Michael Wolff (philosopher)

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Michael Wolff (born September 13, 1942 in Solingen ) is a German philosopher. From 1982 to 2007 he taught as a professor of philosophy at Bielefeld University . He has been married to the former Federal Constitutional Judge Gertrude Lübbe-Wolff since 1978 and has four children with her. His father was the theologian and professor of the Old Testament Hans Walter Wolff , his mother the Wuppertal factory owner Annemarie Halstenbach. His brother is the musicologist Christoph Wolff .

Life

Wolff studied philosophy and classical philology at the universities of Hamburg (among others with Günther Patzig , Erhard Scheibe , Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and Wolfgang Wieland ) and Marburg (with Julius Ebbinghaus , Klaus Reich and Wolfgang Wieland). It was 1968 in Marburg with a dissertation on the Alexandrian Aristotle commentator John Philoponus doctorate . 1970–73 he was a scholarship holder of the German Research Foundation in London and Berlin, 1974 guest lecturer at the Technical University of Darmstadt . 1974–75 he worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for the study of living conditions in the scientific and technical world in Starnberg, 1975–82 as a deputy chair and lecturer in philosophy at Bielefeld University. There he completed his habilitation in 1978 with an investigation into the genesis of classical mechanics ( impetus theory ). From 1979–80 he was visiting professor at the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Marburg. In 1995, he turned down an offer for a professorship for philosophy at the University of Münster .

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Michael Wolff attaches great importance to accuracy in his own work as well as in teaching . He understands the making of a comment (as in his book on Hegel ) as a fundamental philosophical technique. Some of Wolff's work has also appeared in English, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Croatian, Czech and Russian translations.

In his book The Completeness of the Kantian Judgment Table , published in 1995, Wolff reconstructs Kant's evidence of the completeness of the logical forms of judgment listed in this table in a critical discussion with Klaus Reich , Lorenz Krüger and Reinhard Brandt . An essay on Frege's conceptual writing from 1879 is appended to this book. In it, Wolff shows the misunderstandings on which Frege's rejection of the Kantian judgment table is based.

Wolff's criticism of Frege gave rise to the idea for his treatise on the principles of logic , the first edition of which was published in 2005 and the second edition (supplemented by a reconstruction of the Aristotelian syllogistics including modal syllogistics) in 2009. In it, Wolff gives up his earlier view that Frege's logic system is incommensurable (see incommensurability (philosophy of science) ) with what Kant understood by general logic .

In the first part (called 'analytical') of this treatise , a logical universal language translatable into the formal languages ​​of modern systems of deductive logic is developed (by applying language analysis to formal languages) . This differs from the formal (conventional) language of syllogistics in that it not only contains conceptual and judgment variables, but also a set of descriptive expressions that can be enlarged as desired , which (like conceptual variables ) can take the place of the logical predicate or logical subject in judgments . These descriptive expressions are partly conceptual constants (such as ζ a = 'object named a') and partly function expressions of the form ('v) Φ (v). In ('v) Φ (v) the metalinguistic expression Φ (t) represents any ( n -place) elementary or compound quantifiable function expression with exactly one space, ie exactly one free variable v. If v in Φ (v) is bound by the prefix '(' v) ', the function expression Φ (v) is transformed into an expression that can take the place of a concept (ie a logical predicate) in judgments. This transformation corresponds to the transformation of a grammatical predicate of the form 'is an α' into a logical predicate α. In the logical universal language, only expressions of syllogistics come into consideration as logical constants , namely expressions of logical conceptual and judgment relationships. These are consistently understood as non-truth-functional expressions (see truth value function ). The syllogistics of the Analytica priora of Aristotle is reconstructed in Wolff's treatise as a consistently non-truth-functional system. In contrast, the use of propositional constants and quantifiers in the (Fregeschen) system of the so-called classical ('conceptual') predicate logic is understood in such a way that it is used without exception to abbreviate complex expressions of the logical universal language. Elementary logical relationships cannot be reproduced in this system at all.

In the second ('synthetic') part of Wolff's treatise , strictly generally applicable basic rules that can be expressed in logical universal language are set up, according to which (direct) inferences, (indirect) inferences and chain connections take place. The strict generality of these rules is based directly on the meaning assigned to the logical constants that occur in them through suitable definitions of use. These rules partly correspond to the basic rules of categorical and non-categorical syllogistics (including modal syllogistics), and partly to the meta-syllogistic derivation rules known since antiquity, according to which other rules can be derived from basic rules. After establishing syllogistic or metasyllogistic basic and derivation rules, it is shown how the Aristotelian syllogistics can be reconstructed without any contradictions on the basis of these rules. Then, in the second part, it is proven that with the help of meta-syllogistic derivation rules, the system of axiomatic principles and derivation rules of classical predicate logic ( developed for the first time by Frege in his conceptual writing) can be derived from syllogistic basic rules precisely if one in addition to these four elementary rules as declared valid, which can be expressed in the logical universal language, but are not generally valid because their validity is not based on the meaning of the logical constants occurring in them. The commensurability of syllogistics and classical predicate logic is thus proven. The systems of non-classical predicate logic ( intuitionistic , relevance-logical and free logics) are also shown to be derivable from syllogistic rules if, in addition to these, rules are assumed to be valid that can be expressed in the logical universal language, but not like the syllogistic rules are generally valid. Since only syllogistic expressions occur as logical constants in the logical universal language, Kant's table of logical forms of judgment remains valid for the modern systems of deductive logic. This is because, without exception, they contain a common core of strictly general rules and only differ from one another in that they also require different rules outside of this core that are not strictly general .

In 2006 Wolff published an Introduction to Logic , which is based on the ideas of his 2004 treatise . This book explains the basic rules of logic that are tacitly assumed to be universal in modern systems of deductive logic. This distinguishes it from modern introductions of the same name: These use the definite article in their title, although they almost always only deal with truth functions and so-called classical predicate logic and at best take a sidelong glance at so-called non-classical systems, the syllogistics but only grant a historical interest (if at all). Wolff's Introduction to Logic , however, is not an exercise book, but a logical propaedeutic that explains exactly on which elements all logical reasoning and inference is based.

Publication (selection)

Monographs
Essay
  • "Many Logics - One Reason. Why Logical Pluralism is a Mistake." In: Methodus. International Journal for Modern Philosophy 7 (2013), 73–128.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Klaus Reich The completeness of the judgment table , Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, Third Edition 1986, reprint in: Klaus Reich, Gesammelte Schriften . With an introduction and annotations from the estate edited by M. Baum, U. Rameil, K. Reisinger and G. Scholz, Hamburg: Meiner Verlag 2001, pp. 3–112. ISBN 3-7873-0693-5
  2. ↑ Lorenz Krüger, 'Did Kant want to prove the completeness of the judgment table?', In: Kant-Studien 59 (1968), pp. 333–356
  3. ↑ Reinhard Brandt, The judgment panel. Critique of Pure Reason (A 67-76; B 92-101) . Meiner Verlag, Hamburg 1991, ISBN 3-7873-1015-0
  4. ↑ Let B. the two-digit function F (x, 2) has the same meaning as 'x is a square root of 2'. Then F (..., 2) corresponds to the grammatical predicate '... is a root of 2'. The term (or the logical predicate) 'root of 2' is contained in it and cannot be represented by either 'F' or 'F (..., 2)'. The binding of the free variable x with the prefix '(' x) 'in' ('x) (x 2 = 2)' is necessary to put 'x 2 = 2)' in the term (or the logical predicate) 'root to transform from 2 '. Frege's equation of function and concept is based on neglecting the difference (which is fundamental to traditional logic ) between grammatical and logical predicate, since he uses the indivisible expression of the grammatical predicate ('... is an α' or 'F (... ) ') considered to be an expression of what was generally called a' concept 'in logic until 1879.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wolff, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Solingen