Hans H. Diebner's Research

Performative Science

This project is about counter ruinance (Gegenruinanz), a notion taken from Heidegger's fundamental ontology. Ruinance refers to the increasingly emanating enframing through representation that hampers to unconceal Being. That is to say, in following Heidegger, I see that the existing tendency of the factual human Dasein towards the renunciation from a non-enframed reference to truth is immeasurably accelerated through the progressing cybernetisation (automatisation of the lifeworld decision processes and measures of intervention). In making a pact of science with the arts (which brings in performativity), I tried for a long time to establish an undogmatic collaboration, free of ideology, conceived as counter ruinant measures. Result so far: notice of failure. That is to say, an outwearing (Vernutzung) of the arts is the case and, therefore, their increasing suction into ruinance. A lot of questions concering this topic are still open, however, due to momentary lack of opportunity, they remain pending.

Nevertheless, I want to keep the history behind these thoughts alive, even though in the course of time I run through a kinda self-deconstruction.

It has been repeatedly noticed in philosophy of science and history of science that the mechanisms for the creation of knowledge in sciences oftentimes cannot explicitly be formulated. Scientists have implicit knowledge and heuristics and intuition show to advantage. A crucial role is played by the intimate interaction of the researcher with the research object (the epistemic thing) and the appliances.

Knowledge is created during an enactment without always following a strict propositional logic. In general, this is called performativity. In my own research, in referring to the work of the philosopher Martin Heidegger, I proceed on the assumption that "being-in-the-world" comes to its own in scientific doing, too. Notwithstanding the restricted verbalization of performative mechanisms it is a challenging question of whether one can at least set-up environments in which these hidden performative qualities can prosper in order to foster innovation and the creation of knowledge.

It is above all and so far almost exclusively the arts that are skilled with performativity. This is, of course, a topic in art theory. It is my attempt to fruitfully adopt this previously art theoretical studies for natural scientific and technological areas within the scope of what I call performative science. That implies a research that is located between specific problems in complex systems research and methodological research. Because my particular dedication to performative science roughly since 1999, I dedicated this area of research a separate menu entry.