Panagiotis Kondylis Answers to 28 Questions
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Panagiotis Kondylis Answers to 28 questions [Translated by C.F.. Questions 1-10 from the German »Skeptische Wahrheitssuche gegen normative Entscheidung. Interview mit Fragen von Marin Terpstra« ["The sceptical search for truth against the normative decision. Interview with questions by Marin Terpstra"] in Kondylis, P. Machtfragen. Ausgewählte Beiträge zu Politik und Gesellschaft, Darmstadt: WBG, 2006, pp. 157-172. (First published as »Nur Intellektuelle behaupten, daß Intellektuelle die Welt besser verstehen als alle anderen« ["Only intellectuals assert that intellectuals understand the world better than all others"] in: "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie", Berlin 42 (1994) 4, pp. 683-694. The Greek book, Κονδύλης, Π. Το αόρατο χρονολόγιο της σκέψης. Απαντήσεις σε 28 ερωτήματα, Αθήνα: Νεφέλη, 1998 [The invisible chronology of thought. Answers to 28 questions], was used as a secondary text for the translation of Questions 1-10, and as the primary and sole text for Questions 11-28. © all rights reserved 2014. This translation should not be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the express written permission of its author C.F. contactable through the following email address: [email protected] All footnotes are by the translator and have nothing to do with Kondylis himself.] CONTENTS Answers to ten questions by Marin Terpstra ......................................... 2 Answers to eight questions by Spyros Tsaknias ................................... 27 Answers to ten questions by Spyros Koutroulis ................................... 65 1 Questions 1-10 by Marin Terpstra 1. Q: Mr. Kondylis, you are, first of all, the author of some extensive studies on several important aspects of the occidental history of ideas and of occidental thought. You have written about philosophers and their reflections and were the editor of two anthologies with texts by philosophers. However, you have also written a systematic work which presents your basic philosophical positions (theories or views). In addition, especially in recent years, you have also had a say in political debates. How would you rather describe yourself: as a historian, as a philosopher or as a political thinker? And if you can for instance identify yourself with every one of these three types, how do you then get over or cope with the inevitable fields of tension (or areas of conflict) between these disciplines? A: How one describes oneself or how one can be described (by others), is of secondary importance and often accidental (incidental). The first thing of interest should be what one says and whether one has anything to say at all. In my scientific activity I am an observer of human affairs (things), an analyst of human behaviour in concrete situations. Now, I do not want to comprehend and present human behaviour from the point of view of "philosophy", of "politics", of "sociology" or of "history", but precisely the other way around: my intention revolves around making obvious the 2 unity of human behaviour's basic structures and the inner logic of its unfolding in the sectors of philosophical, political, social and historical practice. Humans behave no differently, when they for instance busy themselves with philosophy, than when they are politically or socially active. (What do they actually do?) They namely take a position which agrees with the positions of some people and at the same time turns against other positions; there is of course no reason to set a position in the world (i.e. to adopt or first formulate a position) if one does not hold certain other positions to be false or harmful. From this it is evident why the dream or power claim of (most) philosophers, which thinks that "philosophy" could as a privileged activity sui generis show the rest of the world the road to harmony, is never going to be fulfilled. The structure of philosophical practice (action) catches up with (or outflanks) the ambitions of those acting philosophically (i.e. as philosophers). In spite of assurances of those who strive for a monopoly on interpretation and raise their voice in the name of "philosophy", there has hitherto never been a unified philosophy; already because of that there is no question of the realisation of "philosophy" - and something like that is even less so to be expected, the more philosophical theories appear as normative commands. The same fate must befall political or social theories which let themselves be led by normative perceptions and wishes. If one, on the contrary, breaks away from normative perceptions and wishes, and ascertains the unity of human behaviour in the above sense, then one can use a uniform conceptuality (terminology) and break open the boundaries between the disciplines (sciences) while looking at the these disciplines, as it were, from the outside. That ought not mean that the same technical terms are to be used irrespective of which particular sector is dealt with on each and every respective occasion. It is also not 3 allowed to mix everything with everything at will and as one likes; postmodern mash may be easy to digest, however it does not offer solid nourishment. During the description of each and every respective behaviour, in order to speak with Max Weber, the subjectively meant sense (meaning) (i.e. the meaning connected with the said behaviour by the corresponding subject) is sought and explained - and exactly this sense (meaning) is articulated in concepts, above all when it is a matter of action in theoretical form. We are therefore moving here simultaneously at two levels, something which however does not have to be a vicious circle. Which concepts should now be used at the descriptive meta-level? That is for me a purely technical question of expediency. I think very little of terminological Chinese (i.e. of complicated terms which cannot be understood); however on the other hand, precisely if someone puts several disciplines under the microscope, and works in every discipline's particular sector, he is obliged in relation to them to know all about every sector's specific vocabulary; the logistics of the modern conduct of war cannot be described with the (conceptual) instruments of Hegelian "Logic", despite its universal claim. The central concepts of the descriptive meta-level, which I have explicated in "Power and Decision"1, are as a rule such that they are more or less common to all "sciences humaines2" and luckily their contact with living language (speech or linguistic) usage has not been lost. Their descriptive sense (meaning) 1 E.g. power, decision, self-preservation, world image, world-theoretical (world theory or world view), values, intellect(-spirit), drives, wanting, action, thought (thinking), understanding, rationality, logic, relations, society, culture, identity, individual, group, friend, foe, struggle, meaning, objectification, norms, social disciplining, reality, Is, Ought, Being, Appearance, ideology, From Here (i.e. This World or Life), From There (i.e. That World or Life), interpretation, symbol, language, polemics, taste, description, etc.. 2 I.e. social science. 4 must of course be specially explained, particularly as, because of their prehistory, they are normatively-ethically charged. A final remark: whoever perceives theories as forms of behaviour, may (i.e. is entitled to) lose sight of the artificial-fictive character of concepts and thought constructs far less than others. One can shrug off this artificial-fictive character of concepts and thought constructs just as little as one can jump over one's own shadow. Only the always vigilant consciousness of this fictiveness creates a remedy for this difficulty or need, that is, the strict distinguishing, and as vivid as possible contradistinction, between the level of representation (or analysis) and the level of real processes. For that, there are of course no prescriptions and no methodological instructions, irrespective of individual quality, i.e. the education, the capacity for empathy (or insight) and the wealth of associations of the researcher, which could be applied and become common property. The yardstick for success remains the end result. And the result is measured for its part in answer to the question: How many and, to what extent important, empirical phenomena, how much living history have I made in this way more understandable? The question may today sound naive to the exceedingly refined ears of (contemporary) epistemologists and methodologists, however I would like to keep my formulations of a question so naive and elementary. 2. Q: Your more historical main works deal with several major phenomena of thought in its history: the coming into being of dialectics, the phenomenon of the Enlightenment and of conservatism, and the 5 development of the critique of metaphysics over the centuries. What prompted you to investigate especially these phenomena? Is an interrelation between them discernable? A: My historical works contain a theory of the European New Times. They constitute on each and every respective occasion analyses of the basic aspects in the history of ideas and the political-social aspects of this astonishing development, which flows into our planetary history of today. In my works (i.e. treatises) on the decline of the bourgeois thought form and life form (i.e. of bourgeois culture) and on planetary politics after the collapse of communism, I went into greater detail in respect of the social- historical references or connections of my previous analyses regarding the history of ideas, and I have indicated the reasons which allow us to conclude that the European New Times as a historical epoch with specific features (or characteristics) is at an end, although our firmly rooted thought (or intellectual) habits do not want to admit this. But that is a chapter in itself, i.e. a separate matter. For an answer to your question, I want to (still) mention that in these historical works it is not least a matter of providing tangible evidence of the hermeneutic fertility (or fecundity) of my general consideration of human affairs (things).