Issue 14 / January 2019
Editorial
by Katharina Wiedemann
“Most of our ideas are useless” – says the Swedish sociologist Richard Swedberg in discussing how to engage in successful theorizing. It is likely that many of his co-Fellows would frankly concur. Thinking is arduous work, even when it is propelled by an imminent interest, as is the case in the scientific world. But going largely undocumented is just how often such thinking only ends in a cul-de-sac. The good ideas, one hopes, make it through the filter of theory and methodology and are brought to paper and then perhaps take the form of a paper, often online and perhaps via open access.
In this fourteenth issue of Köpfe und Ideen we of course only showcase the most expedient of thoughts! Strictly speaking these thoughts will only be in three disciplines – and not the wide spectrum of fields which are usually to be found at the Wissenschaftskolleg (this year no exception) – two teratments of evolutionary biology and sociology erspectively, and one treatment in literature. The spectrum of themes, however, is no less varied than than it would be in a wider range of disciplines: water fleas that are actually crabs; colossal data sets which embed information on the human ability to make decisions; eternally hip Berlin, whose most interesting aspects are to be found at its least spectacular sites; defining organisms as systems that have attained an admirable competence in managing their internal conflicts. And apropos our opening quote, all these themes can only be thought through and processed if one has one’s theoretical instruments in order.
There is one point in which the Fellows hardly differ from one another: they spend a great deal of time at their desk. And during the photo shoot, if asked for a simulation of how that usually looks, they go right into action on their work.
These thinkers’ behavioral patterns would seem to resemble one another even if they live in the most varied of mental spheres. So the Wissenschaftskolleg’s task must be to tempt the Fellows away from their desks and temp them into unplanned conversations – every year anew, a lovely experimentin itself.