions a product of declaration. In order to make clear the history and theoretical assumption of this concept, we want to give a brief input on Speech Act Theory and provide some concrete examples of declarations of contradictions. The main part of this event is going to be an open discussion about the question how these ideas seem interesting or relevant for the fellows of the RTG.

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ideal of a contradiction-free world

“Science has long been animated by the ideal of a contradiction-free world in which logical orders could merge with society, politics, culture and language. In the GRC Contradiction Studies we are working on ways of describing the multiplicity and complexity, the danger and beauty of our worlds that clearly go beyond concepts of freedom from contradiction.”

Michi Knecht
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
relational

“At first I thought contradiction was always a relational thing; but the more I ponder it, the more I think contradiction creates relation.”

Ingo H. Warnke
Bhabha on enlightenment and coloniality

“Homi Bhabha says about the contradiction between the ideals of the enlightenment, claims to democracy and solidarity and simultaneous colonization and ongoing coloniality: ‘That ideological tension, visible in the history of the West as a despotic power, at the very moment of the birth of democracy and modernity, has not been adequately written in a contradictory and contrapuntal discourse of tradition.’”

Kerstin Knopf
sustained engagement

“The history of Western philosophy can be understood as a sustained engagement with contradiction.”

Norman Sieroka