Contradiction Studies

Formale, förmliche und unförmige Widersprüche in Psychoanalyse und Pädagogik

Dr. Mai-Anh Boger (U Regensburg)

06/06/2024 4:15 pm –5:45 pm

U Bremen GRA 2 0030 & online

In psychoanalysis and pedagogy, there is a long tradition of thinking about contradictions, which are not only at the center of reflections on action in theory, but also in practice – qua connection of the respective discipline with a profession. In addition to Freud’s dictum that psychoanalysis and pedagogy are among the “impossible professions” due to these contradictions, one of the best-known pedagogical concepts is that of the “antinomies of pedagogical action” according to Helsper et al. First, information is provided about these theoretical traditions in order to build interdisciplinary bridges. Then, the theory of trilemmatic inclusion is used to develop a proposal on how formal-logical contradictions (Aristotelian), contradictory imperatives for action in a situated practice (antinomic) and self-contradictory desire (psychoanalytic) can be related to each other.

Back to overview
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
l’illusion d’une unité

“Foucault speaks of contradiction as l’illusion d’une unité.”

Ingo H. Warnke
sustained engagement

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

Norman Sieroka
space

“According to Niklas Luhmann, space is a ‘special facility to negate contradictions’”.

Julia Lossau
every day

“Living in contradictions is what we experience every day. Why do we know so little about it?”

Gisela Febel