Articles & Papers

This paper is about poetry as a vehicle for imparting knowledge in natural philosophy. It discusses the epistemological and cultural background against which early Greek thinkers such as Parmenides and Empedocles composed in verse, and it explores the rationale why poetry was thought to be a preferred means for transmitting important and often non-discursive knowledge about nature—in other words, how poetry was meant to make “a philosophical theme audible,” to prompt an insight that organizes a large field of experience. Much later, related assumptions find a (last) heyday in Goethe’s attempt to write a Naturgedicht in the vein of Lucretius. Even though new insights especially from classical German philosophy influenced Goethe, his reasons for writing nature poetry show striking continuities with those of his ancient peers. The paper ends with a brief look at later attempts to “make philosophical themes audible” in the context of an ever-increasing fragmentation of knowledge.

Bringing together memory studies with the emerging field of contradiction studies, in this article, I suggest the need for an alternative way of thinking about collective memory by juxtaposing the ideal of wholeness that necessarily underlies any group’s identity with that of the inevitable contradiction of the plurivers. I discuss the power of the Western narrative order in regard to the Haitian Revolution and examples of mnemonic disharmony in contemporary Germany and seek to illuminate the epistemic violence constitutive of this narrative order. The article therefore interrogates memory study’s epistemological foundation and the practices in which these underpinnings result. The aim is to highlight the potential of contradiction in an attempt to pluriversify responses to the past as well as future visions for the worlds we live in. Special attention is paid to the question of what it is we hope for when attempting to (scholarly) contribute to making collective memory more inclusive, and where the limitations of this might lie. The purpose of my contribution, then, is to explore the tacit imperative of harmony that often remains unchallenged in memory studies, and to propose a shift in focus, from the ways in which memory might help us understand (e.g., current clashes of identities), toward a research agenda that is considerate of its own entanglements with power, yet, at the same time, lives up to its potential to contribute to transformation.

Based on the omnipresence of euphemistic talk about listening, the essay examines the network of relationships between listening and discourse. A widespread myth, in which listening is understood in isolation as a replicative action and the imponderables of listening are systematically covered up, is contrasted with the assumption that listening is language in contradiction and as such constitutive for discourse and vice versa. The question is about the possibilities of a sociolinguistics of listening and in particular about a conceptual classification of listening in the field of tension between the positivity of speech and the intentionality of listening. I speak of discourse phenomenology, without overlooking the fact that this also breaks up a scientific-historical juxtaposition of discourse analysis and phenomenology.

Since antiquity in Greece, the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) is considered to be the foundation of all philosophy. As Aristotle maintains in Metaphysics, “the same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same thing and in the same respect” (1005b, 19–23).

The EU’s free trade agreement with New Zealand fails to establish a critical concept of sustainability On July 9, 2023, the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand concluded a comprehensive free trade agreement, which the European Commission describes as the most ambitious agreement ever with regard to sustainability issues. A closer look reveals that the scope of regulation is more comprehensive and progressive in many respects than in other agreements. Nevertheless, deficits can be identified in the design of the dispute settlement procedure, which are also due to the fact that the sustainability chapter is unable to establish a critical concept of sustainability that is sensitive to its contradictions. Findings from Contradiction Studies can help to fill this gap. Contradictions are associated with the concept of sustainability as it is used in the agreement. Only its recognition makes it possible to negotiate these contradictions at a legal level. To this end, the dispute settlement procedure must be made more effective with the involvement of civil society actors.

This article examines the agency and incentives that drive the activism of diasporic political influencers on “Facebook Malawi,” an online imagined political community. In their seminal work on “social media dissidents” and “social media self-made activists” in the Global South, Matsilele and Sharra demonstrate that social media activists engage with different strategies to initiate movements, mobilize citizens, and create their brands in strong opposition to authoritarian regimes which repositions them as freedom fighters in the eyes of the masses and enemies of the state. Correspondingly, we frame diasporic political influencers as actors aided by digital technologies who engage in “long-distance nationalism” on Facebook against authoritarianism in the homeland. We deploy a qualitative mixed methods approach to analyze Facebook data of two diasporic political influencers, Onjezani Kenani and Manes Winnie Hale, who gave informed consent to use their Facebook data generated in 2018 and 2021, a period preceding and following the 2019 Malawi tripartite elections. A thematic analysis of 250 Facebook posts and interview data with the two influencers illustrates how they exercise their agency in their quest for a vision of a better Malawi while navigating a complex and ambivalent web of online and offline threats, incentives, and interests. Implicated in the political communication and mobilization of the two are different strategies that include verbal inventiveness, trolling, and exposing. The article also shows how the concept of long-distance nationalism needs to be adapted in studying diasporic political influencers.

Legal research is usually done at a desk, discussions are possible by telephone and even archives are usually accessible online, and most work is based on academic literature. But what insights, perspectives and research subjects are missed by legal research for which researchers do not leave their desks? And how can the gaps be filled? One possibility for empirical research into the law is the method of ethnography. The starting point for legal ethnographic research is a critique of legal research, which often examines law from the same
the same direction: as a text1, as positive law, as “applicable law from the perspective of the state “2, as uniform law, as formal law. Legal ethnographic research entails a departure from this legal positivist uniformity of law, legal dogmatics as the supreme discipline and interpretation as the highest goal – and thus also as a methodological limit. It opens the door to other perspectives, topics and problems. It is suitable for theoretically and empirically based critiques of legal orders and shows perspectives for an emancipatory change in the law.

In the psychology of music and basic auditory research, there is talk of “paradoxes of hearing” or “musical paradoxies” (Deutsch 1986, 275-280; Utz 2015, 22-52; Deutsch 1995). But can auditory impressions really be paradoxical? What exactly should it mean what exactly should it mean to “hear paradoxes” or even to “hear paradoxically”? We will pursue this question in the following and in doing so, we will first define the concept of paradoxia for the present context – namely in the sense of ambiguity and discrepancy ambiguity and a discrepancy. We will then develop a typology, which at the same time shows the fundamental significance that ambiguities have for music – or more precisely: for the enduring appeal of pieces of music.

Corona infections, childhood memories, presidential elections, avalanches: everything we experience and witness and all external events can be ordered in time – according to their succession. Time is therefore an ordering parameter, or dimension, of events. There is disagreement about what else time is on the “battlefield of eternal disputes” – as Kant once called philosophy (or more precisely: metaphysics): Is time relative or absolute? Is it continuous or discrete? Is it a substance in its own right or is it constituted by relationships between events?

The need for reform of the global health system is openly on the table. Many stakeholders agree that the WHO has not been able to adequately address the political and social problems, global health emergencies triggered or exacerbated by epidemics and pandemics, malnutrition, and access to clean water in recent years. Against this backdrop, there is a widespread call for more equity and solidarity in the global health system.