Research

Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Schloßberger
Departmental assignment: History of Philosophy
Funding: since 2022
Project ID: German Research Foundation (DFG) - Project number 469960485
To the project homepage: http://konschel.org/

Description
The current boom in Scheler's philosophy is driven by a reassessment of his fundamental contributions to the theory of intersubjectivity, the philosophy of emotions and the theory of values. However, many new interpretations do not see Scheler as an isolated thinker, but rather as an author of early phenomenology, whose thought movements can only be understood from constellations. The applicants share this perspective, but are of the opinion that the eminent French influence on Scheler must also be taken into account in these constellations. Scheler was in contact with many French authors, but not only absorbed a great deal, he also had a remarkable impact in France, which was essential for the establishment of phenomenology in France. How did Scheler's impact in France come about? Perhaps only a combination of various factors can explain this effect. In addition, the attraction of the public intellectual Scheler, who impressed with his brilliant diagnoses of the times, must be taken into account when explaining how phenomenology came to France. The aim of the project is to link current research on the development of Scheler's thought and its reception, which is particularly strong in Germany and France, even more closely in order to understand Scheler's Franco-German constellations.The basic thesis of constellation research is the assumption that thought can only be understood in its relationship to others. For our context, this means (1) a study of Scheler's immediate environment, which can be reconstructed by including letters, lectures and talks and the specific, very different milieus of the journals in which Scheler published. (2) Many important traces for constellation research can be found in unpublished materials from the estate. The approach of constellation research therefore makes it necessary to combine the content-related questions of our philosophical-historical project with editorial projects. (3) Constellation research aims to reconstruct not only the author of a text in his environment, but also his thought movements in his environment. (4) The development of movements of thought can be reconstructed particularly well on the basis of the development of texts that have been repeatedly supplemented and reworked. The historical-critical edition of texts is therefore a prerequisite for the possibility of comprehensive constellation research. Our systematic, philosophical-historical project is therefore to be combined with the creation of a digital database. This could also represent a way out of the frequently described desolate textual situation of Scheler's Collected Works. The material is to be prepared on a website in such a way that it is freely accessible (open access).

DFG procedure: Grants in kind
International reference: France, Russian Federation
Partner organization: Agence Nationale de la Recherche / The French National Research Agency
Co-responsibles: Professor Dr. Gerald Hartung; Dr. Christian Sternad; Professor Dr. Ingrid Vendrell Ferran
Cooperation partners: Professor Dr. Olivier Agard; Professor Dr. Mikhail Khorkov

Natur, Mensch und Natur des Menschen: Eine anthropologische Perspektive auf die Naturvorstellungen der antiken griechischen und modernen europäischen Philosophie.

The doctoral project deals with the emergence and development of the concept of nature in ancient Greek and modern European philosophy. The aim of the project is to develop a critical perspective on the ecological and philosophical debates of the present day. In the background are the problematic dichotomies such as "naturalness - artificiality", "nature - culture" and the general problem of anthropocentrism in philosophy.

Charakterologische Standpunkte - Ein problemgeschichtlicher Beitrag

Both the somewhat antiquated talk of a person's character and the modern talk of their personality present us with epistemological and ontological problems. What is it actually and how can we make (meaningful) statements about it? The project addresses these problems by engaging with four authors from the environment of the Jahrbuch für Charakterologie and the phänomenological movement who could hardly be more different: 
Ludwig Klages, Alexander Pfänder, Emil Utitz and Else Voigtländer. It is intended as a contribution to one of the central problems of the philosophy of psychology as well as to the history of phenomenology.

Über Gegensätzlichkeit: Eine sprachphilosophische, phänomenologische und sozialphilosophische Untersuchung

Day~night, big~small, black~white, body~mind, woman~man are all pairs of words with which we organize and understand the world and reality in one way or another. It is precisely the impression of a certain oppositeness that seems to lend the pairs a fundamental, essential character. What is this contrariness that these otherwise so different pairs seem to have in common, what is the source of their immediate persuasive power in ordering and understanding the world and reality?

In the context of my PhD, I will, on the one hand, deal with existing theoretical approaches to opposites and oppositeness. On the other hand, I would like to develop my own perspective on oppositeness as a linguistic-bodily anchored and culturally shaped phenomenon. In particular, I want to contribute to the critique and transformation of certain established but possibly unnecessary dualisms such as woman~man, nature~culture, body~mind.

Komposition als Kritik und terrestrisches Paradigma