Die Projektpolis bei der Arbeit. Open-Source-Software-Entwicklung und der „neue Geist des Kapitalismus“

The paper investigates the implementation of normative aspects in open source development projects. Current social analysis on open source tends to neglect the question how normative dispositions are enacted there in favor of a somewhat functionalist belief in the co-ordination mechanisms of gift economies or hacker ethics. In this paper, the “justificatory regime of projects“ developed by Boltanski and Chiapello is used as a blueprint of the normative order of knowledge-intensive contexts of collaboration. The notion of a “test” provides a micro-macro link in order to investigate the enactment of justifactory regimes in situated action. The paper identifies exemplary tests and critical incidents in two large open source projects, Debian and KDE. The justificatory regime of projects “at work” is found to be more complex and contradictory than the simple mechanisms of gift or knowledge economies would suggest. Their moral economy is not automatically integrated by a comprehensive “hacker ethic” of limitless involvement, technical excellence and fun. Projects, in their conflicts and discussions over norms, handle flexible involvements and the limitations of time and attention, and their normative regimes only work because they are able to manage that.     

Das Ende der Beliebigkeit — zum evolutionär-biologischen Fundament des Menschen

The relationship between biology and sociology has always been difficult, even though (or even because) both are interested in the same human subject. Historic mishaps, such as the severe abuse of biology by political systems, ideological inferences and simple misunderstandings still strain the dialogue. In contrast to sociologists, biologists employ a comparative approach within a firm Darwinian framework for posing questions. A hypothesis only qualifies as “scientific” when rigorously testable. Along with the overwhelming success of biology in the 20^th century, the biological base of the human existence is now generally acknowledged. But the explanatory potential of the Darwinian approach is still expanding.c Over the past decades, biologist even ventured into the “cultural” domains, which lead to new battles with sociologists, but also to some cross-fertilization. It showed, that even morals and ethics have a biological and hence, an evolutionary base. Without the prefrontal cortex of the brain, humans are not able to act socially responsible. This example also shows that the long-outdated distinction between “innate” and “learned” (still a major obstacle for dialogue between biology and sociology) is indeed, obsolete, because the morphological substrate only develops towards its full functionality, when adequately stimulated via implicit social learning during early childhood. Further examples for the heuristic power of modern behavioural biology are insights into social organization and sexual strategies, evolutionary explanations of socio-sexual violence against women and children, new results towards showing the biological foundations of personality, or even the contribution of modern biology towards explaining mentalities. With the increasing dominance of biology, arbitrariness comes to an end. Today, the basidemand on all theories and concepts which claim to explain aspects of Homo sapiens scientifically, no matter whether from the humanities, social sciences or even philosophy, is their consistency and logic coherence, with evolutionary theory.     

Ökonomischer Liberalismus, postmodernes Diversity Management in Unternehmen und der Geist des Kapitalismus

The present article introduces the concept of Diversity Management, which has its roots in the USA. The latter regards the workforce’s diversity, inequality, differentness and individuality as an essential contribution to a company’s success. Against the backdrop of the hegemonial waves in the world system and the related cultural cycles, the argument is being launched that an organizational change from fordism to post-fordism has taken place in the framework of the USA’s hegemonial downturn and the emergence of post-modernism as a cultural pattern. In this context, “diversity” has been able to make its way as an issue. On the one hand, this development attempts to carry out even more the “modern” ideas of “individualism” and “social equality of opportunities” also on an entrepreneurial level; on the other hand, the industrial-capitalist differentiation of labor, person and lifeworld is being demarcated in a “post-modernistic” way and is even more strongly tied into the logic of capital.     

Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Wirklichkeit

Zusammenfassung  Der vorliegende Beitrag widmet sich dem in der Soziologie zu Unrecht kaum wahrgenommenen Beitrag Siegfried Kracauers zu einer Soziologie der Dinge und des Visuellen. An seiner Studie über die Angestellten und seiner Filmtheorie wird aufgezeigt, dass Kracauer mit Hilfe einer konkreten Analyse der Dinge der Wirklichkeit beizukommen versucht, die in seinen Augen durch das abstrakte Denken der Wissenschaften geradezu unkenntlich gemacht wird. In dieser Diagnose — so die Argumentation des vorliegenden Beitrags — erweist sich Kracauers Werk als überraschend aktuell.

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In search of the lost reality. Attention and thing-perception in siegfried kracauer’s works

The article discusses an essay on the Sociology of Things and the Visual by Siegfried Kracauer, which has been met with an unjustly poor feedback from the sociological community. Based on his studies of white-collar workers and his theory of films it argues that Kracauer chooses a specific analysis of things to approach a reality, which — in his view — had been rendered virtually unrecognizable by the abstract reasoning of the scientific world. The article follows the idea that it is this analysis, which makes Kracauers work modern and up-to-date.

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„überhaupt übernehmen die Dinge die Darstellung der Situation.“ (Wihelm Genazino)     

Das Anerkennungsdefizitsyndrom des Wohlfahrtsstaats

The contribution questions the conception of the welfare state as an institutional arrangement for social inclusion and integration underlying Günter Duxes book “Why justice at all” (“Warum denn Gerechtigkeit”). This concept is countered with a sociological analysis stressing the asymmetric structures of recognition that characterize the welfare state (particularly its German variant) and reconstructing the changing patterns of social inequality produced by recent “activation” policies. As a normative guideline for future reforms, the paper argues for a universalistic recognition regime that transcends the restrictions of the national-industrial model of welfare.     

Kritik der Life-Politics — zum Grenzziehungsdiskurs der Humangenetik

Genetic diagnosis and counselling have gone through a process of institutionalization and normalization, but ethical debates about the benefits and dangers of human genetics continue. This article adopts a sociology of science approach and asks how the professional authority of a science like human genetics, which is still a controversial field, is maintained. Using qualitative expert interviews, the article first identifies boundarywork strategies which provide information about specific ways in which claims to scientific competence and validity are succesfully asserted. At a second level, the boundary-drawing discourse of human genetics makes it possible to reach conclusions about the structuring of professional orientations to action. In order to dissociate human genetics from eugenic practices, the individual and the individual’s moral concepts are treated as the decisive point of reference for professional actions. In conclusion, the article criticizes the mistaken belief that this kind of denationalization (Entstaatlichung) and individualization of biopolitics (?life-politics“) is the same thing as a reflexive practice.     

Die Krisis des Wissens

From a sociological theoretical perspective the crisis of knowledge appears to be characteristic of a knowledge society in which the importance of knowledge has increased but the importance of the traditional university system has decreased. In contrast to Husserl, I do not start with the “last” questions, but with the first question: namely, how is knowledge possible? To answer this, I define learning as a communicative practice that produces knowledge. This emphasizes the distinction between knowledge and intelligence. “Intelligence” denotes problem-solving mechanisms which can be embedded in various ways: organically in genomes; technologically in instruments; and socially in the rule systems of institutions (II–III). On this basis, the form of knowledge for the knowledge society contrasts knowledge/non-knowledge and is set against competing forms which contrast knowledge/belief or knowledge/power. The knowledge society thus stands in great need of knowledge about how to deal with ignorance or non-knowledge, particularly in order to cope with systemic risks. The use of risk models by banks serves as one example of how organizations in the knowledge society turn their dependence on knowledge and ignorance into strategies for coping with uncertainty (IV–V). Ignorance is always the corollary of knowledge. Thus, in conclusion irony and power are introduced as exemplary ways of dealing with this form of knowledge (VI–VII).     

Eine liberale Verteidigung des Kommunitarismus

In this contribution, the attempt is undertaken to place Weber’s value theory (Werttheorie) within the controversy between liberals and communitarians. Following Wolfgang Schluchter’s studies to Weber’s value theory, the concept of responsibility is worked out as a communitarian subject in Weber’s thinking. Individual responsibility, so my thesis, functions with Weber as an intersection, in which the freedom of the autonomous personality is connected with its cultural community. Against the background of this thesis, Max Weber’s ethics of responsibility is specified as a ?liberal defense of communitarianism“. It is a liberal defense because it is based on the primacy of the absolutely free personality and its inalienable rights. It is a communitarian concept because it is based on the idea of an situated self connected with cultural values, traditions, and institutions. The specific view on Max Weber’s value theory enables not only a dissociation of voluntaristic and legalistic interpretations, but rather also an updating of the ethics of responsibility as an alternative in the discussion between liberals and communitarians.     

Die symbolische Macht der Individualisierung und der Kampf um die Kritik

In the article we highlight an aspect of the crisis of criticism which we call ??speechlessness of criticism??. The heterogeneous criticism cannot be bundled up to a critical story any more. A common language with explicatory pictures and grammars is missing. Two explanations are offered for the ??speechlessness?? of criticism: the changes of the normative power of justification orders and the individualisation process. Both developments are a symbolic power which can explain the speechlessness of the criticism of capitalism at least partially. After the sketch of the symbolic power of the legitimation order of project and individualisation, starting points for a renaissance of criticism are analysed. Finally we explore the relevance of a reflexive combination of critical sociology and sociology of criticism for the concept of a critical sociology of criticism.     

Grenzen der Geschichte?

The article follows Tony Becher’s suggestion, that scientific disciplines metaphorically spoken may be looked at as different tribes of different habits occupying different territories. The articles reviews then some possibilities to determine a border between the field of historical research and sociology by different methods, different theories, different research objects e. g. past vs. present and so on. The academic field of history is described as a field importing theories, methods and objects from other academic fields, many of them from sociology. The last decades’ processes of innovation and redefinition within the field of historical research diminished cognitive differences between history and sociology so significantly that — this is the main argument of the article — more or less only the borders produced by institutions remained. Nevertheless these kind of borders have major effects all of them responsible for maintaining different disciplinary identities.     

Das Geheimnis des Alltäglichen

Since the 80ies Michel de Certeau’s analyses of everyday life had influenced the development of Cultural Studies. For example the practices of consumption and reception were described as resistant tactics in the work of John Fiske. But many aspects of de Certeau’s complex theory were not considered. Against this background his works is surveyed in the context of theories of everyday life. The study shows that the potential of de Certeau’s critical cultural analysis has yet to be disclosed and realized. So he has developed a subtle theory of everyday practices, delineated a science of the singular and explored the relationships between the unconscious and everyday life/between utopia and everyday life.     

Anwendungsorientierte Forschung und der Wandel der Wissensordnung zu Geschlecht: Konzeptionelle Annäherungen

First, the article is a speech for theoretical ambitious and applied oriented gender research. However, the transfer between scientific knowledge and praxis-oriented knowledge is an independent step, which might be based on gender trainings and gender expertise. Second, the complex processes of knowledge transfer and communication and its impacts on the scientific order of knowledge in the gender arena forms part of the debate. The paper discusses these issues and challenges for scientific gender knowledge from the perspective of gender studies and the sociology of professions, scientific discourses, and sociology of science.