Title: What Is It That Compels Human Beings to Create a Society? On the Physical and Spatial Origins of Politics
Lecturer: Tilo Schabert (Professor of Political Science, Friedrich - Alexander - University Erlangen - Nuremberg)
Chairperson: LIU Qing (Professor, Department of Politics, East China Normal University)
Date: 3 pm, April 9th, 2014 (Wednesday)
Venue: Room 5303, Building of School of Humanities, Minhang Campus, ECNU
Sponsor: Si-mian Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities, ECNU
Abstract of the Lecture:
Human beings are bodily beings. With this form of their existence they are already, through themselves, power. With their bodily birth they physically enter a physical world where they can no longer be “overlooked” or “passed over.” Human beings are thus power in relation to other beings of their own kind as well as other living and non-living beings. And in turn they are also themselves objects of the power of each of these other beings.
They are figures of power, engaged in unceasing movements of power, and for which they are always the beginning. We human beings learn political science through our bodies. Our bodies establish relations among us. They tell us that we are political beings simply because we are spatial beings.
The Political in human existence lies in the event of this existence itself. It is bodies that put this event called “human being” on stage; and it is in bodily events that the play of movements among human beings, which they call “politics,” begins.
Whoever thinks of a political world of human beings, therefore, must think of politics for bodies, i.e., the creation of a political world in, through, and from a world of bodies. The world of human bodies is the first reality in any beginning of human existence. Political science is an anthropogenic science, because it travels along with human beings the path of their worldly creation. It knows their need for a second birth unto a society that responds to the bodily condition of their existence.
Brief Introduction of the Lecturer:
Tilo Schabert is a professor of political science at the Friedrich - Alexander - University Erlangen - Nuremberg. Schabert studied the subjects Political Science, Philosophy, Theology and Modern History at the University of Munich. In 1968, his PhD at the University of Munich. Since 1986 he is Professor of Political Science at the Friedrich - Alexander - University Erlangen - Nuremberg. From 1996-2005 he was a member of the Board of the Mishkenot Encounters in Religion and Culture (Jerusalem). In the years 1995 and 1996 he was Secretary General of the Conseil International de la philosophy et des Sciences Humaines at UNESCO in Paris. The title of an honorary doctorate (Docteur ès lettres honoris causa) from the University of Perpignan (France) and 2002 of the same title (Docteur en science politique honoris causa) I (France), he was awarded in 1996 by the University of Rennes. In 2005, he received the German - French Parliament Prize, awarded by the German Bundestag and the Assemblée nationale. In 2007, he was appointed a Knight of the French Legion of Honour.
Books Published:
1.Nature and Revolution, Munich 1969
2.Violence and Humanity, Freiburg and Munich 1978
3.Boston Politics: The Creativity of Power, Berlin-New York 1989
4.Modernity and History, Würzburg 1990
5.Cultures of Eros (ed.), Munich 2001
The Ordering of Time (eds.), Würzburg 2003
