Book of nature

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Book of nature ( Latin liber naturae ) is a parable introduced by the late antique church father Augustine . For Augustine and other Christian authors, the term refers to the book of creatures , which is a further source of knowledge of God alongside the Bible as the book of revelation . In this way, nature becomes a cipher that has to be deciphered. The "Book of Nature" by Konrad von Megenberg , created in the 14th century, is considered the first German-language natural history.

For Galileo Galilei , the book of nature is written in mathematical symbols:

“Philosophy is written in that great book that is always before our eyes; but we cannot understand it unless we first learn the language and signs in which it is written. That language is mathematics, and the signs are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures without which it is impossible for man to understand a single word of them; without this one wanders around in a dark labyrinth. "

- Saggiatore 1623.Section 6

The metaphor of the book of nature had a significant influence, for example, on Johann Georg Hamann , Friedrich Christoph Oetinger and on romanticism (including Tieck , Novalis ): nature speaks of the divine in secret symbols (ciphers).

According to Karl Jaspers , everything that makes transcendence present is a cipher . There is nothing that cannot be a cipher. The place of reading the cipher is existence .

Ultimately, this picture is based on the basic assumption that the world is legible ( Hans Blumenberg ). Blumenberg gives a learned and profound overview of the history of corresponding concepts and the relevant "'background metaphors" (...) of writing, letters and books ", with which a" claim to the meaningfulness of the world is articulated ", which is far reaching in terms of metaphor and problem history. will.

Martin Buber extends the principle of the legibility of nature to a dialogical principle of world encounters: “Each of us is in a tank whose task is to ward off signs. Signs happen to us incessantly, to live means to be spoken to, we only had to face ourselves, only to hear. "And:" What happens to me is an address to me. As what happens to me, world events are addressed to me. "

The metaphor of the book of nature also finds its resonance in a linguistic-philosophical critique of anti-realism:

“The world consists entirely of signs, as the discovery of the genetic code has made clear to many. The world consists of signs because signs are nothing more than objects that draw attention to other objects and thus relate them to one another. The world is a comprehensive system of representation and language is the key to the world. It is the 'instinct of people' - their orientation and knowledge map. "

- Elisabeth Leiss

literature

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Martin Gessmann (Ed.): Philosophical Dictionary , 23rd edition, Stuttgart 2009, article book of nature.
  2. ^ Franz Pfeiffer: The book of nature by Konrad von Megenberg. The first natural history in German. Stuttgart 1861
  3. ↑ Hügli, Lübcke (Ed.): Philosophielexikon , 5th edition, Reinbek 2003, Article Chiffre.
  4. ^ IM Bocheński, European Philosophy of the Present , 3rd Edition, Tübingen and Basel 1994, p. 202.
  5. ↑ Hans Blumenberg: The legibility of the world. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1981, p. 12.
  6. ↑ Martin Buber: Dialogue. In: ders .: The dialogical principle , 6th edition, Gerlingen 1992, p. 153f.
  7. ^ Elisabeth Leiss: Sprachphilosophie , Berlin and New York 2009, p. 15.