ArgumentDuring the 1860s Ernst Haeckel, German zoologist and one of the foremost popularizers of Darwinism, proposed a natural philosophy called “Monism.” Based on developmental thinking, natural selection, and sound natural laws, the scientific Weltanschauung of Monism was to supersede Christian religion in all its accounts of nature. Haeckel's new scientific religion, this essay argues, fused the religious joys of reveling in the beauty of “mother nature” with the assurance of progress based on scientific certainty. Even though Haeckel and his followers polemicized against dualistic and teleological interpretations of nature, and despite their fierce struggle against the Christian churches, Monism cannot conceal its roots. All central arguments of natural theology reappear – albeit sometimes in causal or reductionist phrasing. Haeckel's aesthetics of nature in particular shows his indebtedness to the concept of a divine economy of nature. His Monism is an evolutionary and pantheistic natural theology.
The article delineates the program of a praxeology of truth that allows for studying the dynamics and variability of truth in the sense of situated doing truth. It proposes a heuristic differentiation between »truth scenes« and »truth figures« that helps to analyze the emergence of theories of truth as well as that of specific truth cultures.
Our truth culture has changed. Yet we are not living in a post-truth era but in a truth era – an observation of the ongoing debates shows a proliferation of invocations of truth. This paper argues that in order to grasp this transition, we should not refer to classical truth theories or common oppositions such as knowledge and belief, objectivity and subjectivity. Instead, we should focus on concrete practices in concrete situations: on “doing truth.” This paper introduces the concept of a “praxeology of truth,” which sets out to analyse truth by means of two parameters: “truth scenes” and “truth figures.” In suggesting that to ask about truth is to pose the question of power, it follows Michel Foucault, but it regards the invocation of truth as a technique of identity politics and truth as a social operator.
"Bernhard Kleeberg/Andreas Langenohl: »Culturalisation, deculturalisation«
This article discusses variations in the analytic category of »culture« which has recently become prominent, with respect to ideal-typical idiomologies of deculturalisation as well as culturalisation. They are examined against the background of the systematic differentiations that are formulated in the renewed epistemic perspective of constructivism, deconstructivism and essentialism."
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