Normative orders

The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Thursday, 13 March 2025, 19:00
Venue: Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg

Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften der Goethe-Universität
Lecture

The Cyrus Cylinder contains a decree issued by Cyrus the Great following his conquest of Babylon in the early fall of 539 BCE. From a literary perspective, this inscription falls within the category of royal commemorative inscriptions. Historiographically, such inscriptions often present a one-sided account of history, marked by exaggeration and a strong emphasis on official ideology rather than objective historical facts.
This presentation explores a fundamental question: Were the measures described in the Cyrus Cylinder merely royal propaganda, or did they reflect a genuine governance policy? Furthermore, it examines whether contemporary or near-contemporary sources provide evidence for the actual implementation of these measures.
The discussion begins with an analysis of the Cylinder’s content and the governance policies attributed to Cyrus. It then investigates his religious policies by drawing on cuneiform records, Hebrew biblical accounts, and Greek historical narratives. Ultimately, this study seeks to determine whether Cyrus’s claims—such as his peaceful entry into Babylon and his support for existing religious traditions—are substantiated by contemporary sources or whether they primarily served as part of Achaemenid ideological discourse.
About the speaker
Hossein Badamchi is an Associate Professor of Ancient Near Eastern History at the University of Tehran. After studying law and history in Iran, he received a scholarship to pursue Assyriology and cuneiform law at Johns Hopkins University. From 2017 to 2019, he was a guest of Guido Pfeifer at the Institute of Legal History at Goehte University with a Humboldt Research

While the categories of control and resistance have provided important frames of reference to understand workplace relations, we argue that they offer a limited analytical range when investigating conduct in public institutions where work still has sizeable elements of discretion – despite the increasing demands of performance measurement that have been a central component of new public management. Here, we investigate the HBO series, The Wire, and situate it as a piece of social science fiction. By affording more attention to the different ‘codes’ of policework depicted on the show we develop a more pluralistic understanding of workplace conduct. In tracing out different normative orders that characterize these codes, we consider The Wire’s Cedric Daniels’ distinctive positioning in relation to performance measurement and the predominant normative order of ‘the numbers game’ and argue that he consistently displays the code of an ethical bureaucrat.

Essa dissertação investiga sistematicamente a teoria do poder de Rainer Forst: a teoria do poder inteligível. De acordo com Forst, o fenômeno do poder é essencialmente cognitivo e seu meio apropriado de exercício consiste em um espaço de razões intersubjetivamente compartilhado. Em sua forma geral, é um fenômeno normativamente neutro; os critérios que distinguem a governança democrática do mando arbitrário não estão contidos no próprio conceito de poder. O exercício do poder consiste em dar razões a um ou mais sujeitos para que ajam ou pensem alternativamente; tal operação é estritamente inteligível, isto é, não possui propriedades materiais e existe apenas em pensamento. A governança democrática é a expressão do mando político justificado, ou seja, do governo de coletividades sob o império de estruturas básicas de justificação; a dominação política, por seu turno, viceja na ausência de estruturas sociais capazes de dotar cada indivíduo de capital inteligível adequado ao exercício de seu direito básico a justificação. Comandar tal capital significa ser capaz de demandar justificação razoável, ou seja, em termos recíprocos e universais, acerca da ordem normativa sob o jugo da qual se vive e, com efeito, fazer valer a autoridade normativa de razões não-rejeitáveis em termos recíprocos e universais como fundamento das normas e das ações que lhe dizem respeito. O direito a justificação corresponde a um princípio de razão prática de acordo com o qual toda norma ou ação deve ser justificável face a todos aqueles a quem diz respeito.

O conceito de justiça pensado em termos de justificação de normas tem se credenciado desde o início da década de 90 (Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit, 1994) como sendo um componente teórico central para a teoria crítica da sociedade. Isso implica a tese que emancipação requer justificação. Indivíduos emancipados conferem uns aos outros o direito fundamental à justificação, isto é, o direito básico a reivindicar razões e a dar razões legítimas diante de normas e ações presumivelmente executáveis ou já executadas; sociedades emancipadas e democraticamente consolidadas estruturam suas instituições básicas mediante a justificação pública de suas normas e práticas. Sem isso, indivíduos, sociedades e relações sociais no seu todo recaem na arbitrariedade, na violência e, ipso facto, instituem padrões injustos. Destarte, para Forst o problema central e primevo da justiça não é a alocação de bens (justiça redistributiva) ou o reconhecimento, mas antes de tudo o modo como justificamos nossas normas e relações de justificação.

Resumo O ensaio apresenta e correlaciona as perspectivas teóricas de Niklas Luhmann e Ludwing Wittgenstein a respeito dos conceitos de sistemas de comunicação e jogos de linguagem, enfrentando as principais diferenças e semelhanças que possam ser encontradas nos trabalhos desenvolvidos por estes dois pensadores modernos. Pela estreita via de um ensaio, o estudo se limitará à revisitação bibliográfica, sem a pretensão de seu esgotamento, buscando, contudo, clarear a forte intuição de que há entre os dois pensadores uma implicação recíproca, uma vez que os jogos de linguagem de Wittgenstein remetem a uma necessária teoria da diferenciação, enquanto que a teoria dos sistemas de Luhmann implica no surgimento de uma gramática própria aos sistemas funcionais. Palavras-chave: Niklas Luhmann. Wittgenstein. Filosofia do Sujeito. Teoria dos Sistemas.

While the categories of control and resistance have provided important frames of reference to understand workplace relations, we argue that they offer a limited analytical range when investigating conduct in public institutions where work still has sizeable elements of discretion – despite the increasing demands of performance measurement that have been a central component of new public management. Here, we investigate the HBO series, The Wire, and situate it as a piece of social science fiction. By affording more attention to the different ‘codes’ of policework depicted on the show we develop a more pluralistic understanding of workplace conduct. In tracing out different normative orders that characterize these codes, we consider The Wire’s Cedric Daniels’ distinctive positioning in relation to performance measurement and the predominant normative order of ‘the numbers game’ and argue that he consistently displays the code of an ethical bureaucrat.

In this two-part essay, I share some of my research experience in the Lisbon archives. The contrast between the city's symbols, monuments, and urban arrangements generated a conceptual reflection for me: To work in the archives in Lisbon is also to contemplate the city as an archive itself.

In this two-part essay, I share some of my research experience in the Lisbon archives. The contrast between the city's symbols, monuments, and urban arrangements generated a conceptual reflection for me: To work in the archives in Lisbon is also to contemplate the city as an archive itself.

O conceito de justiça pensado em termos de justificação de normas tem se credenciado desde o início da década de 90 (Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit, 1994) como sendo um componente teórico central para a teoria crítica da sociedade. Isso implica a tese que emancipação requer justificação. Indivíduos emancipados conferem uns aos outros o direito fundamental à justificação, isto é, o direito básico a reivindicar
razões e a dar razões legítimas diante de normas e ações presumivelmente executáveis ou já executadas; sociedades emancipadas e democraticamente consolidadas estruturam suas instituições básicas mediante a justificação pública de suas normas e práticas. Sem isso, indivíduos, sociedades e relações sociais no
seu todo recaem na arbitrariedade, na violência e, ipso facto, instituem padrões injustos. Destarte, para Forst o problema central e primevo da justiça não é a alocação de bens (justiça redistributiva) ou o reconhecimento, mas antes de tudo o modo como
justificamos nossas normas e relações de justificação.

In these considerations we elaborate on the distinction of normative and non-normative by an analysis of the early liberal theories of civil society developed in Scottish Enlightenment. This notion of society results from a separation from the state and a depoliticization of society: The functioning of society is no longer exclusively thought of in terms of juridical norms, but as following its own (quasinatural) laws. Surely, this does not mean that civil society has no relation to legal norms and to the individual rights guaranteed by these norms. Rather, the idea is that in its existence civil society does not depend on the law but on its own laws and rules – which are, at a closer look, the laws of the economy. These laws form a non-normative order within normativity, insofar as they are understood as being natural and historical at the same time. It is this notion of a natural production of history or of history as productive nature, respectively, which we conceive of in the following with the concept of a non-normative order. For an analysis of this view on order and of the specific modern tension between state and society we consider a specific term of life – meaning self-production and selftranscendence – as crucial. In a concluding remark, we leave the selfdescription of liberalism and argue for a critical revision of the distinction between state and society – and thus of the specific distinction between normative and non-normative orders which lies behind it.

Kaum ein Thema löst derzeit in der gesellschaftlichen Debatte mehr Erwartungen, Hoffnungen und zugleich Ängste und Unsicherheit aus als das der Künstlichen Intelligenz. Die Erwartung eines wirtschaftlichen Aufschwungs, die Versprechen objektiverer und damit gerechterer Entscheidungen und die Hoffnung, dass der Mensch entlastet von lästigen Routineaufgaben kreativer und selbstbestimmter arbeiten kann, stehen der Furcht vor Arbeitsplatzverlust, staatlicher Überwachung und Fremdbestimmung durch den Einsatz Künstlicher Intelligenz gegenüber.
Im Fokus der Bad Homburg Conference 2019 stehen daher Themenfelder, in denen diese Erwartungen und Befürchtungen besonders deutlich aufeinandertreffen, weil sie Grundbedürfnisse des Menschen ansprechen: Gesundheit, Sicherheit, Geld – Bereiche, in denen Künstliche Intelligenz heute bereits angewandt und in naher Zukunft noch intensiver genutzt werden wird. Diese Themen werden aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln, aus Sicht der Technik- und Humanwissenschaften sowie der Praxis, diskutiert. Welchen Einfluss nehmen Algorithmen heute schon auf Entscheidungen, wie wird dies in Zukunft aussehen und wie kann und muss der gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozess durch die Entwicklung von Künstlicher Intelligenz gestaltet und gesteuert werden, damit wir eine gute Zukunft haben?

In this chapter, I focus on one specific normative order, namely the one proposed by Kant in his critical philosophy and further developed by contemporary Kantian thinkers. This conception of a normative order is in many ways the origin of the conception of normative orders proposed by Forst and Günther. Their conception of the process of justification is closely connected to the Kantian notion of critique, which empowers every participant in a process to question its legitimacy by means of critique. This critique consists in the constant possibility of questioning given and proposed norms. As this essay shows, Kant uses this approach in both theoretical and practical philosophy. He thus defines critique as the search for a lawful justification of any activity, including scientific pursuits, logical thought and the interaction with others. Kant’s central idea is that any rational agent may challenge any claim with the question quid juris? (what is the law?) and this question builds the very heart of a Kantian normative order and its formation. For Kant, this order encompasses all areas of human thought and all rational activity.

Formas de neoliberalismo: la transformación de la idea de economía y la nueva relación entre política, Estado y sociedad En el presente documento se expondrán los primeros avances del proyecto de tesis titulado "La crítica de la economía política y la política económica en las sociedades neoliberales". En esta exploración inicial se ha intentado revisar en distintos textos de economía política y política económica las raíces del pensamiento neoliberal. Es conocido que el neoliberalismo se ha asentado en las sociedades contemporáneas a través de un conjunto de reformas institucionales.

The concept parallax refers to the apparent displacement in the position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight. Yet, more precisely, it includes the assumption to understand the observable change not simply as a subjective change of focus on the part of the subject, but also as a change of the object (characterized by an internal antagonism) on the level of its ontological status. In this case, a shift in the epistemic standpoint of the subject implies an ontological change in the object as well.
Parallax can be detected in Kant's antinomies, as well as in the incommensurability of various debates between eliminative scientistic and historically dialectical materialists, and it can be identified in the struggles for the sovereignty of a scientific worldview over, for example, life forms of religions. At the conference, internationally outstanding philosophers devote themselves to the concept of parallax within German Idealism and contemporary ontology in order to present it as an illuminating figure of thought and explanation, especially in theoretical philosophy.
As multifaceted as this figure of thought is, it contradicts both a naive epistemological realism, widespread in the academic world of today, and an eliminative scientism, namely in rejecting the belief in one basic structure of reality in which subject and object can harmoniously be put to rest. Parallax stands in opposition to this belief.

Key Lecture: Slavoj Žižek

Time: Nov. 30 (9 am) - Dec. 1 (2 pm), 2018
Location: Munich School of Philosophy

Über die als „Rechtssoziologie“ bekannt gewordenen Werkstücke von „Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft“ ist bereits vieles gesagt und geschrieben worden. Die mittlerweile vorliegende Edition der Texte im Rahmen der historisch-kritischen Gesamtausgabe sowie die in der Editionsarbeit gewonnenen Einsichten in den Entstehungsprozess, die innere Logik und den Ort dieses „Collagenwerkes“ geben jedoch Anlass, sowohl etablierte Deutungen zu hinterfragen als auch neue Interpretationen dieser vielschichtigen Texte zur Debatte zu stellen. So lassen sich in diesen Texten bereits Ansätze eines Pluralismus normativer Ordnungen finden, und auch die kulturelle Dimension als Differenz der Rechtsordnungen wird von Weber in einer Weise betont, die noch für Betrachtungen von Gegenwartsgesellschaften und ihrer Identitätsbilder bedeutsam scheint. Dieser Band versammelt Beiträge, die vor diesem Hintergrund und in der erneuten Auseinandersetzung mit Webers Schriften zum Recht entstanden sind.

O ensaio apresenta e correlaciona as perspectivas teóricas de Niklas Luhmann e Ludwing Wittgenstein a respeito dos conceitos de sistemas de comunicação e jogos de linguagem, enfrentando as principais diferenças e semelhanças que possam ser encontradas nos trabalhos desenvolvidos por estes dois pensadores modernos. Pela estreita via de um ensaio, o estudo se limitará à revisitação bibliográfica, sem a pretensão de seu esgotamento, buscando, contudo, clarear a forte intuição de que há entre os dois pensadores uma implicação recíproca, uma vez que os jogos de linguagem de Wittgenstein remetem a uma necessária teoria da diferenciação, enquanto que a teoria dos sistemas de Luhmann implica no surgimento de uma gramática própria aos sistemas funcionais.

O artigo apresenta as principais teses que embasam o projeto Normative
Orders, grupo de pesquisa de excelência vinculado à Universidade Johann
Wolfgang Goethe, em Frankfurt, e coordenado por Rainer Forst e Klaus
Günther. A formação de ordens normativas, sua relação com demandas por justificação e com as narrativas dos participantes são questões que constituem o fio condutor do projeto.

This UNUP-project analyzes the transformation of political geography through the case study of Catalonia. Catalonia was a periphery of the Carolingian Empire, which in the tenth century became an important political and cultural centre. This is a particular interesting case study for post-Carolingian transformations of European geography because it was a multi-faceted region of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, social, religious and political variety, which brokered relations between the Mediterranean and Western European spheres. Catalonia thus provides the possibility to assess the quality of European culture from a peripheral perspective. Recent scholarship has begun to interpret Catalonia within a wider Carolingian/post-Carolingian environment, but this UNUP-project provides an opportunity to place it in an even broader context and to enable comparisons with other regions of Europe across the tenth century. The question of how 'Carolingian' and 'European' culture impinged on the reorganization of the post-Carolingian Empire has never been seriously addressed with regard to North-Eastern Iberia.

No weakening, but rather an expansion, of statehood can be observed in the contemporary world. This does not, on the other hand, imply that extensive forms of constitutional ordering do not exist outside the realm of states. Instead, the evolution of world society has been characterized by a protracted dual movement where the expansion and densification of statehood and autonomous forms of transnational ordering gradually emerged in a mutually constitutive fashion. One implication of this is that neither the concept of the state nor the concept of nonstate transnational entities is adequately capable of delineating the object of constitutional analysis. Instead, the concept of normative orders has been introduced as an overarching category capable of identifying the contexts within which constitutional ordering emerges.
Subsequently, a distinction between the internal and external dimensions of the law of normative orders has been introduced, specifying them as respectively oriented towards establishing internal condensation of a given normative order and external compatibility between different normative orders. With this background, a framework for the analysis of constitutional frameworks of normative orders is developed. The central element is a distinction among three dimensions: First, a constitution implies a coupling between a constitutional object, in the form of a hierarchical organization of a given normative order capable of reproducing an autonomous source of authority, and a concordant legal framework. Second, constitutionalization implies a coupling between an internal reconstruction of an external constitutional subject within the constitutional object, and the register of legal rights, establishing a framework for exchanges between the constitutional object and the wider world as represented by the constitutional subject. Third, constitutionalism denotes the institutionalization of a double function, in the form of a principle-based and legally fortified striving toward universal inclusion, providing a sense of direction in time through an articulated form of constitutional consciousness.
The insights developed are briefly illustrated by the case of the global Fairtrade Certification System.