Home Philosophy Wie situiert sich Theorie?
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Wie situiert sich Theorie?

Ästhetische Distanzen
  • Anne Eusterschulte
Published/Copyright: June 12, 2024

Abstract

The essay outlines modelling theory in terms of an active form of thinking. In contrast to concepts of theory whose validity can be described by a scientific explanatory approach with a systematic character and the claim to universalization regarding a specific field of research, the question here is about varieties of theory building. The focus is on theoretical activity, not on theory as a result. Based on ancient implications of the term θεωρία (theoria), models of a theoretical activity, attitude or stance are brought into focus, whereby ways of distancing are constitutive in each case. What does theorizing mean from the perspective of a spectator and to what extent is purposelessness to be thought of as a critical potential? Does the theoretical performance of thought include a sense of possibility and to what extent is this articulated in the aesthetic forms of language? Do theoretical realizations in the literary medium move on a threshold between historical determinisms and the freedom of a conceivable future? To what extent do theoretical views have a synaesthetic dimension, and can we imagine poetic language as a medium of theoretical reflection? Is the nuanced linguistic nature of theoretical articulation modes the very condition of critical intervention? All these modellings of aesthetic distancing ask about the forms in which theory can be expressed, including ways of writing theoretical activity.


1 Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) im Rahmen der Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder innerhalb des Exzellenzclusters Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective – EXC 2020 – Projekt-ID 390608380.


Literatur

Adorno, T. W. (1997a), Minima Moralia, Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben (= Gesammelte Schriften 4), hg. v. Tiedemann, R., Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar

Adorno, T. W. (1997b), Noten zur Literatur (= Gesammelte Schriften 11), hg. v. Tiedemann, R., Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar

Arendt, H. (2024), The Life of the Mind (= Kritische Gesamtausgabe/Complete Works 14.1), hg. v. Eusterschulte, A., et al., Göttingen.Search in Google Scholar

Barthes, R. (1988), Interview mit Stephen Heath 1970, zit. in: Michael Holland, Barthes, Orpheus..., in: Paragraph 11.2, 143–174.10.3366/para.1988.0009Search in Google Scholar

Barthes, R. (2006), Am Nullpunkt der Literatur. Literatur oder Geschichte, Kritik und Wahrheit, Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar

Blumenberg, H. (1980), Nachdenklichkeit, in: Jahrbuch d. Dt. Akad. f. Sprache u. Dichtung I/1980, 57–61.Search in Google Scholar

Blumenberg, H. (2007), Theorie der Unbegrifflichkeit, Frankfurt am Main.Search in Google Scholar

Grimm, J., u. Grimm, W. (1854), Deutsches Wörterbuch 1, Leipzig.Search in Google Scholar

Kierkegaard, S. (2007), Entweder – Oder, München.Search in Google Scholar

Kirk, G. S., u. Raven, J. E. (1962), The Presocratic Philosophers, Cambridge.Search in Google Scholar

Nikolaus von Kues (2002), Idiota de Mente/Der Laie über den Geist (= Philosophisch-Theologische Werke 2), Hamburg.10.28937/978-3-7873-2666-2Search in Google Scholar

Richard von St. Viktor (1866), De Gratia Contemplationis libri quinque, occasione accepta ab Arca Moysis et ob eam rem hactenus dictum Benjamin Major, in: Migne Patrologia Latina (PL) 196, Paris, 63–202.Search in Google Scholar

Schmitz, L. (2013), PANE’GYRIS (πανήγυρις), in: Smith, W. (Hg.), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities [1842], Cambridge, 711.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2024-06-12
Published in Print: 2024-06-25

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 8.12.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/dzph-2024-0018/html
Scroll to top button