ABSTRACT:

The research project seeks to establish a basis for a philosophical concept of >performance< and >performativity< in (1) the philosophy of language and (2) the philosophy of culture

(1) Philosophy of language (Sibylle Krämer)

Our aim is to offer a new perspective on the relationship between linguistic competence and performance: performance should no longer be regarded as a - distorted and deficient - realization of competence, but as a productive force that constitutes form and structures. The research work concentrates on two problems:

(a) The new evaluation of linguistic performance presupposes a relativization of the two-worlds-model of language. This model differentiates between a universal, time indifferent system of language and its actualization in temporally and spatially situated speaking, and starts with the presumption of a logical-genealogical primacy of 'language' before speech. While theorists like Sassure, Chomsky, Searle and Habermas are - each in their own way - proponents of this two-worlds-model, theorists such as Wittgenstein, Austin, Luhmann, Davidson, Lacan, Derrida, Butler and Bourdieu belong to the opponents.
Asking the crucial question: 'Is there >language< behind speech?' a new map of theoretical positions on language in the twentieth century can be drawn. This is the subject of a new book by Sybille Krämer, to be published in spring 2001 by Suhrkamp Frankfurt/M, Sprache, Sprechakt,
Kommunikation. Sprachtheoretische Positionen im 20. Jahrhundert. ("Language, Speech-act, Communication. Theoretical Positions on Language in the Twentieth Century" )

(b) A rehabilitation of Austin's thoughts about the performative presupposes the distinction between two voices in Austin's text: between what Austin - constatively - says and what his text - performatively - shows by how he says it. The 'what' and the 'how' , the assertive and the rhetorical stand in a tense relationship to one another in Austin's texts - they do not do not mutually confirm one another but rather end in a sublime calling into question. Called into question is the attempt undertaken by traditional philosophy of language to definitively sort out and organize the phenomena of our speech with the means of disjunctive concepts. There is a manuscript on this subject with the working title Was tut Austin, indem er über das Performativ spricht. Zu einem vernachlässigten Aspekt in Austins Sprachphilosophie ('What does Austin do by talking about the performative. On a neglected aspect of Austin's philosophy of language' )


2. Philosophy of Culture (Marco Stahlhut)

Theorists motivated by an interest in the philosophy of culture in a broad sense, such as Judith Butler and Slavoj Zizek, use the expression 'performative' mainly to underline either the social, linguistic or the general cultural constitution of certain phenomena - in opposition to an ontological, biological or other forms of understanding of given actuality -, and so they draw our attention to the theatrical character of certain non-artistic phenomena of everyday life. Both aspects, although more evidently the first, could be related to Austin's early comments on performative utterances.

a) The replacement of the distinction between constative and performative utterances with the theory of illocutionary forces of speech-acts, as chiefly worked out (after Austin) by Searle, cannot be reduced to a simple progress in the philosophy of language: it also meant the loss of a fundamental insight into the ritual character of speaking. Here Austin's early reflections on performative utterances can be related to the reflections on performativity and power by theorists such as Judith Butler and Pierre Bourdieu. It can be shown, however, that the repression of the social conditions of performative utterances by the dominant reception of Austin repeated itself in the development of the theory of performative gender acts by Butler. A limitation of the task of philosophy in thinking about 'the performative' comes into focus at this point: philosophy is - strictly speaking - neither competent for the social dimension of the conditions of performative utterances nor the cultural constitution of identity.

b) This limitation makes it at the same time possible to focus on a new task: to take the renaissance of the theatrical and ludic metaphoric for characterising certain areas and aspects of human life, as is currently happening in present discussions around performativity, as an occasion for reflecting back on the philosophical tradition. Here we are concerned with an understanding of man as "a player, an actor of himself" (Helmuth Plessner).


| oben | Projektliste | Homepage | SUCHEN | Stand: 12/02