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ENGLISH   Publications   Research   Teaching   Talks and Presentations   Translations   Bio   Links   Credits   Contact   Downloads DEUTSCH ESPAÑOL ITALIANO		Research Political Theory of Information and Communication Technologies My research in this area has its point of departure in Edmund Husserl's phenomenological theory, according to which the technization of the life world makes it impossible to think of the political as separate from the technological. Ever since the 19th century political theory and political struggles have interacted with technological development, so that it has become necessary to understand technology as a place of the political (Horkheimer, Adorno, Arendt). In order for this to be possible, an understanding of technology is necessary that goes beyond the instrumental (Heidegger, Anders). This applies in particular to the digital information and communication technologies, which in a number of ways are transforming the foundations of the political (virtualisation, weakening of subjectivity, aesthetization). Against this background, I am particularly interested in the ways in which emancipation and the critique of violence are affected by mediatization and technization: in the current transition, the exercise of power seems to be migrating from identifiable institutions and structures (where a critique of ideology would still be possible) into highly mobile configurations that are constantly re-masking themselves - a transition which in many ways has been anticipated by Nietzsche (Vattimo). As a result, the critique of domination and of violence seems most promising where it is interwoven with artistic and technological practices. Experimental art and radical technology play a decisive role in emancipatory social currents, where art, technology and politics represent a coherent pragmatics. For more information please visit the Institute for New Culture Technologies / Public Netbase Philosophy I have completed a PhD thesis on the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón, Spain. Vattimo is a hermeneutical thinker situated in the lineage of Nietzsche and Heidegger. He is most widely known for his philosophy of pensiero debole, or “weak thought”, that tries to come to terms with the challenges of philosophical thinking after the “end” of metaphysics ushered in by Nietzsche. Vattimo proposes a radicalisation of the nihilistic implications in the thinking of Heidegger, and of the metaphysical and hermeneutical implications in Nietzsche. The particular relationship Vattimo establishes between Nietzsche and Heidegger allows him to understands the history of modernity as a process of secularisation, or the progressive weakening of strong, ultimate foundations. In what has been called postmodernity, claims to validity and legitimacy of such foundations have violent implications, even when they are phrased in terms of “progress”, “humanity” or “truth” . The particular emancipatory dimension of postmodernity therefore lies a nihilistic understanding such ultimate foundations, by pointing out their relationship to power and violence. This leads to exposes the relationship between ultimate foundations and the hierarchies of power and violence. The main intention of the thesis to come to an understanding of the new meaning of “peace” after the end of metaphysics. Since peace has traditionally been understood metaphysically as an “object” to be understood in terms of its relationship to an ultimate foundation such as “truth” or “progress” or “God”, it has been impossible to think peace outside of a horizon of violence. The way peace is has traditionally been thought of in the western tradition has therefore lead to a convergence of peace rhetoric and violence, a fact became tragically evident in the human-rights based legitimation of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia. The thesis tries to propose a secularised notion of peace which tries it from its metaphysical horizon (expressed in metaphors such as war as the “father of all things”, the “ultima ratio”, or the “language of arms”). The resulting notion of peace is a ereignishaft one that makes it impossible to view peace as an object (of war, of contstruction, of politics) and instead proposes as a pluralistic post-metaphysical positive notion of freedom from violence. The thesis is in Spanish, but there is a summary in English. Further philosophical research interests inlcude: · Human rights and the problem of universalism · Aesthetics, in particular aesthetics of emancipation · Contemporary Italian Philosophy · Hermeneutics and philosophy of language · Neopragmatism and nihilism Peace Studies My research interests in peace studies focus on post-dialectical approaches to peace, i.e. on re-thinking peace as a pluralistic cluster of social practices and cultural symbols, rather than as “security” or as utopian ideal. I try to develop a perspective that is postmetaphysical (in the sense that Vattimo understands the term), i.e. that no longer seeks to “secure” or “construct” peace, and that abandons classic metaphysical concepts such as linear history, the subject, correspondence theories of truth, etc., understanding them as inherently violent. As a consequence of this, I am particularly interested in the challenges that the new forms of legitimation of war pose to a critique of violence. As the legitimation of war takes on an increasingly moral form, and wars are once again “just”, the classical moral foundations of the critique of violence, e.g. the universal ethics implied in human rights, serve as moral legitimation of war, so that the legitimation of war has come to occupy the moral terrain that served as the basis for a critique of violence. Following the thinking of Vattimo and his interpretation of Nietzsche and Heidegger, I am therefore interested in rethinking peace as an “event” and in reconstructing a radical critique of violence that takes into account the aesthetisation of experience in late modernity, as was first described by Nietzsche. Using the term “negative pacifism”, I try to formulate a kind of critique of violence that secularises the traditional metaphysical notion of peace and understands peace as a setting-into-work of non-violence.