Dieter Wittich

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Dieter Wittich

Dieter Wittich (born February 7, 1930 in Mansbach ; † June 22, 2011 in Strausberg ) was a German philosopher who dealt with epistemology and philosophy of science from a Marxist-Leninist position .

Life

Dieter Wittich, who grew up in Schmalkalden in the Thuringian Forest, studied philosophy with Georg Klaus first at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and from 1953 at the Humboldt University . In 1960 he received his doctorate with a thesis on the materialism dispute and in the same year began to give lectures on Marxist-Leninist epistemology. From 1966 Wittich taught at the Karl-Marx University in Leipzig and held the only chair for epistemology that existed in the GDR . From 1974 to 1990 he was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities there, and retired in 1995.

Wittich published around 150 scientific publications in the GDR, but also in the USA, England, Austria and Colombia. He was an expert on the more recent, not Marxist-oriented philosophy of science in the Anglo-Saxon world. In 1979 he was elected to the Saxon Academy of Sciences and in 1995 to the Leibniz Society in Berlin.

According to Heinrich Opitz, Wittich founded the "Leipzig Epistemological School" in the 1960s, which set itself the task of systematically collating the scattered statements of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels on epistemology received their genuinely appropriate place in the system of Marxist philosophy ". The followers of this school turned against the Stalinist division of Marxist philosophy into dialectical materialism and historical materialism .

Works (selection)

  • Translation to Russian, authorized by Georg Klaus : Arnost Kol'man : What is cybernetics . Verlag Junge Welt, Berlin 1955 (scientific supplement to Forum , 1955, 23)
  • German petty-bourgeois materialism of the reaction years after 1848/49. With special consideration of the natural historical materialism of Ludwig Büchner . Dissertation, unpublished, Berlin 1960
  • The materialistic epistemology . Humboldt University, Berlin 1962, 2nd edition, volume 4 of: Dialektischer Materialismus. Distance learning philosophy
  • Practice, knowledge, science . German Science Publishing House, Berlin 1965
  • Epistemology. Study guide . Institute for Philosophy at the Humboldt University, Berlin 1965
  • On questions of the Marxist definition of practice and the relationship between practice and knowledge , habilitation thesis, Humboldt University, Berlin 1966
  • with Reinhold Miller, head of the collective of authors of Die Sozialistische Weltanschauung , People and Knowledge, Berlin 1966 (3rd edition, Volume 3 of Citizenship )
  • Editing and introduction: Carl Vogt , Jakob Moleschott and Ludwig Büchner , writings on petty-bourgeois materialism in Germany , 2 volumes, Academy, Berlin 1971 (Philosophical Study Texts 38)
  • On the subject matter and methods of Marxist-Leninist epistemology , Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaft, Berlin 1973
  • with Klaus Gössler and Kurt Wagner: Marxist-Leninist epistemology . 2nd Edition; 1st edition 1978. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaft, Berlin 1980
  • Thoughts on the work of Karl Marx in its significance for socialist university policy. Presentation to the plenary session of the Scientific Council on January 19, 1983 . Karl Marx University, Leipzig 1983, ( Leipzig University Speeches , New Series, Issue 64)
  • Why and how Lenin's major philosophical work came about. Origin, methodology and reception of " Materialism and Empirio-Criticism " , Dietz, Berlin 1985 (basic questions of Marxist-Leninist philosophy)
  • On the genesis and reception history of VI Lenin's work "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" . Academy, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-05-000069-4 ( session reports of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig , Philological-Historical Class, Volume 127, Issue 2)
  • with Horst Poldrack: The London Congress on the History of Science 1931 and the problem of determining the development of knowledge . Academy, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-05-001062-2 ( Meeting reports of the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig , Philological-Historical Class, Volume 130, Issue 5)
  • with Helmut Seidel and Volker Caysa : On the concept of philosophical practice. The second practical discussion in the GDR . Texts on Philosophy Volume 12, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Saxony, 2002.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Necrologist 2011: Dieter Wittich .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www2.hu-berlin.de  
  2. ^ Members of the SAW; Dieter Wittich. Saxon Academy of Sciences, accessed on December 23, 2016 .
  3. ^ Heinrich Opitz: Philosophical schools in the GDR? The Leipzig Epistemological School. In: Disordered Reason? Thoughts on determining where the GDR philosophy is. Ed. V. Hans-Jürgen Mende and Reinhard Mocek, Berlin 1996, pp. 129-137; Quotation on p. 133
personal data
SURNAME Wittich, Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German epistemological philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Mansbach
DATE OF DEATH June 22, 2011
Place of death Strausberg