Papers (Selection) by Thomas Hainscho
Philosophy & Social Criticism, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537211066854
This article deals with the question about the conditi... more https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537211066854
This article deals with the question about the conditions for someone to call something ‘fake news’. It examines cases in which something is called fake news and analyses these cases from an ordinary language point of view as speech acts. Doing so, the analysis explains fake news as the expression of a dissent. The analysis avoids problems of recent attempts to provide a definition of fake news and argues against the view that fake news belong to a so-called post-truth era. The conclusion of the article is that it is not possible to call something fake news without having unyielding convictions about the truth.
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Azimuth, 2021
https://doi.org/10.1400/286685
This paper investigates the political dimension of Fritz Mauthn... more https://doi.org/10.1400/286685
This paper investigates the political dimension of Fritz Mauthner’s writings in respect to his language critique and his ambivalent relationship to Judaism. Its aim is to oppose the common understanding of Mauthner as a German-nationalist. For doing so, Mauthner’s relation to Judaism is contextualised within his philosophical views on patriotism, mother-tongue, and the formation of social communities. By suggesting an anti-nationalist interpretation of his philosophy, it is argued that participation in a certain linguistic practice can explain what it means to belong to a certain community according to Mauthner. The paper discusses to what extent Mauthner’s writings can be interpreted as anti-nationalist and concludes that he is too contradictory to be understood distinctively as a nationalist or an anti-nationalist.
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Colloquium: New Philologies, 2021
https://doi.org/10.23963/cnp.2021.6.1.5
This paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the ... more https://doi.org/10.23963/cnp.2021.6.1.5
This paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the work of philosopher, writer, and journalist Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). It points out a conflict between Mauthner’s language philosophy and his political views. In his philosophical work, he argues that language is an insufficient tool for the acquisition of knowledge. When he writes about his heritage and uses notions such as Heimat, Volk, or Vaterland, Mauthner makes claims about the formation of social communities based on a shared language and neglects a critical analysis. It appears as if he ignores the philosophical critique of language when it comes to political concepts. Thus, his political position is usually described without regard to his language philosophy, and Mauthner is conceived as a devoted German nationalist and a typical example of Jewish self-hatred. That reading can be contrasted with parts of his work – especially the late book Muttersprache und Vaterland (1920) – in which he criticizes political concepts from a language-philosophical point of view. I argue that Mauthner, read as a philosopher, cannot be typecast as a naïve nationalist as he is too contradictory. I show that his writings offer both a historical example of German nationalism and a deconstruction of nationalism.
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Constructivist Foundations, 2020
Open peer commentary on the article “Semiosis as Eigenform and Observation as Recursive Interpret... more Open peer commentary on the article “Semiosis as Eigenform and Observation as Recursive Interpretation” by Diana Gasparyan. https://constructivist.info/15/3/287
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Constructivist Foundations, 2020
Open peer commentary on the article “Why Josef Mitterer’s Non-Dualism Is Inconsistent” by Stefan ... more Open peer commentary on the article “Why Josef Mitterer’s Non-Dualism Is Inconsistent” by Stefan Weber: https://constructivist.info/15/2/185
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Talks (Selection) by Thomas Hainscho
Der Philosoph und Schriftsteller Fritz Mauthner veröffentlichte zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts se... more Der Philosoph und Schriftsteller Fritz Mauthner veröffentlichte zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts seine Beiträge zu einer Kritik der Sprache, in denen er auf vielfältige Weise darlegt, dass mithilfe von Sprache keine Erkenntnis erreicht werden kann. Passagen, in denen er auf den Spracherwerb von Kindern eingeht, sowie Passagen über kognitive Begriffsbildung bei Erwachsenen enthalten ähnliche Thesen: Dass das Weltbild durch Sprache determiniert ist und das Erlernen und Anwenden von Begriffen das Weltbild der Sprachbegabten gewaltsam in einer bestimmten Art und Weise formt. Die Gewalt in diesem Akt liegt darin, dass für sprachbegabte Lebewesen, die noch keine Sprache beherrschen, die Welt zu dem gemacht wird, als was und wie sie von Autoritäten in der Erziehung, Schule, Medien oder Wissenschaft beschrieben wird.
Dieser pessimistische und mitunter zynische Ansatz stößt sich an Mauthners Ansichten über Mehrsprachigkeit. Mauthner stellt dabei die Begriffe von Individualsprache und Gemeinsprache gegenüber und kontrastiert beide Begriffe durch das Problem des gegenseitigen Verstehens. Er gibt philosophisch und – als deutschsprachiger Jude, der im tschechisch-sprachigen Gebiet der k.u.k.-Monarchie aufgewachsen ist – biographisch fundierte Gründe dafür, sich verschiedene Sprachen anzueignen. Dabei ist es keineswegs klar, ob Mehrsprachigkeit zur sprachlichen Normierung beiträgt oder ihr entgegenwirkt. Möglicherweise festigt das Beherrschen mehrerer Sprachen nur eine bestimmte Art, die Welt zu verstehen, möglicherweise befähigt Mehrsprachigkeit dazu, einen Zusammenhang zwischen sozialen Machstrukturen und Sprache zu erkennen und den Missbrauch von Sprache zu entlarven.
Der Vortrag soll Mauthners zentrale, philosophischen Thesen und Argumente zum Spracherwerb präsentieren und vorschlagen, dass Mehrsprachigkeit, im Sinne Mauthners, als problematisch verstandene, sprachliche Normen überwinden kann. Unter dieser Voraussetzung soll versucht werden, Entwürfe für Spracherziehung bei Mauthner zu rekonstruieren.
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Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_turing_koeln_09-2017.pdf
The ai... more Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_turing_koeln_09-2017.pdf
The aim of this paper is to investigate Alan Turing’s models of cognition and outlining the role of materiality in his understanding of cognition. I regard it as a contribution to the history of science but also take a systematic, philosophical standpoint with regards to the question of how material objects are involved in understanding cognitive processes. The paper has three parts; after a short introduction, the first part provides an overview of the orthodox reading of Turing as proponent of formal-logical understanding of the mind, the second part investigates the role of materiality within the paradigm of symbol based cognition and the third part contrasts the given findings with excerpts of Turing’s writings on material aspects of machinery.
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Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_diderot_lyon_05-2017.pdf
This p... more Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_diderot_lyon_05-2017.pdf
This paper consists of two parts and a short introduction. The first part addresses the question what is imagination according to Diderot. In the second, metaphilosophical part, I want to show that and how Diderot frequently makes use of imagination in his philosophy. The claim I want to make is that Diderot’s philosophy is characterised very well as the practise of imaginative thinking. Imagination ranks as a method in Diderot’s writings.
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Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_diderot_halle_11-2016.pdf
There... more Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_diderot_halle_11-2016.pdf
There is a general question I want to address in this paper, namely, what is the meaning of machine in the philosophical statement, that man is a machine. The particular aim of this paper is to focus on the writings of Denis Diderot and clarify his use of the term machine in the description of man.
This paper has two parts: In the first part I want to introduce Diderot’s understanding of life as well as his understanding of man. I intend to point out to a contradictory use of the term machine. In the second part I want to suggest an understanding of machine as explanatory model and show how this interpretation can resolve the given conflict.
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Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_descartesModels_klagenfurt_04-2016... more Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_descartesModels_klagenfurt_04-2016.pdf
The view that man is a machine was very common in the age of Enlightenment. Most famous for this view was Julien Offray de la Mettrie’s book L’homme machine, despite its actual content about problems of dualism. The debates on the man-machine were carried out on the most fundamental levels, attacking the other camp’s core concepts: materialistic arguments against theories of an immaterial soul or an immaterial mind, materialistic deism and atheism against god.
My prime concerns are not the fundamental and metaphysical consequences of the view that man is a machine or that man can be a machine, but concern a meta-theoretical interest. What does it mean to describe man as a machine? What reasons are there behind matching man and machine? My goal is to show, firstly, that René Descartes anticipates a model in order to explain the human body and, secondly, to show that the Cartesian man-machine model carries a certain creative aspect. Likewise, I would like to contribute with peculiarities of Cartesian philosophy to a characterisation of models in science.
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Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_woodman.pdf
In this talk I give... more Read the paper here: https://th-web.at/includes/files/hainscho_woodman.pdf
In this talk I give an interpretation of Francesca Woodman’s photography. This interpretation is based on Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. Therefore, it is a theoretical contribution to the field of visual art as well as a contribution to philosophy.
Francesca Woodman was as artistically active in the years from 1973 to 1981. After her suicide in 1981 she left a numerous photographs, which have only been partly presented to the public. Her photographs show the female body, mainly self-portraits, staged in abandoned places. Her body is shown blurry, fading, hidden under props, and fused with spatial surroundings. With the statement that Woodman exhibits an “obsessive engagement with her own disappearing”, cultural and literary scholar Elisabeth Bronfen gives an accurate description of Woodman’s photographic oeuvre. Nevertheless the interpretations of Woodman’s photography are ambiguous: Interpreters tried to understand her photographs as visual suicide notes, as statement about the female body in visual art as well as a photographic engagement with psychoanalysis etc.
I am interested in exploring the relationship between the disappearing body and the visible props. Woodman’s photography suggests that she was very aware in choosing and staging her props and therefore my interpretation refers to more than just the body. In her photo series A woman. A mirror. A woman is a mirror for a man (1975–78), Woodman shows her body jammed in between a mirror, a wooden mirror frame and a glass plate. In Eel (1977–78) Woodman curls around a bowl with an eel inside. An untitled photograph (1979–80) shows Woodman holding a big leaf skeleton against her back and the leaf reminds viewers of the human spine. I think that these objects are far more than just visual metaphors, chosen because of their formal or visual similarity. I want to suggest that Woodman interprets her body by using certain props. If her photographs are understood as testimonials of a factual disappearance, the objects would remain and remind of the disappeared body.
The theoretical background for this interpretation is derived from Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. In the late 19th century Kapp tried to conceptualise human beings based on a theory of technology. He describes human organs as subconscious archetypes for the production of technical tools. Whenever humans produce tools, they just reproduce themselves. This relation is called organ projection. Using a tool allows to interpret one’s own nature. I intend to relate Kapp’s concept of tools to Woodman’s use of props.
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Books by Thomas Hainscho
Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923) Zwischen Sprachphilosophie und Literatur, 2021
Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), the German-speaking thinker of Jewish origin, born in Horzitz/Hořice ... more Fritz Mauthner (1849-1923), the German-speaking thinker of Jewish origin, born in Horzitz/Hořice in eastern Bohemia, raised and educated in Prague, active in Berlin as a journalist and theater critic, was a prolific author and is received today primarily as a philosopher of language. He identified with German culture, and at the same time he was bound to the Czechs, their culture and language by the ambivalence of a love-hate relationship that decisively shaped his novels and novellas, but also his philosophical work. The current anthology relates Mauthner's work to its multifaceted context of origin. Not only the hybrid linguistic and cultural circumstances of the author's life and the influence of the social developments of his time, such as German and Czech nationalism or the anti-Semitism controversy, but also the controversies around and about Mauthner are newly illuminated and interpreted here. Against the backdrop of contemporary discourses in cultural studies, his work, with its observations on the mixture of languages and cultures, appears surprisingly topical.
Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923), der deutschsprachige Denker jüdischer Herkunft, geboren im ostböhmischen Horzitz/Hořice, aufgewachsen und ausgebildet in Prag, in Berlin als Journalist und Theaterkritiker tätig, war ein produktiver Autor und wird heute vor allem als Sprachkritiker rezipiert. Er identifizierte sich mit der deutschen Kultur und gleichzeitig verband ihn mit den Tschechen, ihrer Kultur und Sprache die Ambivalenz einer Hassliebe, die seine Romane und Novellen, aber auch sein sprachphilosophisches Werk entscheidend prägte. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes setzen Mauthners Werk in Beziehung zu seinem facettenreichen Entstehungskontext. Nicht nur die hybriden linguistischen und kulturellen Lebensumstände des Autors und die Einflüsse der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen seiner Zeit wie der deutsche und tschechische Nationalismus oder der Antisemitismusstreit, sondern auch die Kontroversen um und über Mauthner werden in diesem Band neu beleuchtet und interpretiert. Vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger kulturwissenschaftlicher Diskurse erscheint sein Werk mit seinen Beobachtungen zur Mischung von Sprachen und Kulturen überraschend aktuell.
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In: Maja Soboleva (Hrsg.), Das Denken des Denkens, 2016
Die Frage nach dem Wesen des Denkens gehört nicht nur zum Bestand der klassischen philosophischen... more Die Frage nach dem Wesen des Denkens gehört nicht nur zum Bestand der klassischen philosophischen Fragestellungen, sondern stellt auch ein wiederkehrendes Thema in aktuellen Diskussionen dar.
Dieses Überblickswerk versammelt differenzierte Darstellungen des Denkens aus einer systematisch-historischen Perspektive. Die Beiträge untersuchen die Verhältnisse von Denken und Sprechen, Denken und Handeln, Denken und Wahrnehmen, Denken und Fühlen und beleuchten so die zentralen Aspekte des Begriffs »Denken« in vielfältiger Weise.
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-3156-2/das-denken-des-denkens
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Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasst... more Georges Bataille hat philosophische Texte ebenso geschrieben wie Romane und Gedichte, er verfasste Studien über Kunst und Literatur ebenso wie über gesellschaftliche, politische und wirtschaftliche Themen. Im Brotberuf biederer Bibliothekar und Gründer mehrerer Zeitschriften mit wissenschaftlichem Anspruch, darunter der durch und durch seriösen und hoch renommierten Critique, zeichnete Bataille zugleich verantwortlich – teilweise unter Pseudonym – für höchst anstößige literarische Texte an der Grenze zwischen Obszönität und Pornographie.
Philosophisch zeigt sich Bataille die Welt weniger als eine Welt der Gründe als vielmehr der Abgründe, der Mensch als »unhaltbares Wesen« und die Vernunft in der Gestalt des Schlafes. Für ihn kann gelten, was Heidegger mit Bezug auf Hölderlin gesagt hat: Er sei »einer unserer größten, d. h. unser zukünftigster Denker, weil er unser größter Dichter ist«. Dieser französischen Variante des Dichter-Denkens widmen sich die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes aus vielfältigen philosophischen, kunstwissenschaftlichen wie soziologischen Aspekten.
Der vorliegende Band versammelt wichtige internationale Stimmen zu Bataille, darunter Jean-Luc Nancy und Michel Maffesoli.
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Awards by Thomas Hainscho
Förderpreis der Bildungsforschung an der Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt 2014 Im Rahmen der Ak... more Förderpreis der Bildungsforschung an der Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt 2014 Im Rahmen der Aktivitäten des Fachübergreifenden Forschungsclusters Bildung an der AAU wird heuer zum zweiten Mal der Förderpreis der Bildungsforschung vergeben. Ziel dieses Förderpreises
ist es, NachwuchswissenschafterInnen aus dem Bereich der Bildungsforschung an der AAU zu motivieren, sich mit KollegInnen interdisziplinär zu vernetzen und gemeinsam zu forschen. Der Preis wird für die Entwicklung eines Forschungsantrags auf ein interdisziplinär ausgerichtetes Bildungsforschungsprojekt vergeben, der bei einer Forschungsförderungseinrichtung eingereicht
wird (v.a. FWF, Jubiläumsfonds der ÖNB, FFG, EU-Kommission). Die Höhe des Förderpreises beträgt € 4.500,-.
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Papers by Thomas Hainscho
Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923), 2021
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Some of Weber’s objections rely on an abstract conception of time. This conception is incompatibl... more Some of Weber’s objections rely on an abstract conception of time. This conception is incompatible with Mitterer’s claims.
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Das Denken des Denkens
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Papers (Selection) by Thomas Hainscho
This article deals with the question about the conditions for someone to call something ‘fake news’. It examines cases in which something is called fake news and analyses these cases from an ordinary language point of view as speech acts. Doing so, the analysis explains fake news as the expression of a dissent. The analysis avoids problems of recent attempts to provide a definition of fake news and argues against the view that fake news belong to a so-called post-truth era. The conclusion of the article is that it is not possible to call something fake news without having unyielding convictions about the truth.
This paper investigates the political dimension of Fritz Mauthner’s writings in respect to his language critique and his ambivalent relationship to Judaism. Its aim is to oppose the common understanding of Mauthner as a German-nationalist. For doing so, Mauthner’s relation to Judaism is contextualised within his philosophical views on patriotism, mother-tongue, and the formation of social communities. By suggesting an anti-nationalist interpretation of his philosophy, it is argued that participation in a certain linguistic practice can explain what it means to belong to a certain community according to Mauthner. The paper discusses to what extent Mauthner’s writings can be interpreted as anti-nationalist and concludes that he is too contradictory to be understood distinctively as a nationalist or an anti-nationalist.
This paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the work of philosopher, writer, and journalist Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). It points out a conflict between Mauthner’s language philosophy and his political views. In his philosophical work, he argues that language is an insufficient tool for the acquisition of knowledge. When he writes about his heritage and uses notions such as Heimat, Volk, or Vaterland, Mauthner makes claims about the formation of social communities based on a shared language and neglects a critical analysis. It appears as if he ignores the philosophical critique of language when it comes to political concepts. Thus, his political position is usually described without regard to his language philosophy, and Mauthner is conceived as a devoted German nationalist and a typical example of Jewish self-hatred. That reading can be contrasted with parts of his work – especially the late book Muttersprache und Vaterland (1920) – in which he criticizes political concepts from a language-philosophical point of view. I argue that Mauthner, read as a philosopher, cannot be typecast as a naïve nationalist as he is too contradictory. I show that his writings offer both a historical example of German nationalism and a deconstruction of nationalism.
Talks (Selection) by Thomas Hainscho
Dieser pessimistische und mitunter zynische Ansatz stößt sich an Mauthners Ansichten über Mehrsprachigkeit. Mauthner stellt dabei die Begriffe von Individualsprache und Gemeinsprache gegenüber und kontrastiert beide Begriffe durch das Problem des gegenseitigen Verstehens. Er gibt philosophisch und – als deutschsprachiger Jude, der im tschechisch-sprachigen Gebiet der k.u.k.-Monarchie aufgewachsen ist – biographisch fundierte Gründe dafür, sich verschiedene Sprachen anzueignen. Dabei ist es keineswegs klar, ob Mehrsprachigkeit zur sprachlichen Normierung beiträgt oder ihr entgegenwirkt. Möglicherweise festigt das Beherrschen mehrerer Sprachen nur eine bestimmte Art, die Welt zu verstehen, möglicherweise befähigt Mehrsprachigkeit dazu, einen Zusammenhang zwischen sozialen Machstrukturen und Sprache zu erkennen und den Missbrauch von Sprache zu entlarven.
Der Vortrag soll Mauthners zentrale, philosophischen Thesen und Argumente zum Spracherwerb präsentieren und vorschlagen, dass Mehrsprachigkeit, im Sinne Mauthners, als problematisch verstandene, sprachliche Normen überwinden kann. Unter dieser Voraussetzung soll versucht werden, Entwürfe für Spracherziehung bei Mauthner zu rekonstruieren.
The aim of this paper is to investigate Alan Turing’s models of cognition and outlining the role of materiality in his understanding of cognition. I regard it as a contribution to the history of science but also take a systematic, philosophical standpoint with regards to the question of how material objects are involved in understanding cognitive processes. The paper has three parts; after a short introduction, the first part provides an overview of the orthodox reading of Turing as proponent of formal-logical understanding of the mind, the second part investigates the role of materiality within the paradigm of symbol based cognition and the third part contrasts the given findings with excerpts of Turing’s writings on material aspects of machinery.
This paper consists of two parts and a short introduction. The first part addresses the question what is imagination according to Diderot. In the second, metaphilosophical part, I want to show that and how Diderot frequently makes use of imagination in his philosophy. The claim I want to make is that Diderot’s philosophy is characterised very well as the practise of imaginative thinking. Imagination ranks as a method in Diderot’s writings.
There is a general question I want to address in this paper, namely, what is the meaning of machine in the philosophical statement, that man is a machine. The particular aim of this paper is to focus on the writings of Denis Diderot and clarify his use of the term machine in the description of man.
This paper has two parts: In the first part I want to introduce Diderot’s understanding of life as well as his understanding of man. I intend to point out to a contradictory use of the term machine. In the second part I want to suggest an understanding of machine as explanatory model and show how this interpretation can resolve the given conflict.
The view that man is a machine was very common in the age of Enlightenment. Most famous for this view was Julien Offray de la Mettrie’s book L’homme machine, despite its actual content about problems of dualism. The debates on the man-machine were carried out on the most fundamental levels, attacking the other camp’s core concepts: materialistic arguments against theories of an immaterial soul or an immaterial mind, materialistic deism and atheism against god.
My prime concerns are not the fundamental and metaphysical consequences of the view that man is a machine or that man can be a machine, but concern a meta-theoretical interest. What does it mean to describe man as a machine? What reasons are there behind matching man and machine? My goal is to show, firstly, that René Descartes anticipates a model in order to explain the human body and, secondly, to show that the Cartesian man-machine model carries a certain creative aspect. Likewise, I would like to contribute with peculiarities of Cartesian philosophy to a characterisation of models in science.
In this talk I give an interpretation of Francesca Woodman’s photography. This interpretation is based on Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. Therefore, it is a theoretical contribution to the field of visual art as well as a contribution to philosophy.
Francesca Woodman was as artistically active in the years from 1973 to 1981. After her suicide in 1981 she left a numerous photographs, which have only been partly presented to the public. Her photographs show the female body, mainly self-portraits, staged in abandoned places. Her body is shown blurry, fading, hidden under props, and fused with spatial surroundings. With the statement that Woodman exhibits an “obsessive engagement with her own disappearing”, cultural and literary scholar Elisabeth Bronfen gives an accurate description of Woodman’s photographic oeuvre. Nevertheless the interpretations of Woodman’s photography are ambiguous: Interpreters tried to understand her photographs as visual suicide notes, as statement about the female body in visual art as well as a photographic engagement with psychoanalysis etc.
I am interested in exploring the relationship between the disappearing body and the visible props. Woodman’s photography suggests that she was very aware in choosing and staging her props and therefore my interpretation refers to more than just the body. In her photo series A woman. A mirror. A woman is a mirror for a man (1975–78), Woodman shows her body jammed in between a mirror, a wooden mirror frame and a glass plate. In Eel (1977–78) Woodman curls around a bowl with an eel inside. An untitled photograph (1979–80) shows Woodman holding a big leaf skeleton against her back and the leaf reminds viewers of the human spine. I think that these objects are far more than just visual metaphors, chosen because of their formal or visual similarity. I want to suggest that Woodman interprets her body by using certain props. If her photographs are understood as testimonials of a factual disappearance, the objects would remain and remind of the disappeared body.
The theoretical background for this interpretation is derived from Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. In the late 19th century Kapp tried to conceptualise human beings based on a theory of technology. He describes human organs as subconscious archetypes for the production of technical tools. Whenever humans produce tools, they just reproduce themselves. This relation is called organ projection. Using a tool allows to interpret one’s own nature. I intend to relate Kapp’s concept of tools to Woodman’s use of props.
Books by Thomas Hainscho
Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923), der deutschsprachige Denker jüdischer Herkunft, geboren im ostböhmischen Horzitz/Hořice, aufgewachsen und ausgebildet in Prag, in Berlin als Journalist und Theaterkritiker tätig, war ein produktiver Autor und wird heute vor allem als Sprachkritiker rezipiert. Er identifizierte sich mit der deutschen Kultur und gleichzeitig verband ihn mit den Tschechen, ihrer Kultur und Sprache die Ambivalenz einer Hassliebe, die seine Romane und Novellen, aber auch sein sprachphilosophisches Werk entscheidend prägte. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes setzen Mauthners Werk in Beziehung zu seinem facettenreichen Entstehungskontext. Nicht nur die hybriden linguistischen und kulturellen Lebensumstände des Autors und die Einflüsse der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen seiner Zeit wie der deutsche und tschechische Nationalismus oder der Antisemitismusstreit, sondern auch die Kontroversen um und über Mauthner werden in diesem Band neu beleuchtet und interpretiert. Vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger kulturwissenschaftlicher Diskurse erscheint sein Werk mit seinen Beobachtungen zur Mischung von Sprachen und Kulturen überraschend aktuell.
Dieses Überblickswerk versammelt differenzierte Darstellungen des Denkens aus einer systematisch-historischen Perspektive. Die Beiträge untersuchen die Verhältnisse von Denken und Sprechen, Denken und Handeln, Denken und Wahrnehmen, Denken und Fühlen und beleuchten so die zentralen Aspekte des Begriffs »Denken« in vielfältiger Weise.
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-3156-2/das-denken-des-denkens
Philosophisch zeigt sich Bataille die Welt weniger als eine Welt der Gründe als vielmehr der Abgründe, der Mensch als »unhaltbares Wesen« und die Vernunft in der Gestalt des Schlafes. Für ihn kann gelten, was Heidegger mit Bezug auf Hölderlin gesagt hat: Er sei »einer unserer größten, d. h. unser zukünftigster Denker, weil er unser größter Dichter ist«. Dieser französischen Variante des Dichter-Denkens widmen sich die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes aus vielfältigen philosophischen, kunstwissenschaftlichen wie soziologischen Aspekten.
Der vorliegende Band versammelt wichtige internationale Stimmen zu Bataille, darunter Jean-Luc Nancy und Michel Maffesoli.
Awards by Thomas Hainscho
ist es, NachwuchswissenschafterInnen aus dem Bereich der Bildungsforschung an der AAU zu motivieren, sich mit KollegInnen interdisziplinär zu vernetzen und gemeinsam zu forschen. Der Preis wird für die Entwicklung eines Forschungsantrags auf ein interdisziplinär ausgerichtetes Bildungsforschungsprojekt vergeben, der bei einer Forschungsförderungseinrichtung eingereicht
wird (v.a. FWF, Jubiläumsfonds der ÖNB, FFG, EU-Kommission). Die Höhe des Förderpreises beträgt € 4.500,-.
Papers by Thomas Hainscho
This article deals with the question about the conditions for someone to call something ‘fake news’. It examines cases in which something is called fake news and analyses these cases from an ordinary language point of view as speech acts. Doing so, the analysis explains fake news as the expression of a dissent. The analysis avoids problems of recent attempts to provide a definition of fake news and argues against the view that fake news belong to a so-called post-truth era. The conclusion of the article is that it is not possible to call something fake news without having unyielding convictions about the truth.
This paper investigates the political dimension of Fritz Mauthner’s writings in respect to his language critique and his ambivalent relationship to Judaism. Its aim is to oppose the common understanding of Mauthner as a German-nationalist. For doing so, Mauthner’s relation to Judaism is contextualised within his philosophical views on patriotism, mother-tongue, and the formation of social communities. By suggesting an anti-nationalist interpretation of his philosophy, it is argued that participation in a certain linguistic practice can explain what it means to belong to a certain community according to Mauthner. The paper discusses to what extent Mauthner’s writings can be interpreted as anti-nationalist and concludes that he is too contradictory to be understood distinctively as a nationalist or an anti-nationalist.
This paper investigates the concept of Heimat in the work of philosopher, writer, and journalist Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923). It points out a conflict between Mauthner’s language philosophy and his political views. In his philosophical work, he argues that language is an insufficient tool for the acquisition of knowledge. When he writes about his heritage and uses notions such as Heimat, Volk, or Vaterland, Mauthner makes claims about the formation of social communities based on a shared language and neglects a critical analysis. It appears as if he ignores the philosophical critique of language when it comes to political concepts. Thus, his political position is usually described without regard to his language philosophy, and Mauthner is conceived as a devoted German nationalist and a typical example of Jewish self-hatred. That reading can be contrasted with parts of his work – especially the late book Muttersprache und Vaterland (1920) – in which he criticizes political concepts from a language-philosophical point of view. I argue that Mauthner, read as a philosopher, cannot be typecast as a naïve nationalist as he is too contradictory. I show that his writings offer both a historical example of German nationalism and a deconstruction of nationalism.
Dieser pessimistische und mitunter zynische Ansatz stößt sich an Mauthners Ansichten über Mehrsprachigkeit. Mauthner stellt dabei die Begriffe von Individualsprache und Gemeinsprache gegenüber und kontrastiert beide Begriffe durch das Problem des gegenseitigen Verstehens. Er gibt philosophisch und – als deutschsprachiger Jude, der im tschechisch-sprachigen Gebiet der k.u.k.-Monarchie aufgewachsen ist – biographisch fundierte Gründe dafür, sich verschiedene Sprachen anzueignen. Dabei ist es keineswegs klar, ob Mehrsprachigkeit zur sprachlichen Normierung beiträgt oder ihr entgegenwirkt. Möglicherweise festigt das Beherrschen mehrerer Sprachen nur eine bestimmte Art, die Welt zu verstehen, möglicherweise befähigt Mehrsprachigkeit dazu, einen Zusammenhang zwischen sozialen Machstrukturen und Sprache zu erkennen und den Missbrauch von Sprache zu entlarven.
Der Vortrag soll Mauthners zentrale, philosophischen Thesen und Argumente zum Spracherwerb präsentieren und vorschlagen, dass Mehrsprachigkeit, im Sinne Mauthners, als problematisch verstandene, sprachliche Normen überwinden kann. Unter dieser Voraussetzung soll versucht werden, Entwürfe für Spracherziehung bei Mauthner zu rekonstruieren.
The aim of this paper is to investigate Alan Turing’s models of cognition and outlining the role of materiality in his understanding of cognition. I regard it as a contribution to the history of science but also take a systematic, philosophical standpoint with regards to the question of how material objects are involved in understanding cognitive processes. The paper has three parts; after a short introduction, the first part provides an overview of the orthodox reading of Turing as proponent of formal-logical understanding of the mind, the second part investigates the role of materiality within the paradigm of symbol based cognition and the third part contrasts the given findings with excerpts of Turing’s writings on material aspects of machinery.
This paper consists of two parts and a short introduction. The first part addresses the question what is imagination according to Diderot. In the second, metaphilosophical part, I want to show that and how Diderot frequently makes use of imagination in his philosophy. The claim I want to make is that Diderot’s philosophy is characterised very well as the practise of imaginative thinking. Imagination ranks as a method in Diderot’s writings.
There is a general question I want to address in this paper, namely, what is the meaning of machine in the philosophical statement, that man is a machine. The particular aim of this paper is to focus on the writings of Denis Diderot and clarify his use of the term machine in the description of man.
This paper has two parts: In the first part I want to introduce Diderot’s understanding of life as well as his understanding of man. I intend to point out to a contradictory use of the term machine. In the second part I want to suggest an understanding of machine as explanatory model and show how this interpretation can resolve the given conflict.
The view that man is a machine was very common in the age of Enlightenment. Most famous for this view was Julien Offray de la Mettrie’s book L’homme machine, despite its actual content about problems of dualism. The debates on the man-machine were carried out on the most fundamental levels, attacking the other camp’s core concepts: materialistic arguments against theories of an immaterial soul or an immaterial mind, materialistic deism and atheism against god.
My prime concerns are not the fundamental and metaphysical consequences of the view that man is a machine or that man can be a machine, but concern a meta-theoretical interest. What does it mean to describe man as a machine? What reasons are there behind matching man and machine? My goal is to show, firstly, that René Descartes anticipates a model in order to explain the human body and, secondly, to show that the Cartesian man-machine model carries a certain creative aspect. Likewise, I would like to contribute with peculiarities of Cartesian philosophy to a characterisation of models in science.
In this talk I give an interpretation of Francesca Woodman’s photography. This interpretation is based on Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. Therefore, it is a theoretical contribution to the field of visual art as well as a contribution to philosophy.
Francesca Woodman was as artistically active in the years from 1973 to 1981. After her suicide in 1981 she left a numerous photographs, which have only been partly presented to the public. Her photographs show the female body, mainly self-portraits, staged in abandoned places. Her body is shown blurry, fading, hidden under props, and fused with spatial surroundings. With the statement that Woodman exhibits an “obsessive engagement with her own disappearing”, cultural and literary scholar Elisabeth Bronfen gives an accurate description of Woodman’s photographic oeuvre. Nevertheless the interpretations of Woodman’s photography are ambiguous: Interpreters tried to understand her photographs as visual suicide notes, as statement about the female body in visual art as well as a photographic engagement with psychoanalysis etc.
I am interested in exploring the relationship between the disappearing body and the visible props. Woodman’s photography suggests that she was very aware in choosing and staging her props and therefore my interpretation refers to more than just the body. In her photo series A woman. A mirror. A woman is a mirror for a man (1975–78), Woodman shows her body jammed in between a mirror, a wooden mirror frame and a glass plate. In Eel (1977–78) Woodman curls around a bowl with an eel inside. An untitled photograph (1979–80) shows Woodman holding a big leaf skeleton against her back and the leaf reminds viewers of the human spine. I think that these objects are far more than just visual metaphors, chosen because of their formal or visual similarity. I want to suggest that Woodman interprets her body by using certain props. If her photographs are understood as testimonials of a factual disappearance, the objects would remain and remind of the disappeared body.
The theoretical background for this interpretation is derived from Ernst Kapp’s philosophy of technology. In the late 19th century Kapp tried to conceptualise human beings based on a theory of technology. He describes human organs as subconscious archetypes for the production of technical tools. Whenever humans produce tools, they just reproduce themselves. This relation is called organ projection. Using a tool allows to interpret one’s own nature. I intend to relate Kapp’s concept of tools to Woodman’s use of props.
Fritz Mauthner (1849–1923), der deutschsprachige Denker jüdischer Herkunft, geboren im ostböhmischen Horzitz/Hořice, aufgewachsen und ausgebildet in Prag, in Berlin als Journalist und Theaterkritiker tätig, war ein produktiver Autor und wird heute vor allem als Sprachkritiker rezipiert. Er identifizierte sich mit der deutschen Kultur und gleichzeitig verband ihn mit den Tschechen, ihrer Kultur und Sprache die Ambivalenz einer Hassliebe, die seine Romane und Novellen, aber auch sein sprachphilosophisches Werk entscheidend prägte. Die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes setzen Mauthners Werk in Beziehung zu seinem facettenreichen Entstehungskontext. Nicht nur die hybriden linguistischen und kulturellen Lebensumstände des Autors und die Einflüsse der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen seiner Zeit wie der deutsche und tschechische Nationalismus oder der Antisemitismusstreit, sondern auch die Kontroversen um und über Mauthner werden in diesem Band neu beleuchtet und interpretiert. Vor dem Hintergrund gegenwärtiger kulturwissenschaftlicher Diskurse erscheint sein Werk mit seinen Beobachtungen zur Mischung von Sprachen und Kulturen überraschend aktuell.
Dieses Überblickswerk versammelt differenzierte Darstellungen des Denkens aus einer systematisch-historischen Perspektive. Die Beiträge untersuchen die Verhältnisse von Denken und Sprechen, Denken und Handeln, Denken und Wahrnehmen, Denken und Fühlen und beleuchten so die zentralen Aspekte des Begriffs »Denken« in vielfältiger Weise.
http://www.transcript-verlag.de/978-3-8376-3156-2/das-denken-des-denkens
Philosophisch zeigt sich Bataille die Welt weniger als eine Welt der Gründe als vielmehr der Abgründe, der Mensch als »unhaltbares Wesen« und die Vernunft in der Gestalt des Schlafes. Für ihn kann gelten, was Heidegger mit Bezug auf Hölderlin gesagt hat: Er sei »einer unserer größten, d. h. unser zukünftigster Denker, weil er unser größter Dichter ist«. Dieser französischen Variante des Dichter-Denkens widmen sich die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes aus vielfältigen philosophischen, kunstwissenschaftlichen wie soziologischen Aspekten.
Der vorliegende Band versammelt wichtige internationale Stimmen zu Bataille, darunter Jean-Luc Nancy und Michel Maffesoli.
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