Béla Weissmahr

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Father Weissmahr in 1982 explaining the problem of universals

Béla Weissmahr (born September 9, 1929 in Budapest , † April 28, 2005 in Munich ) was a Hungarian Jesuit and philosopher .

Life

Weissmahr joined the Marian Congregation in 1945 , graduated from high school in 1947 and then became a member of the Jesuit order. After the order was dissolved in Hungary in 1950, Weissmahr studied philosophy and theology in the seminary in Szeged from 1950 to 1952 . In 1952, Béla Weissmahr was dismissed from the seminary along with all the other former Jesuits. In order to have a legal existence - those who were fit for work and who were not included in the socialist labor process were interned - he did an apprenticeship as a metal worker and worked as a milling cutter for two years. At the same time, he took the de universa philosophia examination within the order . After Stalin's death in 1954, the political situation relaxed a little and it became possible for him to continue studying as a lay theologian at the Theological Academy in Budapest. After the suppression of the uprising in 1956, Béla Weissmahr left Hungary. He was sent to the theological faculty of the Dutch Jesuits in Maastricht , where he was ordained a priest in 1958.

From 1960 to 1966 he taught theology in Indonesia and returned to Europe in 1967, where he obtained his doctorate in Rome in 1971 with the dissertation of God's work in the world - a contribution to the discussion on the question of evolution and miracles . In 1971 he came to Munich and initially read the Philosophical Doctrine of God and from 1972 also metaphysics at the University of Philosophy in Munich . In 1980 he was appointed full professor.

With his metaphysics lecture, which was characterized by great spontaneity and lively exchange with the student body, Béla Weissmahr has shaped the intellectual atmosphere of the University of Philosophy for decades.

philosophy

Weissmahr's thinking was influenced by the transcendental Neuthomism of the Maréchal school. He combined this with various suggestions from Karl Rahner and later Hegel to create a metaphysics that was strongly dialectical. Weissmahr's main concern was to make the interdependencies of the whole of reality, the relationship between God, the world and man understandable. He tried to substantiate his metaphysical approach with the results of the natural sciences. So he interpreted the theory of evolution with the "self-improvement" that occurs in the activity of every being, a concept that he also made the starting point of his own philosophical argument for the existence of God.

Self-justification of metaphysics

A fundamental concern of Weissmahr's philosophical activity was the self-justification of metaphysics through the argument of retorsion . A statement is retorsively refuted if there is a so-called performative contradiction between the content of the statement and the execution of the statement . This comparison of the content of the statement and the execution of the statement is possible because the execution of the statement contains an implicit meaning that can be linguistically (in the form of subsequent statements): "... the performatively communicated [has] a semantic, ie meaning function".

Weissmahr uses this mode of argument to justify the possibility of metaphysics as a science that is not empirical but transcendental . Metaphysics is that science which conceptually unfolds the conditions of the possibility of statements that are enforced in every statement. A “ transcendental experience ”, which a scientific metaphysics has to explain, is reported in the statement . The articulation of this transcendental experience culminates in the term “ being ” and its peculiarity, which in its various aspects form the central theme of metaphysics. Central questions concern the relationship between identity and difference of beings (the so-called analogia entis ) and the relationship between thinking and being.

Weissmahr, a passionate advocate of transcendental-philosophical metaphysics , had no illusions about the out-of-time of his considerations in a world in which the empirical sciences function as the leading sciences (which is shown in philosophy in the form of naturalism ). The final sentence of his last book reads: “Where that is not the case [ie where the“ testimony of subjectivity ”which is expressed in the statement is not grasped in its ontological meaning], then the considerations presented should at most produce a condescending, benevolent shake of the head. "

Works

  • God's work in the world. A contribution to the discussion on the question of evolution and miracles. Frankfurt a. M. 1973 ISBN 3-7820-0287-3 .
  • Natural phenomena and miracles. in: Christian Faith in Modern Society. Volume 4, Freiburg im Breisgau 1982 (together with Otto Knoch )
  • Philosophical doctrine of God. 2nd edition Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-17-013126-5 .
  • Ontology. 2nd edition Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-17-011775-0 .
  • The reality of the mind. Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 3-17-018884-4 , ( limited preview in Google book search).
  • Ultimate reason. Metaphysical writings from the estate . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-17-028341-1

literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ For the curriculum vitae cf. the interview with Béla Weissmahr in the student newspaper is n't really? (No. 1 / WS 2001/02)
  2. ↑ Béla Weissmahr: The reality of the mind . Stuttgart 2006, p. 58.
  3. ↑ Béla Weissmahr: The reality of the mind . Stuttgart 2006, p. 134.
  4. ↑ Béla Weissmahr: The reality of the mind . Stuttgart 2006, p. 199.
personal data
SURNAME Weissmahr, Béla
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 9, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH April 28, 2005
Place of death Munich