The politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and apartheid

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: The TRC; Commissioning the Past, 11-14 June, 1999This article focuses on the politics of memory and forgetting after Auschwitz and apartheid. In the first two sections Habermas's critical contribution to the German Historikerstreit is discussed. Important in this regard is the moral dimension of our relation to the past. In the next two sections the emphasis shifts to South Africa and more specifically the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The article ends with a general discussion of the dilemma of historical "truth" and representation in contemporary societies

The Ecstasy of Communication. Critical remarks on Jean Baudrillard

The socio-cultural criticism of Jean Baudrillard (born 1929), spans from the political turmoil ofFrance in the late-1960s, to the mediatised world of the 1990s and early 21st century.1 In thisprocess his provocative work on the socio-political role of signs, symbolic exchange, simulation,and hyperreality has important implications for communication studies – and more specificallycommunication theory. The point is that with the “… greater mediatization of society … we arewitnessing the virtualization of our world.”2 This contribution briefly reconstructs, firstly, two phasesin Baudrillard’s intellectual career – phases that shifted from an early neo-Marxist critique of themodern consumer society to a post-Marxist or postmodern view of society (which includeengagements with socio-anthropology; psychoanalysis, sociology, semiology and media theory),and eventually ends in a kind of anti-theory with an extreme fatal vision of the world.3 In section2 the implications of these two shifts in Baudrillard’s intellectual career are contextualized in thefield of media and communication studies – and specifically his concept of the “ecstasy ofcommunication”. Finally (in Section 3) some critical remarks are made on Baudrillard’s fascinating,but problematic, project

Multilingualism, Afrikaans and normative political theory

This contribution focuses on the survival of Afrikaans within the framework of a multilingual South Africa. The first section provides a brief historical reconstruction of the power-political shifts that Afrikaans underwent between 1966 and 2004. In the second section some of the arguments that were used for and against Afrikaans between 1994 and 2004 are presented. In the last section these arguments are shifted to the terrain of contemporary normative political theory, where three aspects are important: the question of addressing language loss in the world; the importance of   multicultural citizenship, and the need for a more profound and multilingual understanding of democracy. In short: a democracy is not just characterised by the instrumental counting of votes, but also by the qualitative articulation of different voices

Human participation in a scarred and frenzied world : C.K. Oberholzer, phenomenology and Pretoria

Human participation in a scarred and frenzied world: C.K. Oberholzer, phenomenology and Pretoria This article focuses on the living presence of phenomenology as an intellectual tradition at the University of Pretoria, and more specifically the role of C.K. Oberholzer (1904–1983) in creating a space for such reflection. The article consists of four (interrelated) parts: the founding years of philosophy at the University of Pretoria against the colonial backdrop of the British Empire, and the rise of Oberholzer under different circumstances in the 1930s; a succinct definition and description of phenomenology in four chronological waves of influence over the last century; the specific way in which Oberholzer interpreted and appropriated phenomenology in the Pretoria context; and finally, the political implications of Oberholzer’s phenomenology and philosophical anthropology in the apartheid years, the present as well as the future.Denke is ondenkbaar sonder konteks. Dít impliseer dat betoë en redes in ‘n hedewerklikheid of hedepraktyk altyd met die geskiedenis verband hou. Anders gestel: Denke in die hede het ‘n verantwoordelikheid teenoor die verlede ten einde ‘n toekoms te kan hê. Denke is ook dank of dankbaarheid. Die filosofiese denke aan die Universiteit van Pretoria is in hierdie opsig geen uitsondering nie. Oor die afgelope honderd jaar het verskillende filosofiese benaderings hier tot uiting gekom. Met verloop van tyd het daar ‘n wisselwerking tussen filosofiese en teoretiese tradisies aan die een kant, en die toepassing van hierdie tradisies deur verskillende generasies denkers aan die ander kant ontstaan. Veral een filosofiese tradisie, naamlik die fenomenologie (en opvolgertradisies soos die eksistensialisme, wysgerige antropologie, hermeneutiek, kritiese teorie en dekonstruksie), het danksy die onvermoeide bydrae van C.K. Oberholzer aan die Universiteit van Pretoria ‘n groot invloedsfeer opgebou. Teen hierdie agtergrond is die bedoeling hier om oor die spore, impak en afloop van die fenomenologiese tradisie in Pretoriase verband te besin. Waarom het verskeie generasies filosowe gereken dat hierdie benadering juis in hulle verwysingswêreld toepaslik is? Waarom het juis ‘n fenomenologies-kontinentale benadering, en nie byvoorbeeld die analitiese benadering nie, so ‘n vrugbare filosofiese kweekplek in Pretoria gevind? Om bostaande vrae te beantwoord, word hierdie bydrae in vier (interafhanklike) gedeeltes uiteengesit, naamlik (1) die ontstaan van Filosofie in Pretoria, en die opgang van Oberholzer; (2) ‘n bondige bespreking van die belangrikste aspekte van fenomenologie; (3) die bepaalde wyse waarop Oberholzer hom die fenomenologie in Pretoriase verband toeëien; en (4) die politieke implikasies van Oberholzer se bydrae vir vandag én die toekoms.http://www.hts.org.zahb201

Afrikaanse Filosofie

"Hierdie is die eerste boeklengte poging om 'n Afrikaanse filosofiese tradisie te beskryf binne die konteks van die Suid-Afrikaanse geskiedenis, en om die geskiedenis van die filosofie internasionaal te interpreteer. In die proses word van die belangrikste Afrikaanse filosowe self aan die woord gestel. Dit is werklik 'n waardevolle kultuurhistoriese dokument en 'n enorme bydrae tot die intellektuele geskiedenis in Suid-Afrika." - Prof Desmond Painte

Gadamer en die estetiese rekonstruksie van die antiaanse projek: Vir 'n kontekstuele kosmopolitanisme. (Gadamer and the aesthetical reconstruction of the Kantian project. For a contextual cosmopolitanism).

This contribution has two motives. In the first place an unorthodox reading of Gadamer's work is provided. This unorthodox reading differs from an orthodox reading that normally places Gadamer's thinking in a certain etimological and historical constellation. It is unorthodox in the sense that Gadamer's hermeneutics is interpreted as a creative contemporary answer to the Kantian project. It is argued that Gadamer interprets Kant's project of the three Critiques from the third to the first (in reverse gear). In this process he starts (in contrast with Kant) with an aesthetical critique of the subjectivist cul de sac of Kant's concept of aesthetical consciousness and then broadens this critique (with the help of the aesthetical concept of play) to the spheres of history and language. In this process Gadamer also addresses ethical and epistemological issues. It is important to notice, though, that Gadamer reads aesthetical, ethical and epistemological issues as interdependent on one an other – with a remarkable emphasis on aesthetics. In the final section (the second motive) it is argued that this reading of Gadamer's aesthetical reconstruction of the Kantian project has interesting implications for other contexts – for instance the possibility for an authentic philosophy in South Africa, and more specifically in the Afrikaans world. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(4) 2002: 306-32

Multilingualism, Afrikaans and normative political theory

This contribution focuses on the survival of Afrikaans within the framework of a multilingual South Africa. The first section provides a brief historical reconstruction of the power-political shifts that Afrikaans underwent between 1966 and 2004. In the second section some of the arguments that were used for and against Afrikaans between 1994 and 2004 are presented. In the last section these arguments are shifted to the terrain of contemporary normative political theory, where three aspects are important: the question of addressing language loss in the world; the importance of   multicultural citizenship, and the need for a more profound and multilingual understanding of democracy. In short: a democracy is not just characterised by the instrumental counting of votes, but also by the qualitative articulation of different voices

Is daar 'n Afrikaanse filosofiese tradisie?<Sup>1<Sup>

Is there an Afrikaans philosophical tradition? This article asks whether there is an Afrikaans philosophical tradition. The answer to this question is a qualified no, but it is nevertheless argued that there is something like an Afrikaans philosophical approach. In the first part a reading is provided of A H Murray's idealistic interpretation of Afrikaans philosophy (1947) and more specifically his discussion of the theological, educational and political traditions that influenced Afrikaans philosophy. Murray's idealistic approach is criticized via a dialectical, material and historical reconstruction of the institutionalization of philosophy as a field of study in the context of colonialism (part 2). Against this background it is argued that British Idealism was a major influence on the philosophers who started philosophy as an academic subject at the four founding residential universities in South Africa (Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Wits and Pretoria). In section three the reaction of Afrikaans philosophers against British Idealism is discussed. In the final part of the paper some questions are posed regarding the possible role of Afrikaans philosophy in the post-1994public sphere of South Africa