Gerhard Stapelfeldt

Gerhard Stapelfeldt (born October 26, 1947 in Hamburg ) is a German sociologist . He was a professor at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Hamburg .

Biography and work

Stapelfeldt studied architecture (Dipl.-Ing.), Sociology, philosophy, political science and psychology in Hamburg. He received his doctorate in 1978 on The Problem of Beginning in the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx . The Habilitation took place 1997 on the critique of economic rationality , Volumes I and II. From 1979 to 2009 he taught at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Hamburg.

The focus of his research and teaching is the criticism of political economy following Karl Marx and the critical theory of society following Max Horkheimer , Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse . His writings are also shaped by the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud .

His extensive work includes writings on philosophy and sociology, but above all treatises on the emergence and development of the political economy of capitalism in its stages: mercantilism , liberalism, imperialism, state interventionism , neoliberalism . The presentation combines a theoretical and social history explanation of the political-economic structures.

His four-volume main work on the critique of economic rationality is a presentation of the emergence as well as the logical, institutional and empirical structure of state interventionist and neoliberal capitalism. It includes a general historical-philosophical part based on the dialectic of the Enlightenment , as well as studies of the political-economy of the Federal Republic of Germany, the European Union and the world economy.

Stapelfeldt's social interest is enlightenment education with the aim of world-changing practice. This interest goes back above all to the experience of the repression of National Socialist crimes in West Germany on the one hand, and to the experience of the "economic genocide" in Latin America on the other.

Following this interest, Stapelfeldt criticizes the critical theory of Horkheimer, Adornos and Marcuse because, as a critique of Marxism, the Second International succumbed to its aporias . Through this criticism, Stapelfeldt preserves the empirical content of the dialectic of the Enlightenment , the Enlightenment of “barbarism”, by tracing the critical theory back to its origin as a critique of political economy. Marx's criticism is not philologically reconstructed by this movement of thought, but developed into a criticism of the irrational-rational capitalist political-economy in the two forms of state-interventionist-rationalist and neoliberal-irrational capitalism.

Works

Writings on philosophy

• Education - From utopia to a neoliberal knowledge society , Kovač, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-8300-8378-8 . The book emerged from the work published by Lit-Verlag, Münster, in 2003: Geist und Geld
• The departure of the conformist spirit. Theses on the criticism of the neoliberal university , Kovač, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-2898-7 . Second, revised, updated and expanded edition, Hamburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8300-6119-9
• Myth and Logos. Ancient philosophy from Homer to Socrates , Kovač, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8300-3250-2
• The rise and fall of the individual . Critique of bourgeois anthropology , Ça Ira, Freiburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86259-117-6
• The spirit of contradiction. Studies on dialectics. First volume , Verlag ça ira, Freiburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-86259-113-8
• The spirit of contradiction. Studies on dialectics. Second volume , Freiburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-86259-114-5

Writings on the history and criticism of political economy

• The mercantilism . The genesis of world society from the 16th to the 18th century , Ça Ira: Freiburg 2001
• The liberalism . The social theories of Smith, Ricardo, Marx , Ça Ira, Freiburg 2006
• The Problem of the Beginning in the Critique of Political Economy , Campus, Frankfurt am Main / New York 1979
• The problem of the beginning in the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx. On the relationship between the concept of work and dialectics , 2. exp. Edition (edited by Bastian Bredtmann and Hanno Plass), Kovač, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-3963-1
• The Imperialism - Crisis and War 1870/73 to 1918/29 , Volume One: Political Economy , Kovač, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3654-8
• The Imperialism - Crisis and War 1870/73 to 1918/29 , Second Band: Anthropology and rationality , Kovač, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3655-5

Writings on the Critique of Economic Rationality

• Dialectic of economic rationalization. Critique of Economic Rationality. First volume. Third, revised, updated and expanded edition . Kovač, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-8300-7735-0 . The book was published in 1998 and 2004 under the title 'History of Economic Rationalization' by Lit-Verlag, Münster and Hamburg
• Economy and society of the Federal Republic of Germany . Critique of Economic Rationality. Second volume , Lit, Münster 1998
• European Union : integration and disintegration. Critique of Economic Rationality. Third volume , Lit, Münster 1998
• Capitalist world economy. From state interventionism to neoliberalism. Critique of Economic Rationality. Fourth volume, first book . Kovač, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-4444-4 .
• Capitalist world economy. From state interventionism to neoliberalism. Critique of Economic Rationality. Fourth volume, second book . Kovač, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-8300-4774-2 .
• Neoliberalism - Authoritarianism - Structural Violence. Essays and lectures on the critique of economic rationality . Kovač, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8300-5479-5 .
• Neoliberal Irrationalism. Essays and lectures on the critique of economic rationality (II) . Kovač, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8300-6845-7 .

Writings on sociology and social theory

• Peru - in the name of freedom into misery , Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984
• Impoverishment and urbanization in the third world . The Lima / Peru case , Breitenbach, Saarbrücken 1990
• Theory of Society and Empirical Social Research . On the logic of the elucidation of the unconscious , Ça Ira, Freiburg im Breisgau 2004
• To the German ideology . Sociological theory and social development in the Federal Republic of Germany , Lit, Münster 2005
• Critique of the sociological individualization theorem ( Ulrich Beck ) . 2014 ( Link )
• Sociological counter-enlightenment. Lectures and essays on the critique of sociology , Kovač, Hamburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-8300-9426-5
• On anti-Semitism - on the dialectic of the counter-enlightenment , Kovač, Hamburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-339-10182-2

literature

• Katharina Böttcher, Ulrike Flader, Gerald Gönen, Paul Kramer (eds.): Paths to reflection. Discomfort - enlightenment - social criticism. For Gerhard Stapelfeldt on his 60th birthday , Kovač, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-8300-3220-5
• Anja Kindler, Björn Oellers, Hanno Plass (eds.): Theory and Practice. Contributions to the Critique of Society , Lit, Münster 2011. ISBN 978-3-643-11495-2 (An essay volume dedicated to Gerhard Stapelfeldt, written by his former students).

Web links

• Literature by and about Gerhard Stapelfeldt in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ^ Institute for Sociology, University of Hamburg: Research report 2002–2005. Hamburg 2005
2. ^ Kindler, A. / Oellers, B. / Plass, H .: Foreword . in this. (Ed.): Theory and Practice . Berlin 2011, pp. 7-12
3. ↑ Stapelfeldt, G .: List without reason. Some explanations on the form and content of the critique of economic rationality . In: Neoliberal Irrationalism . Hamburg 2012, pp. 613–626