Ekkehard Martens

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Ekkehard Martens (born November 2, 1943 in Opole ) is a German philosopher who specializes in ancient philosophy , ethics and philosophy didactics .

Life

After graduating from the Sankt Ansgar School in Hamburg in 1963 , Ekkehard Martens studied philosophy, Latin, Greek and pedagogy in Frankfurt, Tübingen and Hamburg. He was a PhD scholarship holder at the Starnberg Max Planck Institute for research into the living conditions of the scientific and technical world under Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker . Martens received his doctorate with a thesis on Plato's philosophy and qualified as a professor in philosophy didactics. After working as a grammar school teacher and as a scientific assistant for philosophy at the University of Education in Münster, he taught from 1978 until his retirement in 2009 as a professor for didactics of philosophy and ancient languages ​​at the University of Hamburg . Several teaching positions and visiting professorships followed, most recently at the Universities of Essen and Bochum. From 1997 to 2001 Ekkehard Martens (together with Dieter Birnbacher and Peter Nenninger) took over the scientific support of the school experiment "Practical Philosophy" in North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1978 he has also been the founder and co-editor of the “Journal for Didactics of Philosophy and Ethics”.

Focus of work

Martens' research focuses on the philosophy of antiquity with some translations of Plato dialogues and publications on Socrates, in the field of applied ethics, in the didactics of philosophy and ethics as well as in philosophizing with children. The “Basic Philosophy Course” published together with Herbert Schnädelbach has also attracted international attention and has been translated into various languages.

Philosophy didactics

Philosophy term

Martens divides philosophy into two aspects: philosophy as a fact ("philosophy") and as an activity ("philosophizing"). Martens describes the type and functionality of the respective aspect as follows: "With philosophy as a factual matter are the knowledge, theories or products of tradition [...], with philosophizing as an activity [is] the process of knowing." Martens rejects the formulation of a clear separation of the aspects. He emphasizes the necessary connections and reciprocal exchange processes between facts and activities. He states that the facts “cannot be understood, examined and further developed without [..] activity. Conversely, [...] [the activity] is shaped by [..] knowledge of the previous philosophy [...] ”. Furthermore, the tradition is supposed to enrich and stimulate the activity of philosophizing through the thousands of years of accumulated “knowledge of content and methods”; the learner or the budding philosopher should therefore acquire the methods and contents legitimized by authorities as basic knowledge, but in order to be really philosophically active, they must use them in thinking and exceed them in discourse with text, the self or a conversation partner. According to Martens, who is referring to Spaemann here, philosophizing is a “continuous discourse”. This continuous discourse will be ignited by everyday questions and - if a continuous philosophical activity is practiced - inevitably advance to basic questions.

Following up on Socrates , Martens is skeptical as to whether these basic questions can be answered or whether it makes sense at all to answer them finally, since the real gain lies in the dispute, in the execution. The argumentative process of philosophy that emerges in the discourse and the openness on which it is based, which makes the discourse fruitful in the first place, distinguish philosophy and its practice - according to Martens - from the fundamental discourse of religions .

Who can practice philosophy? Martens believes that everyone - from children to retirees - can philosophize usefully. Philosophy is not limited to expert groups or people who have got into existential borderline situations . Martens gets right to the point when he writes: "Anyone can get into a situation of fundamental rethinking."

Following on from this opening of philosophy, Martens criticizes the two-class model of philosophy: the division into (worse) popular philosophy and (better) academic philosophy . Martens suggests abandoning this qualitative divide and advocates a graduation model. In this, the path leads from the more easily accessible popular philosophy through increasing acquisition of methodical competence to elaborate, specialized academic philosophy. Even if a qualitative increase (in form of expression, etc.) could be diagnosed here, Martens emphasizes that even the elaborate, academic philosophy - just as little as the popular - can provide a final answer to the basic or ultimate questions.

With his classification and the following description of philosophizing as an activity, he joins philosophers such as Socrates, Kant and Wittgenstein . Martens quotes “the Kantian formula 'learn to philosophize' [...]” as a concise key sentence.

Goal of the philosophy class

Martens sums it up succinctly and precisely: "The primary goal is acquisition of competence , not acquisition of knowledge [...]." Kind of knowledge acquisition goal of philosophy class would be. The learners should not memorize abstract data and decontextualized facts, but get to know "basic philosophical texts [...] of well-successful philosophy", which can serve as an example and guide for philosophical activity.

Martens first roughly outlines the methods to be learned as “(a) 'discourse', (b) 'continuity' and (c) attitude of openness”.

Discourse here means the argumentative process that comes to light in philosophical discussion with texts and interlocutors. Continuity is the productive link to the philosophical tradition. The attitude of openness makes productive argumentation possible. Only when the participants in the discourse admit that they only have “insights that are as well-founded as possible” can something new arise from the personal or traditional basis that nevertheless includes these foundations.

Martens takes a critical view - following on from his graduation model - the necessary use and reference of texts from academic philosophy in the classroom. He sees “excessive academic specializations” as inhibiting “the broadest possible practice of philosophizing in the educational process at school”.

Martens rejects the goal that philosophy should lead to a personality change forced by teachers and society or act as a way of life. This misses the reality of teaching; In addition, any kind of (positive) change in the pupil outside of school due to the philosophy lesson can neither be determined, measured nor evaluated by the teacher .

Philosophizing as an elementary cultural technique

Based on Martens' above assumptions, it becomes clear: Philosophizing is not about an activity that falls to a small, talented elite and of which the great majority can at best catch the pale appearance of popular philosophy (which is usually negative in tradition), but everyone can philosophize productively, provided that he has acquired the necessary (basic) skills. In other words: philosophy is a "teachable and learnable cultural technique ".

With the choice of the term cultural technology, Martens takes a clear position. Philosophizing is provocatively placed in the series of reading , writing , and arithmetic , so it is just as fundamental for a successful life in today's society. In addition, the term emphasizes that the ability to philosophize is practically meaningful and can be conveyed systematically, so it is not a (luxury) talent reserved for an elite.

Martens wants to achieve the teachability of philosophizing and the implementation of the graduation model of philosophy by means of an integrative method paradigm. Based on Martens 'analysis of Socratic and Aristotelian practice, Martens' method paradigm includes the phenomenological , hermeneutic , analytical as well as dialectical and speculative method; each of these methods can be assigned to main currents of philosophy and philosophers. Paradigmatic philosophers would be Husserl and Heidegger with regard to the phenomenological method, for example, with regard to the dialectical Hegel and Marx. In Martens' schema, the methods are not to be thought of as isolated and strictly separated from one another, but together form a networked graduation model, which allows (and requires) setting of priorities, but (almost) always uses all methods.

Works

  • Plato, Charmides . Greek / German Trans. U. with a note, Reclam, Stuttgart 1977
  • Dialogic-pragmatic philosophy didactics , Schroedel, Hannover 1979
  • Introduction to the Didactics of Philosophy , Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1983
  • The thread of Ariadne or: Why all philosophers are crazy , Metzler, Stuttgart 1991 (new edition Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-379-01704-3 )
  • Philosophy - A basic course , (Ed. Together with H. Schnädelbach), 2 volumes, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1991
  • Ethics - Ein Grundkurs , (Ed. Together with H. Hastedt), Rowohlt, Reinbek 1996
  • Between good and bad. Elementary questions of applied philosophy , Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-15009635-9 .
  • Philosophizing with Children - An Introduction to Philosophy , Reclam, Stuttgart 1997
  • Philosophical masterpieces (Ed. Together with E. Nordhofen, J. Siebert). 2 volumes, Reclam, Stuttgart 1998/2001
  • Live a good life. Ethik , (Ed.) Bayerischer Schulbuchverlag, Munich 2002
  • About amazement or: The return of curiosity , Reclam, Leipzig 2003
  • So I think I am. Basic texts of philosophy (ed.). 3rd edition, Beck, Munich 2003
  • Methodology of teaching ethics and philosophy. Philosophizing as an elementary cultural technique , Siebert, Hannover 2003
  • Practical Handbooks Philosophy / Ethics , 4 vols. (Ed. Together with H. Hastedt / J. Rohbeck, V. Steenblock), Siebert, Hannover 2003/2004
  • Socrates - an introduction , Reclam, Stuttgart 2004
  • Plato - Basic Knowledge Philosophy , Reclam, Stuttgart 2009
  • Praise of age. A philosophical reading book , Artemis & Winkler, Mannheim 2011

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martens is well aware that the nature and content of philosophy as such “have been controversially discussed since its inception. [And that] [what] philosophy is and should be, [.] Itself a philosophical question [is] and cannot be answered unequivocally. "See Martens, Methodik des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, p. 15.
  2. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 15.
  3. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 15.
  4. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 23.
  7. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 17.
  8. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 19.
  9. ↑ “For the 'last questions' in any case they do not bring any 'final answers' either.” See Martens, Methodik des Ethik- und Philosophieunterrichts, p. 24.
  10. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 15.
  11. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 16.
  12. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 16.
  13. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 17.
  14. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 18.
  15. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, pp. 16–19.
  16. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 24.
  17. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 28.
  18. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, p. 28.
  19. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, pp. 30–33.
  20. ↑ Martens, Methodology of Ethics and Philosophy Lessons, pp. 48–58.
personal data
SURNAME Martens, Ekkehard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH November 2, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Opole