Richard Saage

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Richard Saage (born April 3, 1941 in Tülau , Province of Hanover ) is a German political scientist and professor emeritus for political theory and the history of ideas with a research focus on the history of political ideas and social utopias , democratic theories , theories about fascism , political conceptions of social democracy in the Between the wars in Germany and Austria as well as German conservatism .

Life

Saage studied political science, philosophy and history in Frankfurt am Main between 1965 and 1972 and received his doctorate there in 1972 under Iring Fetscher with a thesis on the state and social theory of Immanuel Kant . After studying at Harvard University in 1972/73, he was from 1973 to 1976 research assistant to Helga Grebing at the chair for modern history at the University of Göttingen . In 1976 he also became an academic councilor in Göttingen and in 1984 an adjunct professor at the Political Science Department. He completed his habilitation in 1981 with a thesis on contract theory in the Dutch and English revolutions . From 1992 to 2006 he was Professor of Political Theory and the History of Ideas at the Institute for Political Science at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg . Since 1998 he has been a full member of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig .

research

Property, State and Society with Immanuel Kant

The dissertation published in 1973 (2nd edition 1994) deals with the structural bracing of Kant's concept of property with his practical philosophy . To this end, Saage looks at Kant's legal theory from the hermeneutic perspective of property individualism and thus ties in with the influential work of the Canadian political scientist CB Macpherson , who used this interpretative framework to examine the genesis of early English liberalism and the crisis of liberal democracy . Saage thus broke new ground, especially in the interpretation of the metaphysics of morals , which stood at right angles to the liberal appreciation of Kant that began at the same time in the wake of John Rawls ' publication A Theory of Justice (1972). Saage derives the property-individualistic component of Kant's concept of property directly from the structure of Kant's property acquisition theory. Since Kant outlines the emergence of property as an individual act of occupation, it can be demonstrated how its legality depends solely on the point in time at which the property is acquired and is therefore indifferent to the material distribution. Every welfare state interpretation of Kant's legal theory must therefore take into account that Kant “opts for a concept of property that is largely relieved of social restrictions on the basis of a relatively broad distribution of property on the land”. In this respect, the possessive bourgeois instrumentalization of the state via the legal concept is already inscribed in the theoretical premises of the property doctrine and is reinforced by the negative anthropology that identifies the human instinctual structure in principle with that of “the competing property citizen”.

Saage later summarized the basic principle of the Kantian minimal state very pointedly: “Everyone has the right to property if he has one, but no right to property if he does not have one.” Nevertheless, according to Saage, the Kantian legal theory can against the background of a pre-industrial society can still be considered progressive. But: "In the long term, his model of society had to become conservative because he saw the development of market society at the level of small-scale production as complete". Saage's dissertation was well received, with the criticism referring to the underestimation of the postulate of practical reason (lex permissiva) for the derivation of property ( Metaphysics of Morals, § 2) and to the overestimation of utilitarian anthropology for state building.

Utopia research

In 1991 Saage published his study on the political utopias of modern times in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, an unexpected democratic revolution had just swept away the state socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and thus spurred the utopian imagination of politics. On the other hand, was already foreseeable, that the utopian energy of this emancipation movement in a merely "catching up revolution" ( Habermas ) exhausted, although originally located at the Social Democratic -oriented welfare state Western European type, but whose political dynamics nevertheless the neoliberal sent discourse on the expansion of its own hegemony used and was channeled to destroy the "old" social democratic achievements. Symptomatic of this was that the brief boom of political utopia in the wake of the revolution in the hegemonic framework of the doctrine of totalitarianism had already turned into a negative utopia , ie an illusory and dangerous “non-place”. The coincidence with the political "overturning" of the concept of utopia secured Saage's monograph a great deal of public attention.

Based on the archetypal and paradigmatic designs by Plato and Thomas More , the modern traditional line of political utopia from Tommaso Campanella to Marge Piercy is examined. Particularly innovative for utopia research was the extensive inclusion of the “black utopias” (dystopias) following Yevgeny Ivanovich Samjatin and the appreciation of post-materialistic and feminist utopian designs ( Ernest Callenbach , Ursula K. Le Guin ). The methodological foundation of Saage's utopia research is the underlying concept of utopia. Following Norbert Elias , Saage assumes “that political utopias are fictions of inner-worldly societies that condense into either a wishful image or a fearful image. Her target projection is characterized by a precise critique of existing institutions and socio-political conditions, which she contrasts with a well thought-out and rationally comprehensible alternative. "Political utopias" sound out within the world tangible 'possibilities of being able to be different' and are therefore always future-oriented. “They differ from various fictions such as metaphysically or religiously motivated future expectations or interpretations of the past as well as from dreams , fairy tales or myths . The human being is conceived constructively as a creating subject, similar to contractualism with hobbes and loosers , even if in utopia, in contrast to subjective natural law, an idea of ​​reason placed before the individual is used as the basis.

Dystopias can also retain the property of utopia, provided that they discursively indicate social alternatives as a negative foil, and they also represent political utopias insofar as they represent the imaginations interpreted affirmatively or aversively by communities . Other literary genres such as the Robinsonade , the Bildungsroman , the shepherd's idyll (focus on individuals), satire (without alternative options) or science fiction (marginalization of the social dimension) must therefore be distinguished from political utopia. Also in contrast to this is the “ban on images” of the founding fathers of Marxism , which left open the concrete shape of the future “realm of freedom”, while utopia finds its core in this.

Although Saage uses a narrow, ideal-typical concept of utopia, which is intended to sharpen the heuristic potential for contrast and in return accepts the deficit of historical completeness, the concept of political utopia is not limited to societies constituted by the state. For this reason, the distinction between “archistic”, ie rule-related, and “ anarchistic ”, ie rule-free utopia is tied to, which Andreas Voigt had already proposed in 1906. Criticism particularly attracted the narrow formulation of the concept of utopia, which was too dogmatically linked to More's “classical concept of utopia”. By suppressing the intentional utopian dimension, the “materialistic messianism” of Marxism, as it was presented in particular by Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin , is also out of the utopian field of vision. Saage responded to this criticism in the preface to the second edition and sought to refute it through in-depth historical research.

Fonts (selection)

Monographs
  • 1973: Property, State and Society with Immanuel Kant. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1973. 2nd updated edition: Nomos, Baden-Baden 1994, ISBN 3-789034894 .
  • 1976: Theories of fascism. An introduction. Beck, Munich 1976. 4th, revised edition: Theories of fascism. Nomos, Baden-Baden 1997, ISBN 3-789047600 .
  • 1981: rule, tolerance, resistance. Studies on the political theory of the Dutch and English revolutions. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1981, ISBN 3-518075853 .
  • 1983: return to the strong state? Studies on Conservatism, Fascism and Democracy. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-518-11133-7 .
  • 1987: labor movement, fascism, neoconservatism. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-28289-1 .
  • 1989: contractual thinking and utopia. Studies of political theory and social philosophy of the early modern period. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-518-28377-4 .
  • 1990: The end of political utopia? Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-518-28510-6 .
  • 1997: Utopia research. A balance sheet. Primus-Verlag, Darmstadt 1997, ISBN 3-896780379 .
  • 2000: Political Utopias of the Modern Age. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1991. 2nd edition: Winkler, Bochum 2000, ISBN 3-930083523 .
  • 2001: Utopian Profiles. Volume 1: Renaissance and Reformation. Lit, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5428-0 .
  • 2002: Utopian Profiles. Volume 2: Enlightenment and Absolutism. Lit, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-5429-9 .
  • 2002: Utopian Profiles. Volume 3: Industrial Revolution and the Technical State in the 19th Century. Lit, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-8258-5430-2 .
  • 2004: Utopian Profiles. Volume 4: Contradictions and Syntheses of the 20th Century. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 3-8258-5431-0 .
  • 2005: Democracy Theories. Historical Process - Theoretical Development - Sociotechnical Conditions: An Introduction. VS, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-531-14722-6 .
  • 2011: Philosophical anthropology and the technically upgraded human being. Winkler, Bochum 2011, ISBN 3-899111842 .
  • 2012: Between Darwin and Marx. On the reception of the theory of evolution in German and Austrian social democracy before 1933/34. Böhlau, Vienna 2012, ISBN 3-205788036 .
  • 2016: the first president. Karl Renner, a political biography . Paul Zsolnay Verlag , Vienna 2016, ISBN 978-3-552-05773-9 .
Articles and essays
  • 2004: How sustainable is the classic concept of utopia? In: Utopie-Kreativ , issue 165 (July 2004), pp. 617–636.
  • 2007: renaissance of utopia? In: Utopie-Kreativ , issue 201 (July 2007), pp. 605–617.
  • 2008: Theories of Fascism. Their significance for research and political education. In: Utopie-Kreativ , issue 215 (September 2008), pp. 773–784.

literature

  • Walter Reese-Schäfer , a. a. (Ed.): Model and Reality. Claim and Effect of Political Thought. Festschrift for Richard Saage on his 60th birthday . MDV , hall 2001.
  • Axel Rüdiger, Eva-Maria Seng (Ed.): Dimensions of politics: Enlightenment, utopia, democracy. Festschrift for Richard Saage on his 65th birthday. Dunker and Humblot, Bln 2006.
  • Alexander Amberger, Thomas Möbius (Ed.): On Utopia's footsteps. Utopia and Utopia Research. Festschrift for Richard Saage on his 75th birthday. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2017.
  • Maximilian Forschner : Review of the book Property, State and Society with Immanuel Kant , in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 81 (1974) 227-231.

Web links

Reviews

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Saage: Property, State and Society in Immanuel Kant. 2. act. Ed., Foreword by Franco Zotta "Kant and possession individualism", Nomos 1994, p. 90.
  2. ↑ Ibid., P. 83.
  3. ^ Richard Saage: Contract Thinking and Utopia. Studies of political theory and social philosophy of the early modern period. Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 195.
  4. ^ Saage: Property, p. 190.
  5. ^ Richard Saage: Political Utopias of Modern Times, Darmstadt 1991, p. 2.
  6. ↑ Ibid., P. 3.
  7. ^ Andreas Voigt: The social utopias. Five lectures, Leipzig 1906.
  8. ↑ Arnhelm Neusüss: From the temptation to excess. Two kinds of utopia or the same, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 33rd year (1992), pp. 107–112.
  9. ↑ Richard Saage: Utopian thinking and no end? On the reception of a book, in: ders .: Political Utopias of the Modern Age, 2nd edition, Bochum 2000, foreword.
  10. ^ Richard Saage: Utopische Profiles, 4 vols. (= Politica et Ars, vols. 1–4), Münster, Hamburg, London 2001–2003 (LIT-Verlag Münster).
  11. ↑ With a foreword by Franco Zotta: Kant and possession individualism.
  12. ↑ With a foreword twenty years later: “Fascism Theories” and their critics.
  13. ↑ With a foreword Utopian thinking and no end? To the reception of a book.
personal data
SURNAME Saage, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German political scientist, university professor
DATE OF BIRTH April 3, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Tülau , Province of Hanover