Pascal Lemmer | Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin / Charité Medical University Berlin (original) (raw)
Drafts by Pascal Lemmer
Nur was uns anschaut, sehen wir. Diese von W. Benjamin aufgegriffene Weisheit für die Ästhetik gr... more Nur was uns anschaut, sehen wir. Diese von W. Benjamin aufgegriffene Weisheit für die Ästhetik greifbar zu machen, ist Ziel dieses Essays. Es handelt sich um eine Abhandlung über Ansätze zu einer Musikphilosophie bei Walter Benjamin (u.A. Besprechung der Berliner Kindheit, des Surrealismus-Aufsatzes und anderer Texte) an der Hand seiner Ästhetik, Sprachphilosophie und einer "Philosophie der Dinge", welche sich mit dem (Eigen-)Leben konkreteter materieller Objekte auseinandersetzt. So wird die These entwickelt, dass nur was uns zuhört, auch für uns hörbar ist. Diese Verwickelung des Hörens mit der (sozioökonomischen) Materialiteät des Lebens erlaubt es auch, nicht klassische Formen der Musik, wie bspw. die Neue Musik, zu verstehen und ästhetisch und politisch zu deuten.
When talking about Nancy and the world, many aspects come to mind: New technological configuratio... more When talking about Nancy and the world, many aspects come to mind: New technological configurations, new modes and/or limits of the political and the self, (thus) new struggles, the flatness of the world and many more. All of them relate, in one way or the other, to what I would like to recapitulate and interrogate in this essay: The difference between 'politics' (le politique) and 'the political' (la politique) and the underlying thoughts about the world and one's relation to it; which, ultimately, remains political (in the sense of la politique) in my view. For, as I would like to suggest, the death of God and political theology notwithstanding, being-in-common is being-political, albeit in a different way.
Al-Farabi’s Book of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City is a philosophical treat... more Al-Farabi’s Book of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City is a philosophical treatise that is, above all, concerned the nature of the First Cause, that from which all existing things derive their existence, as well as the ideal city and its ruler. Strikingly, there is a curious overlap in the language characterising the relations between the organs of the human body, the relations within the virtuous city and the relation of all things to the causa prima. In this paper, I shall investigate several aspects of this: Firstly, I will show parallels of the
relations within the human body and those within the ideal city stemming from al-Farabi's naturalisation of hierarchy and the Platonic influence manifest therein. Thereafter I will argue what is not natural, in al-Farabi’s sense, about the ideal city and those that deviate from it. I
will at last focus on the ruler himself, and argue that his rule is 'unnatural' according to its foundation in reason but not at all artificial since that is the task assigned to him by al-Farabi.
In this paper, I examine Rabinow and Dreyfus' critique of Foucalt's archaeology. I argue that the... more In this paper, I examine Rabinow and Dreyfus' critique of Foucalt's archaeology. I argue that their stance on his archeological methodology is insightful, but overlooks that if archaeology is, as they hold, indeed 'but' a modern human science in the Foucaldian sense, then its doubling, an "archaeology of archaeology" must (be able to) exist, too. This however I argue not to be impossible. Thus I bring forward a different understanding of the archaeological enterprise: One of a fundamentally transgressive undertaking, accounting for its unique insights through, or in spite of, all its vaguenesses and epistemological precarities.
As a pre-study to "Foucault, Archaeology, Transgression" (and take-home exam) this paper explores... more As a pre-study to "Foucault, Archaeology, Transgression" (and take-home exam) this paper explores the notion of Heterotopia in Foucault's oevre. It analyses its function in the beginning of The Order of Things as well as a conceptual challenge and post-Dialectic rejuvenation of the notion of the utopia. As such, heterotopias are intimately linked to to the, to my mind at any rate, very important notion of Trangsression and its political implications as a Post-Marxist approach to societal change.
Together with Max Horkheimer, Adorno has written the infamous Dialectic of the Enlightenment in ... more Together with Max Horkheimer, Adorno has written the infamous Dialectic of the Enlightenment in which they radically critique the Enlightenment. As they argue, instrumental reason and reification have come to be the foundational phenomena of the whole of society in their time. Their books ends in an aporia; the only solution they propose is the vague notion of ‘reconciliation with nature’. This lack of remedy has been considered a problem by many, most famously by their disciple and successor Jürgen Habermas. The Invisible Committee, a French group of anarchist activists-theorists, shares a lot of Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis. Especially concerning the subject, an ubiquitousness of commodification and capitalistically informed thinking in general. However, they do believe to have found a way out. In this paper I will show that their Coming Insurrection is in line with Adorno and Horkheimer’s “resurrection of nature” and turns it into a promising recipe for revolution. To do this, I will discuss insights on political praxis by Adorno (and Horkheimer) from Resignation and Marginalia to Theory and Praxis and use them to scrutinise the Invisible Committee’s theory to show that an Adornian anarchism is possible.
Papers by Pascal Lemmer
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Oct 1, 2022
How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this ... more How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this debate, Wilson & Carston (2019) analyse Grice’s oft-discussed exclusion of metaphor as an empirically unjustified use of cut-off points on the empirical continuum of language and link it a tension between his underlying focus on formalisation contrary to their aim of maximising pragmatics’ empirical scope. In spite of the latter, Relevance Theory’s various own models fail to account for essential characteristics of metaphor caused by certain non-propositional effects eluding its grasp and subsequently excluded. Rather than solving this with new tools, as Wilson & Carston propose, this paper seeks to examine the aforementioned tension and its link to the use of cut-off points they criticised. I will argue that Relevance Theory, too, uses cut-off points, highlighting their nature as the effect of a shared approach vis-à-vis formalisation rather than an individual flaw of Grice’s: Both exclude certain empirical effects of language in pursuance of a unified theory of communication organised around the notion of intention and grounded in teleological assumptions external to language. Drawing on Derrida’s analogous critique of Austin’s pragmatics, I will illustrate the paradoxical nature of such cut-off points and possible ways forward.
![Research paper thumbnail of [Buchrezension] Wahnsinn und Gesellschaft von Michel Foucault (Routledge 2009)](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/102741931/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Berlin Exchange Medicine, Nov 22, 2022
Berlin Exchange Medicine, Nov 22, 2022
Philosophy Kitchen, 2022
How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this ... more How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious
issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this debate, Wilson &
Carston (2019) analyse Grice’s oft-discussed exclusion of
metaphor as an empirically unjustified use of cut-off points
on the empirical continuum of language and link it a
tension between his underlying focus on formalisation
contrary to their aim of maximising pragmatics’ empirical
scope. In spite of the latter, Relevance Theory’s various own
models fail to account for essential characteristics of
metaphor caused by certain non-propositional effects
eluding its grasp and subsequently excluded. Rather than
solving this with new tools, as Wilson & Carston propose,
this paper seeks to examine the aforementioned tension
and its link to the use of cut-off points they criticised. I will
argue that Relevance Theory, too, uses cut-off points,
highlighting their nature as the effect of a shared approach
vis-à-vis formalisation rather than an individual flaw of
Grice’s: Both exclude certain empirical effects of language
in pursuance of a unified theory of communication
organised around the notion of intention and grounded in
teleological assumptions external to language. Drawing on
Derrida’s analogous critique of Austin’s pragmatics, I will
illustrate the paradoxical nature of such cut-off points and
possible ways forward.
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most well-known German intellectuals to date and the face of the se... more Jürgen Habermas is one of the most well-known German intellectuals to date and the face of the second generation of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theoryy As suchh there is naturally a considerable body of his work that deals with the theories of his predecessorss In this paperr I would like to discuss Habermas' criticism of Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment as articulated by him in a essayy Habermas' re-reading of the Dialectic of Enlightenment evokes in him two major points of critiquee (I) The " underestimation of the rational content of cultural modernity " and (II) the paradoxical nature of what he calls a totalising critique " of (amongst others) reason in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and their " purism " regarding the solving of problems implied by this paradoxx I will scrutinise his critique and then take a critical look at the solution he brings forthh arguing that he himself is stuck in a paradoxx
Complete issues by Pascal Lemmer
Philosophy Kitchen. Rivista di filosofia contemporanea, 2022
From the moment the discursive practice of the philosopher emerged as a form of knowledge superio... more From the moment the discursive practice of the philosopher emerged as a form of knowledge superior to all others, metaphor was seen as a mere aid to be resorted to when theory does not work the way it is supposed to work. There has never been a shortage, however, of those who considered the concept dimension incapable of saturating the meaning, making it possible to eliminate the metaphorical. It would be during the course of the 20th century that philosophical discourse would overcome any prejudice against figurativeness, the iconic, the narrative, integrating them as an integral part of philosophical argumentation. In this issue, reference will be made to a few authors useful in illustrating the scenario just outlined in a paradigmatic manner.
Nur was uns anschaut, sehen wir. Diese von W. Benjamin aufgegriffene Weisheit für die Ästhetik gr... more Nur was uns anschaut, sehen wir. Diese von W. Benjamin aufgegriffene Weisheit für die Ästhetik greifbar zu machen, ist Ziel dieses Essays. Es handelt sich um eine Abhandlung über Ansätze zu einer Musikphilosophie bei Walter Benjamin (u.A. Besprechung der Berliner Kindheit, des Surrealismus-Aufsatzes und anderer Texte) an der Hand seiner Ästhetik, Sprachphilosophie und einer "Philosophie der Dinge", welche sich mit dem (Eigen-)Leben konkreteter materieller Objekte auseinandersetzt. So wird die These entwickelt, dass nur was uns zuhört, auch für uns hörbar ist. Diese Verwickelung des Hörens mit der (sozioökonomischen) Materialiteät des Lebens erlaubt es auch, nicht klassische Formen der Musik, wie bspw. die Neue Musik, zu verstehen und ästhetisch und politisch zu deuten.
When talking about Nancy and the world, many aspects come to mind: New technological configuratio... more When talking about Nancy and the world, many aspects come to mind: New technological configurations, new modes and/or limits of the political and the self, (thus) new struggles, the flatness of the world and many more. All of them relate, in one way or the other, to what I would like to recapitulate and interrogate in this essay: The difference between 'politics' (le politique) and 'the political' (la politique) and the underlying thoughts about the world and one's relation to it; which, ultimately, remains political (in the sense of la politique) in my view. For, as I would like to suggest, the death of God and political theology notwithstanding, being-in-common is being-political, albeit in a different way.
Al-Farabi’s Book of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City is a philosophical treat... more Al-Farabi’s Book of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City is a philosophical treatise that is, above all, concerned the nature of the First Cause, that from which all existing things derive their existence, as well as the ideal city and its ruler. Strikingly, there is a curious overlap in the language characterising the relations between the organs of the human body, the relations within the virtuous city and the relation of all things to the causa prima. In this paper, I shall investigate several aspects of this: Firstly, I will show parallels of the
relations within the human body and those within the ideal city stemming from al-Farabi's naturalisation of hierarchy and the Platonic influence manifest therein. Thereafter I will argue what is not natural, in al-Farabi’s sense, about the ideal city and those that deviate from it. I
will at last focus on the ruler himself, and argue that his rule is 'unnatural' according to its foundation in reason but not at all artificial since that is the task assigned to him by al-Farabi.
In this paper, I examine Rabinow and Dreyfus' critique of Foucalt's archaeology. I argue that the... more In this paper, I examine Rabinow and Dreyfus' critique of Foucalt's archaeology. I argue that their stance on his archeological methodology is insightful, but overlooks that if archaeology is, as they hold, indeed 'but' a modern human science in the Foucaldian sense, then its doubling, an "archaeology of archaeology" must (be able to) exist, too. This however I argue not to be impossible. Thus I bring forward a different understanding of the archaeological enterprise: One of a fundamentally transgressive undertaking, accounting for its unique insights through, or in spite of, all its vaguenesses and epistemological precarities.
As a pre-study to "Foucault, Archaeology, Transgression" (and take-home exam) this paper explores... more As a pre-study to "Foucault, Archaeology, Transgression" (and take-home exam) this paper explores the notion of Heterotopia in Foucault's oevre. It analyses its function in the beginning of The Order of Things as well as a conceptual challenge and post-Dialectic rejuvenation of the notion of the utopia. As such, heterotopias are intimately linked to to the, to my mind at any rate, very important notion of Trangsression and its political implications as a Post-Marxist approach to societal change.
Together with Max Horkheimer, Adorno has written the infamous Dialectic of the Enlightenment in ... more Together with Max Horkheimer, Adorno has written the infamous Dialectic of the Enlightenment in which they radically critique the Enlightenment. As they argue, instrumental reason and reification have come to be the foundational phenomena of the whole of society in their time. Their books ends in an aporia; the only solution they propose is the vague notion of ‘reconciliation with nature’. This lack of remedy has been considered a problem by many, most famously by their disciple and successor Jürgen Habermas. The Invisible Committee, a French group of anarchist activists-theorists, shares a lot of Adorno and Horkheimer’s analysis. Especially concerning the subject, an ubiquitousness of commodification and capitalistically informed thinking in general. However, they do believe to have found a way out. In this paper I will show that their Coming Insurrection is in line with Adorno and Horkheimer’s “resurrection of nature” and turns it into a promising recipe for revolution. To do this, I will discuss insights on political praxis by Adorno (and Horkheimer) from Resignation and Marginalia to Theory and Praxis and use them to scrutinise the Invisible Committee’s theory to show that an Adornian anarchism is possible.
DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), Oct 1, 2022
How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this ... more How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this debate, Wilson & Carston (2019) analyse Grice’s oft-discussed exclusion of metaphor as an empirically unjustified use of cut-off points on the empirical continuum of language and link it a tension between his underlying focus on formalisation contrary to their aim of maximising pragmatics’ empirical scope. In spite of the latter, Relevance Theory’s various own models fail to account for essential characteristics of metaphor caused by certain non-propositional effects eluding its grasp and subsequently excluded. Rather than solving this with new tools, as Wilson & Carston propose, this paper seeks to examine the aforementioned tension and its link to the use of cut-off points they criticised. I will argue that Relevance Theory, too, uses cut-off points, highlighting their nature as the effect of a shared approach vis-à-vis formalisation rather than an individual flaw of Grice’s: Both exclude certain empirical effects of language in pursuance of a unified theory of communication organised around the notion of intention and grounded in teleological assumptions external to language. Drawing on Derrida’s analogous critique of Austin’s pragmatics, I will illustrate the paradoxical nature of such cut-off points and possible ways forward.
Berlin Exchange Medicine, Nov 22, 2022
Berlin Exchange Medicine, Nov 22, 2022
Philosophy Kitchen, 2022
How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this ... more How to account for metaphor has long been a contentious
issue within pragmatics. Revisiting this debate, Wilson &
Carston (2019) analyse Grice’s oft-discussed exclusion of
metaphor as an empirically unjustified use of cut-off points
on the empirical continuum of language and link it a
tension between his underlying focus on formalisation
contrary to their aim of maximising pragmatics’ empirical
scope. In spite of the latter, Relevance Theory’s various own
models fail to account for essential characteristics of
metaphor caused by certain non-propositional effects
eluding its grasp and subsequently excluded. Rather than
solving this with new tools, as Wilson & Carston propose,
this paper seeks to examine the aforementioned tension
and its link to the use of cut-off points they criticised. I will
argue that Relevance Theory, too, uses cut-off points,
highlighting their nature as the effect of a shared approach
vis-à-vis formalisation rather than an individual flaw of
Grice’s: Both exclude certain empirical effects of language
in pursuance of a unified theory of communication
organised around the notion of intention and grounded in
teleological assumptions external to language. Drawing on
Derrida’s analogous critique of Austin’s pragmatics, I will
illustrate the paradoxical nature of such cut-off points and
possible ways forward.
Jürgen Habermas is one of the most well-known German intellectuals to date and the face of the se... more Jürgen Habermas is one of the most well-known German intellectuals to date and the face of the second generation of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theoryy As suchh there is naturally a considerable body of his work that deals with the theories of his predecessorss In this paperr I would like to discuss Habermas' criticism of Adorno and Horkheimer's Dialectic of Enlightenment as articulated by him in a essayy Habermas' re-reading of the Dialectic of Enlightenment evokes in him two major points of critiquee (I) The " underestimation of the rational content of cultural modernity " and (II) the paradoxical nature of what he calls a totalising critique " of (amongst others) reason in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and their " purism " regarding the solving of problems implied by this paradoxx I will scrutinise his critique and then take a critical look at the solution he brings forthh arguing that he himself is stuck in a paradoxx
Philosophy Kitchen. Rivista di filosofia contemporanea, 2022
From the moment the discursive practice of the philosopher emerged as a form of knowledge superio... more From the moment the discursive practice of the philosopher emerged as a form of knowledge superior to all others, metaphor was seen as a mere aid to be resorted to when theory does not work the way it is supposed to work. There has never been a shortage, however, of those who considered the concept dimension incapable of saturating the meaning, making it possible to eliminate the metaphorical. It would be during the course of the 20th century that philosophical discourse would overcome any prejudice against figurativeness, the iconic, the narrative, integrating them as an integral part of philosophical argumentation. In this issue, reference will be made to a few authors useful in illustrating the scenario just outlined in a paradigmatic manner.