Thinking The Problematic: Genealogies And Explorations Between Philosophy And The Sciences

201 Pages·2020·1.804 MB·English

by  Oliver Leistert, Isabell Schrickel

Oliver Leistert, Isabell Schrickel (eds.)
Thinking the Problematic
Philosophy
Dedicated to all problems
Oliver Leistert is a media and technologies researcher at Leuphana University Lü-
neburg, Germany. He did his doctorate in media studies at University Paderborn
and was a research fellow at Central European University in Budapest.
Isabell Schrickel is a doctoral researcher at Leuphana University. Her main areas
of research are the history of science, environmental humanities and media stu-
dies.
Oliver Leistert, Isabell Schrickel (eds.)
Thinking the Problematic
Genealogies and Explorations between Philosophy and the Sciences
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© 2020 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld
Cover layout: Kordula Röckenhaus, Bielefeld
Proofread by Selena Class
Typeset by Justine Buri, Bielefeld
Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar
Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4640-5
PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4640-9
https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839446409
Printed on permanent acid-free text paper.
Contents
Acknowledgements................................................................................................7
Introduction to Thinking the Problematic:
Decentring as Method and Ethos
Oliver Leistert & Isabell Schrickel .................................................................................9
The Problems of Modern Societies — Epistemic Design around 1970
Isabell Schrickel ..........................................................................................................35
The Problematic of Transdisciplinary Sustainability Sciences
Esther Meyer................................................................................................................69
A Genealogical Perspective on the Problematic:
From Jacques Martin to Louis Althusser
Jean-Baptiste Vuillerod ...............................................................................................93
‘The problem itself persists’: Problems as Missing Links between
Concepts and Theories in Canguilhem’s Historical Epistemology
Thomas Ebke ..............................................................................................................109
Compositional Methodology:
On the Individuation of a Problematic of the Contemporary
Celia Lury ...................................................................................................................127
From Critique to Problems and the Politics of the In-act with Bergson,
Deleuze and James
Christoph Brunner ......................................................................................................153
Pragmatics of a World To-Be-Made
Martin Savransky ........................................................................................................179
About the Authors ...............................................................................................195
Acknowledgements
This book emerged from a workshop initiated by Erich Hörl, Oliver Leistert
and Martin Savransky called Thinking the Problematic, held at Leuphana Uni-
versity Lüneburg in June 2017.1 The workshop was as part of a research theme
of the research project CCP | Complexity or Control. Paradigms for Sustainable
Development, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2015 to 2019. Most
of the contributions to this book had been presented initially at the workshop.
The editors thank all participants for shaping an exciting discussion: Didier
Debaise, Thomas Ebke, Craig Lundy, Celia Lury, Patrice Maniglier, Esther
Meyer, Dimitris Papadopoulos – and in particular Erich Hörl for sparking
the discussion and Martin Savransky, who we also had the pleasure to host
as a visiting fellow at our project. We also thank Jeremias Herberg, Gregor
Schmieg and the whole CCP team for their curiosity, openness and patience
for the topic, Ina Dubberke for the smooth institutional support, and Selena
Class for rapid, but nonetheless thorough, proofreadings.
1 For a full line-up and the programme see https://www.leuphana.de/zentren/cgsc/aktuell/
termine/ansicht/datum/2017/06/22/workshop-thinking-the-problematic.html.

Introduction to Thinking the Problematic:
Decentring as Method and Ethos
Oliver Leistert & Isabell Schrickel
Our occupation with problems (and of problems with us), the entanglement
of problems and ideas, and their relations with thought, concepts and solu-
tions, the universality, generosity and violence of problems, and the con-
tinued problems we cultivate in order not to develop a sense of problems,
a sense that would affirm their transformative offerings and expose us to
a risk – these are the topics that the contributions to this volume revolve
around in rather different spins. The book is a contribution to the problem
of how, when, where and why problems matter, and for whom, and there-
fore to the inescapable and unmistakable catastrophic resonances that are
occuring when modern societies continue to cultivate their amor fati with
false problems, ‘that are only possible through various confusions between
terms that had been previously separated and constructed, but whose modes
of construction are no longer put into question’, as Didier Debaise recalls
(2018: 20). Thinking the problematic might therefore as well mean an endeavour
for decentring our thinking in order to think again, and to put the modes
of construction of problems into question. This sounds quaint, as common
sense has it that thinking is obviously part of everyday life. But when we look
beyond the cognitive activity as such and understand thinking as a process
in and after which a difference has been made – and this difference does not
entail, for the moment, any limitations – it turns out that neither common
sense nor everyday life help us to engage in the process of thinking. Quite to
the contrary: their role is to stabilise, to make certain and to establish conti-
nuity – a sound milieu for false problems to flourish in.
The force of thinking to transform what it has captured is thus the topic
here, and as such it is one way to explore what a problematic might turn out
to be – a positive conception of a problem. Most of us know this force from