Texts by sascha freyberg
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 2023
In the paper, we are going to show how robotics is undergoing a shift in a bionic direction after... more In the paper, we are going to show how robotics is undergoing a shift in a bionic direction after a period of emphasis on artificial intelligence and increasing computational efficiency, which included isolation and extreme specialization. We assemble these new developments under the label of the morphological paradigm. The change in its paradigms and the development of alternatives to the principles that dominated robotics for a long time contains a more general epistemological significance. The role of body, material, environment, interaction and the paradigmatic status of biological and evolutionary systems for the principles of control are crucial here. Our focus will be on the introduction of the morphological paradigm in a new type of robotics and to contrast the interests behind this development with the interests shaping former models. The article aims to give a clear account of the changes in principles of orientation and control as well as concluding general observation in terms of historical epistemology, suggesting further political-epistemological analysis.
Morphologie als Paradigma in den Wissenschaften
Kosmos: Vom Umgang mit der Welt zwischen Ausdruck und Ordnung. Hg. v. P. König / O. Schlaudt, 2023
w/ P.D. Omodeo. This paper addresses the question of how cosmology and history, as well as scienc... more w/ P.D. Omodeo. This paper addresses the question of how cosmology and history, as well as science and mythopoiesis, are related to each other. The symbolic significance of Copernicus' astronomical "revolution" from the early modern period until today illustrates the orientational function of cosmology and its role between empiricism and theory, natural science and society. The cosmological aspect of the Copernican revolution can become re-readable as a "sign of history" in Kant's sense, insofar as it emphasizes the reference to transformation processes as such instead of stories of progress or decay. This touches on both methodological and practical, epistemological and political, symbolic and historical-ontological aspects. From such a general cosmological perspective, the various transformation theories stemming from the natural, cultural, and social sciences can be addressed as dimensions of a common context against the background of the debates about the planetary role of humanity in the Anthropocene. We call this multidimensional view, the mythical and scientific beginnings of which in the early modern period are explored here, transformational cosmology.
In-cognita: Ioan Petru Culianu’s Approaches to Religion. Ed. by Daniela Dumbravă / Bogdan Tătaru-Cazaban, 2022
w/ P.D. Omodeo. In this essay, we reassess Culianu's political interpretation of Renaissance cult... more w/ P.D. Omodeo. In this essay, we reassess Culianu's political interpretation of Renaissance culture in Éros et magie à la Renaissance (1984), focusing on his reading of Ficino and Bruno's magic doctrines, which he saw as the first steps towards modern theories and practices of erotic manipulation. His ideas were based on a comprehension of the relation between politics and symbolic forms as had been developed by scholars such as Cassirer, Warburg, and Wind. In addition to this, Culianu projected the concerns of his time about mass psychology and media manipulation back onto Renaissance culture. He regarded Bruno as the philosopher who reworked Ficino's individualist psychology and magic towards a collective and practice-oriented art. We reassess the actuality of Culianu's anachronism by relating it to today's populisms. In this perspective, we establish an ideal connection between Éros et magie and Laclau's post-Gramscian theory of hegemony and populist reason (1985 and 2005), according to which rhetoric and symbolism are the main constituents of groups and political society. We suggest that Culianu's inquiry into Renaissance manipulative psychology and Laclau's inquiry into the ideological construction of post-modern identities stem from a similar cultural-political concern about the connection between media control, eros and mass democracy, although they interpreted the relation between the masses and their leaders differently.
Oittinen / Viljanen (Eds.) Stalin Era Intellectuals, 2023
In today's world it is the communists who must take on the protection of categorical values of th... more In today's world it is the communists who must take on the protection of categorical values of the art-culture, which has arisen over centuries of sacrificial labour. 1 Introduction The Stalin era was not only a time of extremely accelerated modernist endeavours, urbanization, heavy industrialization, geo-engineering, forced collectivization, generational struggle, 2 and increasing administrative and ideological control-it was also a time when infrastructures as well as scientific, educational, and cultural institutions had to be rethought and expanded while the question of the basis of cultural politics became inevitable. Although these developments in science, arts, and education were massive, on the 'cultural front' this era often presents itself as a regressive, anti-modernist, conservative time of restauration, when official cultural politics and its supporters tried to establish the official doctrine of 'socialist realism' for cultural politics and put an end to the different experiments in the first decade of the Soviet Union. These developments have often been seen as a kind of cultural dawn, like the grey days of depression that Marx was alluding to after the revolutionary attempts of 1848. However, the 1930s were not like the 1850s or even like postrevolutionary imperial France-although, to some extent, Soviet intellectuals saw analogies with it and upheld the view of a post-revolutionary Thermidor (see Oittinen 2016). However, not all former experiments were undogmatic, viable, or really relatable to a Marxist perspective. In the new socialist state, all developments in modernity had to be revised from a different angle. The cultural political questions about scientific communism and education, the role of art in society, as well as the aesthetic and cultural theory of Marxism were still open. 1 Lifshits 1971, p. 169: 'In der Welt von heute müssen gerade die Kommunisten den Schutz der unbedingten Werte der Kunstkultur übernehmen, die in Jahrhunderten aufopferungsvoller Arbeit entstanden ist.' 2 Helena Sheehan (2021) recently reminded us that the Stalinist purges in the 1930s had also generational as well as educational reasons, when a new generation with less international experience and less education but more authoritarian, nationalist, and/or careerist views was putting pressure on the older more 'cosmopolitan' Bolsheviks, scientists et al. A very influential and extraordinary example of a genuine engagement with these questions is the work of the literary critic, editor, lecturer, and philosopher Mikhail Lifshits 3 (1905-1983), who can be seen as one of the earliest proponents of a Marxist aesthetics on a cultural historical basis. To understand his work and its legacy, we need to keep its historical background in mind, when internationally the threat of Fascism and Anti-Communism was all too real. While the geopolitical situation was worsening and impacted ideology and propaganda on all sides, thinkers like Lifshits tried to uphold a critical perspective and see common problems in modern societies and their tendencies in 'populist' and 'totalitarian' directions and towards forms of 'false consciousness'. The analysis of his work supports the suggestions of understanding the Stalin era in the perspective of 'shared modernity' (David-Fox 2015, pp. 1-20) and to see Stalin era culture as a 'particular Soviet incarnation of modern mass culture' (Hoffman 2003, p. 10). However, when engaging with Lifshits' work we also need to remember the philosophical ideal of reconciling critique and praxis (Röttgers 1975). It may have been one of the most important tasks of all post-Kantian projects to connect theoretical and practical philosophy without falling back behind the 'Copernican Revolution' of Critical Philosophy and defending the 'courage of thought' (Hegel 1818). The formulation of a Philosophy of Culture was one of those projects. Although influenced by Giambattista Vico, this project took its lead from Hegel's Phenomenology (Levi 1966, p. 19), and consists in considering the plurality and interferences of cultural forms in modernity. This perspective remains rather marginal today. It is in this philosophical framework that in the following I want to present the work of Lifshits by relating at the same time to his outspoken Marxist-Leninist position. My first thesis is that it was not against (or apart). this conviction but precisely to defend, unfold, and develop it that Lifshits was continuing and revising classicist European traditions from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to Classical German Philosophy and 19 th century liberalism. He saw the ideas of this heritage as predecessors and as vital parts of Marxism. 4 Hegelian philosophy, which Lifshits was particularly in favour of, provided the background of a common cultural historical perspective. 3 Usually, the family name is given in English as 'Lifshitz', since this was the way chosen by the author, showing the Germanic, i.e., Yiddish, background of the name. But, because of editorial demands from the publisher the transliteration for English is used here instead. 4 On the Enlightenment tradition in Marxism, see Oittinen 2019, and for the Soviet context Chehonadskih 2017. My second thesis is that Lifshits had already developed the basic perspective of all his writings very early on and that it remained consistent throughout his literary career. What is seen as contradictory in his work will prove to be a rather necessary perspectival expression of one and the same philosophical view. Lifshits can be considered as recipient, observer, and participant of the 'cultural revolution' and the breaks of the 1930s. I will thus concentrate my analysis on an important yet hitherto unanalysed article (1934), where the outline of the theoretical basis of Lifshits' work becomes graspable, which he was never able to present in a more systematic fashion. In the following, I first outline the development of Lifshits' thought and the problems of reception. Afterwards, I concentrate on the analysis of Lifshits' article 'O kul'ture i ee porokakh' ('On Culture and Its Faults') (Lifshits 1934), and then introduce a more global perspective of scholarly antifascism in the 1930s, before closing with an outlook on Lifshits' work in terms of a theory of culture in modernity. The Reality of Contradictions and the Problem of Truth In the 1930s, Lifshits, not the least because of his publications in German and English, was known mainly due to his attempt at proposing a genuine Marxist aesthetics (Lifshits 1933, 1938) and his involvement in the literary debates of the time about realism as well as in the polemics against 'vulgar sociologism'. Afterwards, he was somewhat forgotten in the 1940s, but he became notorious in the Soviet context when he dared to break the silence of critics about Stalinism and the cynicism of its nomenclatura in Tvardovsky's journal Novy Mir, the leading literary organ of the Thaw period (see Riff in Lifshitz 2018, pp. 1-2). Since this was still a very risky endeavour-and Lifshits was aware of the risks and was ready to pay the price of party exclusion-it came as a surprise to many when, in the 1960s, he began to publish explicitly 'antimodernist' critiques of art, which seemed like a Stalinist backlash (see Lifshitz 2018). These works made him famous or, rather, infamous throughout the 'Eastern Bloc' and cemented the retrospect narrative that he, not only as a friend and colleague of György Lukács (see below), was among those who helped to form the
Narthex. Heft für radikales Denken, 7, 2021
Online version of an essay on Ilyenkov's 'Cosmology of Spirit' emphasizing the connections to Eng... more Online version of an essay on Ilyenkov's 'Cosmology of Spirit' emphasizing the connections to Engels and presenting it in a framework of apocalyptics.
in: Morphologie als Paradigma in den Wissenschaften
On the embodied morphological paradigm in Robotics. co-authored with Helmut Hauser (Bristol) penu... more On the embodied morphological paradigm in Robotics. co-authored with Helmut Hauser (Bristol) penultimate version. Publication forthcoming in the book series Beihefte der Allgemeinen Zeitschrift für Philosophie (Frommann und Holzboog)
in: Geschichtsphilosophie nach der Geschichtsphilosophie? Perspektiven der Kulturgeschichte im Ausgang von Heinz Dieter Kittsteiner, 2021
"Our torments also may, in lenght of time, become our elements" (Milton).
Penultimate version. ... more "Our torments also may, in lenght of time, become our elements" (Milton).
Penultimate version. On the philosophy of history and its images in Kittsteiner and Cassirer.
JOLMA The Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts, 2020
The article deals with Alexius Meinong's concept of disposition and its role in education. It int... more The article deals with Alexius Meinong's concept of disposition and its role in education. It introduces the newly translated text General Remarks on the Theory of Dispositions and contextualises this late work by Meinong. Taking the lead from Meinong's definition of disposition as Zweckkönnen, the underlying assumptions are presented and put into the context of the German discourse on Bildung. The remarks of Eduard Martinak are taken into account as a point of reference, since they directly address Meinong's theory in the context of pedagogy. Finally, it is asked how the idea of forming dispositions might contribute to a historical epistemology of education.
Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Sonderband 40, 2019
Abstract: Reconstructive Synthesis. On the Method of the Philosophy of Culture in Ernst Cassirer ... more Abstract: Reconstructive Synthesis. On the Method of the Philosophy of Culture in Ernst Cassirer and John Dewey.
This paper argues that Ernst Cassirer and John Dewey – despite their seemingly opposing views on ‚idealism‘ and ‚naturalism‘ – pursue a common project. We want to elucidate this project along the lines of a philosophy of culture that is characterized by the leading idea of a reconstructive synthesis. The consequent result of this common project consists in the program for a logic of cultural inquiry. In order to establish the decisive link between Cassirer and Dewey we will first have a look at historical interrelations highlighting a shared conception of philosophy. We will, then, elaborate on the method of reconstruction as well as the transformative aspect of the logic of inquiry in Cassirer and Dewey. Finally, we will give a program- matic sketch of the logic of cultural inquiry resulting from our synthesis of the two theories.
Art History after Deleuze and Guattari, 2017
In 1912 Aby Warburg gave a talk at the international conference for art history in Rome, which he... more In 1912 Aby Warburg gave a talk at the international conference for art history in Rome, which he himself had helped to organize. On this occasion he introduced the notion of 'iconological analysis ' (1979, 185). Today this event is acknowledged as the birth of iconology as an art historical method (Heckscher 1967). 1 In his talk Warburg called for a methodic widening and an opening towards 'world historical' perspectives and connected this with a more general plea against the one-sidedness of 'mystic' or 'materialistic' moods in the discipline. Art historical research, Warburg argued, had to take into account the 'conditions of possibility' for historical effect (immediate affect and indirect reception), like intellectual context, social environment, cultural patterns, and the function of perception and social memory. Thus Warburg directed research towards a historical study of images, including historical and anthropological dimensions and the systematic task of a theory of images. Art historians as iconologists still engage with works of art but also examine other artifacts and designs. The work is first and foremost a cultural object, a symptom (Panofsky) of specific socio-cultural configurations or situations at a certain point in time (and space) charged with affective and intellectual energy. Iconology tries to account for the inherent conflicts of traditions, visible in the changing configurations of form and content. Thus art history had to be oriented towards a full-blown history of culture, already hinted at by Jacob Burckhardt, obliged to contribute to this more general endeavor. No wonder that social historians and sociologists of
Das Entgegenkommende Denken. Verstehen zwischen Form und Empfindung, 2016
in: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Symposia: The Reception of Peirce in ... more in: European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy, Symposia: The Reception of Peirce in the World, 6/1 (2014).
Bildakt at the Warburg Institute, 2014
w/ Katharina Blühm
LIBREAS. Library Ideas #21: Bilder, Graphen, Visualisierungen S. 3-15
Die Formen des "Sichtbarmachens" in der Wissenschaft reichen von "Abbildungen" über "Modelle" bis... more Die Formen des "Sichtbarmachens" in der Wissenschaft reichen von "Abbildungen" über "Modelle" bis hin zu "Simulationen". Sie können u.a. gezeichnet, fotografiert, geometrisch konstruiert oder durch Sensorik vermittelt, digital prozessiert werden. Ihre Funktionen erstrecken sich von der Orientierung bis hin zur (hypothetischen) Voraussage und somit auch vom Überblick bis zur Evidenzsuggestion. Generell handelt es sich um vereinfachte (und vereinfachende) Darstellungen von (teilweise sehr komplexen) Sachverhalten, zu deren Verständnis sie beitragen sollen; daher können sie bei Lernprozessen, d.h. in der Vermittlung und auch bei der Organisation von Wissen eine wichtige Rolle spielen. Diese kommt ihnen nun nicht nur zu, weil sie -wie in den mittelalterlichen Mnemotechniken -als Gedächtnisstützen für bekannte Sachverhalte dienen. Sondern resultiert auch aus ihrem Potenzial für die Entdeckung von neuen Zusammenhängen. Der folgende Artikel diskutiert die Darstellungsform des Diagramms. Es wird hier mit dem Gedanken gespielt, dass die in der universalen Zeichentheorie von C.S. Peirce entwickelte Diagrammatik wichtige Impulse für eine Untersuchung des Zusammenhangs von Wissen und Bildlichkeit geben kann.
Einträge für das Lexikon der Raumphilosophie, hg. v. St. Günzel, Darmstadt : WBG 2012.
Reviews by sascha freyberg
Radical Philosophy, 2022
A review of Keti Chukhrov's Practicing the Good: Desire and Boredom in Soviet Socialism.
Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Philosophie 44.3, 2019
Viola Nordsieck, Formen der Wirklichkeit und der Erfahrung. Henri Bergson,
Ernst Cassirer und Alf... more Viola Nordsieck, Formen der Wirklichkeit und der Erfahrung. Henri Bergson,
Ernst Cassirer und Alfred North Whitehead, Freiburg / München: Alber 2015.
Caterina Zanfi, Bergson und die deutsche Philosophie. 1907-1932. Mit einem Vorwort von Frédéric Worms, übersetzt von Peter Nickl, Freiburg / München: Alber 2018.
Wie auch die ökologische Ökonomik, steht die Evolutionsökonomik der neoklassischen Wirtschaftsleh... more Wie auch die ökologische Ökonomik, steht die Evolutionsökonomik der neoklassischen Wirtschaftslehre kritisch gegenüber, deren methodologischen Individualismus und Effizienzbegriff sie ablehnt. Nun legt Carsten Herrmann-Pillath, der wohl bekannteste Vertreter der Evolutionsökonomik in Deutschland, sein lang erwartetes magnum opus vor, in dem er sich mit den naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Evolutionsökonomik beschäftigen will.
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Texts by sascha freyberg
Penultimate version. On the philosophy of history and its images in Kittsteiner and Cassirer.
This paper argues that Ernst Cassirer and John Dewey – despite their seemingly opposing views on ‚idealism‘ and ‚naturalism‘ – pursue a common project. We want to elucidate this project along the lines of a philosophy of culture that is characterized by the leading idea of a reconstructive synthesis. The consequent result of this common project consists in the program for a logic of cultural inquiry. In order to establish the decisive link between Cassirer and Dewey we will first have a look at historical interrelations highlighting a shared conception of philosophy. We will, then, elaborate on the method of reconstruction as well as the transformative aspect of the logic of inquiry in Cassirer and Dewey. Finally, we will give a program- matic sketch of the logic of cultural inquiry resulting from our synthesis of the two theories.
Reviews by sascha freyberg
Ernst Cassirer und Alfred North Whitehead, Freiburg / München: Alber 2015.
Caterina Zanfi, Bergson und die deutsche Philosophie. 1907-1932. Mit einem Vorwort von Frédéric Worms, übersetzt von Peter Nickl, Freiburg / München: Alber 2018.
Penultimate version. On the philosophy of history and its images in Kittsteiner and Cassirer.
This paper argues that Ernst Cassirer and John Dewey – despite their seemingly opposing views on ‚idealism‘ and ‚naturalism‘ – pursue a common project. We want to elucidate this project along the lines of a philosophy of culture that is characterized by the leading idea of a reconstructive synthesis. The consequent result of this common project consists in the program for a logic of cultural inquiry. In order to establish the decisive link between Cassirer and Dewey we will first have a look at historical interrelations highlighting a shared conception of philosophy. We will, then, elaborate on the method of reconstruction as well as the transformative aspect of the logic of inquiry in Cassirer and Dewey. Finally, we will give a program- matic sketch of the logic of cultural inquiry resulting from our synthesis of the two theories.
Ernst Cassirer und Alfred North Whitehead, Freiburg / München: Alber 2015.
Caterina Zanfi, Bergson und die deutsche Philosophie. 1907-1932. Mit einem Vorwort von Frédéric Worms, übersetzt von Peter Nickl, Freiburg / München: Alber 2018.
http://parkflimmern.de
The work of Evald Ilyenkov (1925-1979) can be seen as the most important example
of the struggle for a true communist "Soviet Philosophy" – a struggle that for him ended tragically. In this evening talk David Bakhurst will introduce Ilyenkov’s work and argue for it's philosophical potential. Since his seminal "Consciousness and Revolution" (1991), Bakhurst is one of the very few who attempt to reappraise key aspects of Soviet philosophy and psychology. Recent interest in the conjecture of political and epistemological questions in general and in re-reading Marx in
particular indicates the vital necessity of these endeavors. Bakhurst will also show the connections of Ilyenkov's philosophy to the work of Lev Vygostskij and other Soviet proponents of the Cultural-Historical Psychology and Activity Theory and will outline the consequences of Ilyenkov’s approach for the philosophy of mind and education.
David Bakhurst is Charlton Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University,
Kingston, Ontario and Visiting Professor at the Institute of Education of the University of London. After graduating from Keele University in the early 1980s, he studied at Moscow University and, after his return to Britain, at Oxford, where he was a student of John McDowell. In his last monograph "The Formation of Reason" (2011) he defends a socio-historical approach for the philosophy of mind and education by drawing on ideas of McDowell. Bakhurst was recently elected a
fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Workshop: John M. Krois: Gründzüge der Philosophischen Ikonologie
Conference: Rückgang ins Unbestimmte. Zur Kontinuität ikonischer Formprozesse