Lambert Wiesing
Lambert Wiesing (* April 9, 1963 in Ahlen) is a German philosopher specializing in phenomenology, perception and image theory, and aesthetics.
Life[edit]
Lambert Wiesing, brother of the medical ethicist Urban Wiesing, studied philosophy, art history and archaeology at the University of Münster, where he received his doctorate in 1989. In 1996 Wiesing habilitated in philosophy at the Technische Universität Chemnitz with the thesis Die Sichtbarkeit des Bildes. Geschichte und Perspektiven der formalen Ästhetik.
Together with Birgit Recki and Karlheinz Lüdeking, Wiesing founded the German Society for Aesthetics in 1993, of which he was vice president from 1993 to 1999 and 2002 to 2006, and president from 2006 to 2009. Wiesing has held visiting professorships at the universities of Vienna, Oxford, and Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. In 2001, he became professor of comparative image theory in the field of media studies at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany, and in 2009 he was appointed chair of image theory and phenomenology in the Institute of Philosophy at the same university. In 2019, Wiesing was elected president of the German Society for Phenomenological Research. Together with Thomas Fuchs, who was elected vice president at the same time, he leads the society.
Research[edit]
Image Theory[edit]
In the 2005 collection of essays Artifizielle Präsenz, Wiesing classifies contemporary image theory – which can be distinguished from image science – into three main currents: an anthropological one, a sign-theoretical one, and a phenomenological one.[1] In Phänomene im Bild (2000), he outlines the tradition of the phenomenology of the image of Edmund Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and aligns his approach with this school of thought, which understands image theory against the background of a theory of consciousness and perception.[2] Wiesing resolutely opposes the sign- or synonymously language-analytic approach, which subsumes image theory under semiotics with its language-analytic instruments and vocabulary. It criticizes the “semiotification” of the image and emphasizes a plurality of image phenomena:
“Images can but they do not have to function as signs.”[3]
The main thesis is that the image must not be interpreted as a sign, but primarily described in terms of its particular visibility. For Wiesing, a picture is not always and necessarily a sign. Already in his habilitation thesis The Visibility of the Image, published in 1997, he coins the term pure visibility, following Konrad Fiedler, and refers to the asemantic use of the image:
“That an image can also be a sign is the product of a subsequent use of pure visibility as a sign for that with which it bears some similarity.”[4]
The sign character of images is thus a contingent property that is applied retrospectively when the image is used as a practical sign carrier to referentially to something that is outside the image.
This use of the image to show is described in detail in Sehen lassen. There Wiesing opposes the view, widespread in art history, that pictures can show something by themselves or even show themselves. For Wiesing this is an anthropomorphization of the image, which ends in a new image mythology. “Wiesing argues that distinguishing these practices of zeigen (showing and pointing) is necessary for an adequate explication of statements like ‘this image shows my home town’ or ‘the postcard shows the Eiffel Tower’.”[5]
Through the production of images it is possible for man – this is the anthropological condition of the image – to free himself from the visual grip, to be able to see only that which is actually present. When one looks at a picture, one looks into a “physics-free zone,” since the object of the picture is an “ontological exception” that presents an object in a "ghostly reality":
“Visibility without the presence of real things.”[6]
Although this phenomenological approach applies to any phenomenon of pictoriality, there are particular areas of validity where one finds corresponding images that are not signs: First, in the visual arts, especially in parts of abstract art-paradigmatic are the collages of Kurt Schwitters – and second, in new media, where computer simulations are used to present the digital image as an amplifier of the imagination. “Employing the tools of phenomenology, in particular the philosophy of Husserl (not entirely uncritically), Wiesing’s studies provide some provisional answers to the problem of the image. As such his book provides a useful introduction for both students and researchers whose work engages with images, yet who are new to image studies as a field of enquiry that asks explicitly what images are.”[7]
Philosophy of Perception[edit]
Currently, in the philosophy of perception – according to Wiesing's diagnosis in Das Mich der Wahrnehmung – interpretationism and constructivism in their different varieties are predominant. Such an interpretationism is characterized by the fact that it assumes the primacy of the subject and attributes perception to the interpretative achievements of this subject. In contrast, an alternative position, which nowadays, however, is hardly enduring in the philosophy of perception – think of the image theories of antiquity and of English empiricism – assumes, conversely, a primacy of the object and explains perception by attributing it to causal effects of reality on the subject. “Overall, Wiesing's book nicely uses insights from Husserl's philosophy to draw conclusions about the embodiment and worldiness of perceivers. It is as if Husserl met Merleau-Ponty in this poignant work. By engaging in phenomenological reflection we find ourselves as fully embodied, active participants in the real world.”[8]
Instead of explaining the possibility of perception either from the subject or from the object, Wiesing now proposes a third way, which does not explain perception but wants to describe it phenomenologically: if perception itself is a non-explainable primordial phenomenon, then subject and object can be understood as the consequences of this primordial phenomenon.[9]
From this, Wiesing consequently results in an inversion of transcendental philosophy, because the place of the transcendental is no longer the subject, but perception itself: this inverse transcendental philosophy does not ask about the conditions of possibility, but about the consequences of reality. It is not the subject that constitutes the object of perception, but perception, conversely, that constitutes me – hence one can speak of a me of perception. The subject is a me because it is a consequence of perception; and if this perception is continually imposed upon it, then it must itself be perceptible, corporeal, affable, and public – in short, a part of the world:
“In order for my perception to be my perception in the first place, my perception requires me as a sensing subject that can be affected by things – and this is just how it is for me to be a perceiver. I not only feel myself present, but I am also involved in a set of effects, becoming part of a causal exchange of worldly things, becoming a subject being affected.”[10]
Hume Research[edit]
In 2007 Wiesing publishes a detailed commentary on David Hume's Inquiry into the Human Mind. Besides the purpose of presenting this work of Hume in its genesis, argumentation, and effect, Wiesing shows in particular Hume's special closeness to phenomenology.
Luxury[edit]
In his book A philosophy of Luxury, Wiesing develops a phenomenology of luxury. The basic idea is that luxury cannot be determined by material properties, but should be understood as a phenomenon in which someone can be enabled to have an aesthetic experience by possessing a certain thing:
“Something becomes a luxury by being experienced by a person in a particular way. […] A luxury is a phenomenon in the specifically phenomenological sense of the word: A something that is for someone.”[11]
Wiesing thus succeeds in bringing about a fundamental change of perspective in the humanities discussion of this topic. For instead of evaluating luxury, as has been customary in previous discussions, the question is posed: What is luxury in the first place? For this, Wiesing draws on a figure of thought developed by Schiller in his Letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man. In it, Schiller argues that man is only human in the true sense of the word when he succeeds in achieving a harmonious balance – Schiller speaks here of the state of play – between his bodily nature and reason. If, however, he comes under the domination of one of these two poles, between which a man inevitably always moves, he is in danger of degenerating either into a savage or into a barbarian. Wiesing comments:
“The barbarians in Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (1795) are a good example of people who are irrationally rational, and therefore cannot, in Schiller’s view, lead good, balanced lives.”[12]
This is where Wiesing's reflections on luxury come in. Luxury is, when one does it anyway; when a person, although he knows that it would be irrational, excessive, inefficient, too expensive and probably therefore clearly unreasonable, he nevertheless comes to the conclusion that he wants to own a certain thing. But not for the sake of provocation, and certainly not to demonstrate one's purchasing power or social standing – Wiesing reserves the term ostentation for this and distinguishes it most sharply from the experience of luxury – but rather to have an experience in which one literally frees oneself from the usual notions of a supposedly reasonable life. Like Dadaism in art, Wiesing argues, luxury may therefore be understood as an attempt to assert oneself “against philistine notions of normalcy.”
Luxury can consequently be experienced, according to Wiesing, without an extraordinarily expensive object being part of an event. And vice versa, according to Wiesing, it is possible that luxury is lived in without actually experiencing it. It can even be assumed that due to “delusions of grandeur, greed, and arrogance, or just naïveté and habit” the latter is not at all rare. Yet phenomena of ostentatious wealth should not lead us to deny per se the experience that can be had through the possession of a thing. Standing squarely in the tradition of Adorno, Wiesing argues: In a society thoroughly trimmed to reason and efficiency, the experience of irrational luxury can be seen as a way of not having to be entirely taken in by a rampant efficiency thinking and dictates of reason.
“The living person feels that he or she is alive, and that a person can be reasonable only if he or she is not forced to be reasonable.”[13]
Phenomenology of Self-Consciousness[edit]
In his 2020 book Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins, Lambert Wiesing argues that self-consciousness is an inexplicable event, which is undeniably real but cannot be further deduced. Therefore, a change of method of transcendental philosophizing is proposed. Instead of following the philosophical tradition since Kant to ask about the conditions of the possibility of self-consciousness, the question is reversed phenomenologically: what are the experiential consequences of the reality of self-consciousness? Wiesing calls this method “inverse transcendental philosophy.”
“The conditions of the possibility of self-consciousness are not themselves conscious to a subject; therefore they cannot be phenomenally inferred. For one who has consciousness has no consciousness of why he has consciousness-but he has consciousness of the consequences of reality.”[14]
The consequences of the reality of self-consciousness that Wiesing argues for, also referred to as “equal-origin correlation a priori,” are: 1. Own existence: Because there is self-consciousness, there is also the one who is self-conscious. Wiesing refers to this I as “me” because it is an experiential consequence and not a logically necessary condition of self-consciousness.
“From the reality of my self-consciousness it follows necessarily equally originally that there is me for me.”[15]
2. A style of existence: whoever has self-consciousness must be in the world with a style, and this style of existence necessarily plays itself out between the extremes of a picturesque being-connected-with-the-world and a linear being-distanced-from-the-world.
“The reality of my self-consciousness forces me to be stylistically varying in the spectrum of being painterly and linear in the world.”[16]
3. Self-esteem consciousness: One who is in the world with self-existence consciousness must have self-value consciousness. Thus, Wiesing shows an internal connection between self-consciousness in the sense of the philosophy of mind and self-consciousness in everyday speech.
“I exist in the world only with self-interest and with self-esteem. For reality makes me be so contingent in the world that I must be of value to myself.”[17]
The parallel to the art-historical categories of the linear and the painterly is also shown here. According to Wiesing, self-esteem also moves within the boundaries of a spectrum, namely between self-giving and self-assertion.
“The answer to the question of how I feel when I am extremely corporeal or extremely painterly in the world is thus: the being of a painterly existence is the world-including self-value imposition; the being of a painterly existence is the imposition of an immersive self-giving [...] The answer to the question of how I feel when I am extremely corporeal-linear in the world is thus: The being of a linear Dasein is a world-excluding self-value imposition; the being of my linear Dasein is the imposition of an emergent self-assertion.”[18]
4. These two extremes of self-consciousness correspond in turn to two extremes of self-care and consequently also to two extreme forms of living, namely a world-including and a world-excluding living.
“This spectrum can be demonstrated by conceivable extreme examples of the respective form of dwelling: by the chosen dwelling in the wooden hut in the rural forest as a manifestation of an extremely inclusive self-care of the dweller and by the chosen dwelling in the penthouse of a metropolitan skyscraper as a manifestation of an extremely exclusionary self-care of the dweller.”[19]
Awards and Prizes[edit]
- 2015 Science Award of the Aby Warburg Foundation
- 2018 Thuringian Research Prize in the field of basic research
- 2021 Marsilius Medal for the Promotion of Conversation between Scientific Cultures
Works (available in English translation)[edit]
Artificial Presence. Philosophical Studies in Image Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press 2010. ISBN 978-0-8047-5941-0.
The Visibility of the Image: history and perspectives of formal aesthetics. London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing 2016. ISBN 978-1-4742-3264-7.
The Philosophy of Perception. Phenomenology and Image Theory. London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney: Bloomsbury 2014. ISBN 978-1-78093-759-5.
A philosophy of Luxury. London, New York: Routledge 2019. ISBN 978-0367138417.
Philosophy of perception. Phenomenology and image theory. London: Bloomsbury Academic 2016. ISBN 978-1-4742-7532-3.
Here you can find a full bibliography.
References[edit]
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2010). Artificial Presence. Philosophical Studies in Image Theory. Stanford University Press. pp. 17–36. ISBN 978-0-8047-5941-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2000). Phänomene im Bild. Wilhelm Fink Verlag. pp. 61–77. ISBN 978-3-7705-3532-3. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2010). Artificial Presence. Philosophical Studies in Image Theory. Stanford University Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0-8047-5941-0. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2016). The Visibility of the Image. History and Perspectives of Formal Aesthetics. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 124. ISBN 978-1474232647. Search this book on
- ↑ Steenhagen, Maarten (April 2015). "Book review Sehen lassen: Die Praxis des Zeigens". British Journal of Aesthetics.
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2014). The Philosophy of Perception. Phenomenology and Image Theory. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-78093-759-5. Search this book on
- ↑ Mitcheson, Katrina (15 May 2015). "Review of Artificial Presence: Philosophical Studies in Image Theory". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- ↑ Orlandi, Nico (3 May 2015). "Review of The Philosophy of Perception: Phenomenology and Image Theory". Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
- ↑ Dorfles, Gillo (29 January 2015). "Review of Das Mich der Wahrnehmung: Eine Autopsie". Corriere della Sera: 42.
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2014). The Philosophy of Perception. Phenomenology and Image Theory. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic. p. 117. ISBN 978-1-78093-759-5. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2019). A philosophy of Luxury. London, New York: Routledge. p. 4. ISBN 978-0367138417. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2019). A philosophy of Luxury. London, New York: Routledge. p. 109. ISBN 978-0367138417. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2019). A philosophy of Luxury. London, New York: Routledge. p. 7. ISBN 978-0367138417. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 70. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 84. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 171. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 207. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 216. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
- ↑ Wiesing, Lambert (2020). Ich für mich. Phänomenologie des Selbstbewusstseins (in Deutsch). Berlin: Suhrkamp. p. 236. ISBN 978-3-518-29914-2. Search this book on
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