Eric Weil

Eric Weil (born June 8, 1904 in Parchim ; † February 1, 1977 in Nice ) is a French philosopher of German-Jewish origin whose main systematic work Logique de la philosophie (1950) unfolds the dialectic of freedom and truth in an open philosophical system . From the perspective of the history of philosophy, it is a synthesis of Kantianism and Hegelianism .

Life

Eric Weil was born as "Erich Weil" in 1904 in Parchim / Mecklenburg, Germany. He wrote his philosophical dissertation with Ernst Cassirer . He emigrated to France in 1933 and became a French citizen in 1938. In the service of the French military, he was taken prisoner by Germany during World War II . After the war he co-founded Critique magazine . From 1956 he was professor of general philosophy in Lille, from 1969 professor in Nice. In 1970 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

He married Anne Mendelsohn in Paris in 1934 (born November 25, 1903 in Stolp near Königsberg; † July 5, 1984 in Nice), who did her doctorate in 1928 with Ernst Cassirer on Wilhelm von Humboldt's philosophy of language and - in addition to looking after her husband's writings - in the upper class Service of the European administration in Geneva, Luxembourg and Brussels worked. She has been one of Hannah Arendt's most important friends since her time in Königsberg.

philosophy

General characterization

The center of Weil's philosophy is the Logique de la philosophie (1950). It is an original variant of a system philosophy inspired by Hegel : the philosopher appears as a figure who goes in search of the "absolutely coherent discourse" (which brings reality as a whole to the concept). The philosopher wants to understand the meaning of reality; this also means that he understands himself and his own actions (as a discourse driver), d. H. includes the free act of thinking itself in reflecting on reality. The free decision for reason (which Eric Weil schematically contrasts with the decision for arbitrariness, for violence) is for Weil synonymous with the will to unite in an absolutely coherent discourse. Based on this Hegelian legacy, Weil's philosophy must be clearly distinguished from postmodern or deconstructivist discourses, insofar as these reject the systemic claim.

But Weil saw himself primarily as a "post-Hegelian Kantian" (a self-designation that is not found in Weil's writings, but has come down to us from colleagues and friends, see e.g. Paul Ricœur , Le conflit des interprétations, Paris 1969, p 402 f.): The rational, but finite being that man is (this formula of the "finite rational being" discovered by Kant ) finds no substantive fulfillment for his will to an absolutely coherent discourse; the "wisdom" to which the Logique de la philosophie finally arrives is not absolute knowledge in the style of Hegel, but remains consciously a formal knowledge that discursively does not reach the fullness of reality.

The Logique de la philosophie conducts a philosophical, formal-dialectical meta-discourse on philosophical and non-philosophical discourses, which can be expressed in categories (French: catégorie ) for philosophical reflection . Structurally speaking, the development of the total of 18 categories begins with a category of pure content ("truth") and ends in the formal categories of "meaning" and "wisdom", which (like the "truth" at the beginning) do not can be expressed more through a certain theoretical discourse, but only through a practical attitude (French attitude , the second basic term next to catégorie ) towards discourses. The theoretical work of philosophy (the world of the discursive) is between these categories of beginning and end. It was important to Eric Weil not to pour this peculiarly formal conclusion of his system conception again into a specifically substantive, ontological discourse about reality.

The categories of the Logique de la philosophie

Truth ( vérité )

Philosophizing begins with an arbitrarily set, initially unjustifiable definition of philosophy: "Philosophy is the search for truth." However what is truth? Truth is the whole that cannot be fixed linguistically, because everything is in truth. The truth sought by the philosophical discourse is therefore not itself anything discursively predictable (as suggested in the traditional concept of truth as the correspondence between statement and reality), but forms the inexpressible ground, the unlimited terrain of every possible discourse. The so-understood category ( catégorie ) the truth can only a silent setting ( attitude , respectively).

Nonsense ( non-sens )

The silent person of "truth" can decide to speak. Exactly in this speaking there is the (inducible) transition to the category attitude of "nonsense": The silent attitude in truth is not identical with the speaking attitude in truth, because only the latter shows that all speaking is nonsense is because it fails to express the truth. Consequently, this attitude leads back to silence. Incidentally, there are already indications that everything that was said in the brief description of the first category cannot be said by the category itself (because its attitude is pure silence). This means that we have to differentiate from the beginning between the "teaching" of a category and its "explanation" by the logician of philosophy, who set the discourse movement in motion with his initial definition of philosophy as the search for truth. It will be shown in the following that it is precisely this dialectic between the doctrine of a category and its unsaid (implied in its attitude) that is made explicit by the explanation that forms, so to speak, the engine of the development of the logical categories.

The true and the false ( Le vrai et le faux )

The "nonsense" person can go a step further by not simply returning to silence, but on the contrary recognizing the fact that he has spoken and can speak: the difference between the first two categories is only evident in the language. This recognition of the fundamental fact of language is the reason why philosophical discourse only begins with this category (illustrated historically by pre-Socratic philosophers such as Parmenides and Heraclitus ). Their "doctrine", however, is not expressed in a substantive theory, but in the poetic expression of truth: It is true that truth cannot be linguistically determined; it is wrong to identify the truth with a certain stated content. The truth that the category aims at in speaking does not show itself in a linguistic content, but in the (poetic) form of speaking.

Certainty ( certitude )

The human being does not have to be satisfied with this "formal" truth of the poetic word, but can interpret it as a discourse with fixed content, the truth of which is immediately present and therefore certain. If we can characterize the person of the preceding category as a master of the poetic word, then the person of certainty is the pupil of this poetic master, who now sets out to understand the truth as a content-related, directly certain discourse in the lifeworld and therefore other forms of to oppose mere erroneous speech. Such a content-based and therefore world-forming discourse is community-building. Anyone who does not belong to this particular community of certainty is not a person, but a "barbarian".

The discussion ( La discussion )

The person of substantive certainty can transcend their attitude when they experience that there are different communities with different certainties. If he takes this experience seriously, then his substantive certainty is transformed into the formal idea of ​​a possible certainty that would be achieved if all people had come to an agreement in the medium of reasonable discussion. With the first distinction between form and content, we are confronted in this category with a form of philosophy that is familiar and understandable to us today (who find it difficult to understand the "poverty" of the previous "primitive categories"): One Philosophy that sees itself as a formally coherent (non-contradictory) discourse ( logic ) and can be illustrated historically through the attitude of Socrates .

The object ( L'objet )

People cross the category of discussion when they (made confused by the experience that the discussion cannot be closed) are no longer willing to be content with the formal language of the discussion: the discourse must not only be free of contradictions, but also with reality, with to being as the absolute object of discourse. With this the logical birth of the ontology is complete, the attitude of which can be historically illustrated by Plato .

The I ( Le moi )

The being or the existing reason, which is discovered by ontology, leaves the individual unsatisfied. Man can therefore discover his "I" in such a way that he begins to ask what could be the reason for happiness for "myself". The solution to this problem is found by the ego in the liberation of its essential self as reason (to be illustrated historically by both Stoic and Epicurean philosophy).

God ( dieu )

Man does not have to be satisfied with this solution, which is equivalent to a task for the self. In the new attitude, the person experiences an absolute, personal I (the creator and redeemer god of the Abrahamic religions : Judaism, Christianity, Islam), who not only affirms the individual as a part of reason, but as a concretely existing, feeling individual in himself body and soul wholeness. God keeps the existing man (existentia) in being, he is therefore the essence ( essentia ) of man. With the category "God" we have reached a decisive turning point in the development of the category: This is where the birth of modern free reflection is located; for for the first time man reflects himself in another (here: in God), whereas the previous "Greek" categories (the discussion; the object; the ego) ultimately could not recognize any other reality than that of reason. However, the reflection of man in God is first and foremost a reflection "in himself", not yet a reflection "for himself" (because the believer cannot understand that God is the essence of himself). The conceptual work of the categories that now follow will consist in making the reflection explicit, right up to the identity of the self and the other in the absolute reflection (see " the absolute ").

Condition ( condition )

The fulfillment that the believer finds in God is out of this world. The person who does not want to be satisfied with this because his freedom demands a worldly content will rediscover the reflexive structure in the immanence of the world: The world is nothing other than an infinite, functional, conditional context, which man himself in the form of scientific -technical discourse for his life can serve. Eric Weil characterizes the discursive dominance of this science-technology and the associated social rationalization as "our situation" in the present.

Consciousness ( conscience )

But humans do not have to be satisfied with the functional relationships that the scientific-technical discourse discovers. The person of the new attitude can oppose the infinitely reciprocal conditionality of the scientific discourse with the only unconditional, absolute condition that exceeds every scientific discourse for reasons of principle, but which this must presuppose as absolutely valid: the transcendental ego in its transcendental freedom, that as positing consciousness makes every discourse possible in the first place. For historical illustration, one should think in part of Kant's transcendental philosophy, but above all of Fichte's version of the transcendental philosophy .

Intelligence ( intelligence )

The person with the new attitude regards the inconclusive struggle of the positing transcendental ego against the posited empirical ego as won and instead begins to interpret the empirical worlds as the positions of transcendental subjects, each with specific interests. The result is the foundation of the humanities as a philosophy of world view from the perspective of an uninterested observer, a "free intelligence".

Personality ( personnalité )

Man will not be satisfied with this empty, disinterested game of intelligence when he begins to notice that, as an uninterested observer, he understands all other people in their interests and worldviews, but precisely not himself in his actions. The "personality" rejects the position of the uninterested observer and claims to be a free, authentic self that becomes transparent to itself in its life. The personality who experiences himself as absolute worldly freedom, however, has to notice that there can be no authentic discourse appropriate to him that can express his absolute conflict identity (in which the world and freedom are selectively one). This category can be illustrated historically by Nietzsche .

The absolute ( L'absolu )

The person of the new attitude understands the conflict of personality as a form of the conflict that the world itself is. This conflict of the world can be brought to the concept of "absolutely coherent discourse". The absolutely coherent discourse is thinking that thinks itself, the absolute reflection of the absolute in which the identity of thinking, being, freedom and reason comes to light. Hegel can serve as a historical illustration.

The work ( L'œuvre )

The absolute discourse "abolished" all particularities in the concrete universal. With this, philosophy as the search for truth seems to have finally found its absolute realization. However, the originality of Eric Weil's philosophy is expressed in the fact that it is precisely at this point that the philosophical questioning continues or begins anew. It turns out that the individual can revolt against the absolute discourse because he can reject the sacrifice of himself with regard to the absolute discourse as meaningless for him . The absolute rejection of absolute discourse manifests itself in a mute, anti-philosophical attitude of mere making for the sake of making: in the violence that the individual can choose in his freedom. For an explanatory look at this silent attitude towards violence, it now becomes clear that the gap between freedom and discourse, which "the absolute" believed it was closing, cannot be closed. With this fact of the revolt a new kind of philosophical question arises: a philosophical reflection on philosophy itself.

The finite ( Le fini )

The human being who looks at the absolute revolt against the philosophical discourse (in the form of the "absolute"), but wants to continue speaking as a philosopher, discovers the intrinsic finitude of human beings: A coherent discourse is meaningless because of the excessive freedom that is contained in the -poietic violence of the "work" expresses impossible and doomed to failure in principle. Finiteness is shown in the fact that all human, free design must fail, i.e. H. the human being "is" not, but rather "is" (paradoxically expressed) non-objectifiable, irreconcilable "being able to be". Philosophy remains the task of expressing these paradoxes of the finite in an expressly "incoherent discourse" in order to open its ears to "fundamental poetry" (the original creative power in language that is revealed in poetry). Heidegger should be considered as a historical illustration of this category .

The action ( L'action )

The person involved in action seizes the possibility of a reconciliation of the absolute discourse and the categories of revolt (the work; the finite), and indeed when he takes the practical, acting dimension of the discourse seriously: he understands that philosophy is part of a Dialectic of discourse and situation (or of category and attitude; or in the formal reflection concepts of a logic of philosophy: of teaching and explanation). The last step of this dialectic must be to realize philosophy as a coherent lifeworld, i.e. H. philosophy has to be realized in political action. For a historical illustration of the practical dimensions of this category, one should think of Marx (cf. his well-known 11th Feuerbach thesis: "The philosophers have only interpreted the world differently, it depends on changing it."). "The action" is the last concrete category setting of the logic of philosophy, i.e. H. it cannot be overcome in favor of a new, concrete attitude with its own discourse. The (non-Marxist) political elaboration of the category is provided by Eric Weil in his Philosophie politique .

Sense ( sens )

Despite this end of philosophy in the "plot", two other categories follow. How is this to be understood? The last two categories are formal categories with no discourse of their own; H. they do not formulate a new position of philosophy in opposition to earlier categories, but rather have the purpose of establishing the just completed project of a logic of philosophy itself. The person who lives in the attitude of "action" can reach the category of "meaning" if he asks himself what the goal of his action is. The answer is: The goal of action is meaning as a fulfilled, content life in a present time in which there is no longer any need for philosophical discourse and thus for action. This meaning beyond philosophy and action is of course not necessarily discursive, but only its formal form. The logic of philosophy thinks of the concrete, particular sense of all the aforementioned category attitudes in a formal unity, precisely as a system of a multitude of irreducible philosophical categories. The self-understanding of the logic of philosophy becomes clear: It is a formal science of concrete meaning.

Wisdom ( sagesse )

The man of the "action" is on the way to the realization of the meaning, while the philosopher thinks this meaning on the way of its realization . But what is a wise person? The sage completes the realization of philosophy (which is already the "striving for wisdom" in its very concept) by understanding the condition of possibility for the concrete search for meaning and the formal unity in the science of meaning: the reality of meaning, the structured order the world (the cosmos ). The philosopher thinks the meaning, whereas the wise one sees and lives the actual meaning of the whole, he experiences, in his respective discourse situation, the unity of life and reflection. "Wisdom" leads back to the beginning of the logic of philosophy in "truth" insofar as it forms the opening of finite human freedom to the whole of truth.

Weil's logic can be understood as an explication of what it means to be a "finite", but nevertheless "reasonable" being (and thus in contact with the infinite).

literature

Works

In the following, the existing German translations are listed first, followed by an annotated chronological list of the most important works by Eric Weil.

• Philosophy of politics . Luchterhand, Berlin 1964.
• Problems of Kantian thinking. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-428-10612-1

1950

• Logique de la philosophy . Vrin, Paris (systematic major work)
• Hegel et l'Etat . Vrin, Paris (study on Hegel's political philosophy, important impulse for the French reception of Hegel)

1956

• Philosophy politique . Vrin, Paris (Philosophical Development of Political Action)

1961

• Philosophy morale . Vrin, Paris (Philosophical Development of Moral Life)

1963

• Problems with Kantiens . Vrin, Paris (essays on the difference between thinking and knowing, on the "second Copernican revolution" in Kant's "Critique of Judgment" and on the role of history and politics in Kant's thought)

1970

• Problems with Kantiens . Vrin, Paris (2nd edition, supplemented by an essay entitled "The radical evil, religion and morality")
• Essais et conférences . Plon, Paris (two-volume collection of lectures and essays on topics of general philosophy and political philosophy)

1982

• Philosophy et réalité . Beauchesne, Paris (posthumously published collection of further articles and lectures)

1985

• La Philosophy de Pietro Pomponazzi. Pic de La Mirandole et la critique de l'astrologie . Vrin, Paris (Posthumous publication of academic papers on two Renaissance philosophers, pre-WWII)

2003

• Philosophy et réalité II . Beauchesne, Paris (texts from the estate)

Secondary literature

The German-language publications on Eric Weil and a small selection of the most important French-language publications are noted below.

• Bizeul, Yves [ed.]: Violence, morals and politics in Éric Weil. Lit Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-8258-9218-2 .
• Deligne, Alain: Eric Weil. A contemporary philosopher. Introduction to the work. Anthology of first translations from French together with first publication of a typescript, bibliography. Romanistischer Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-86143-082-7 .
• Mohr, Georg; Siep, Ludwig [Ed.]: Eric Weil. Ethics and political philosophy. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-08873-5 .
• Canivez, Patrice: Eric Weil ou la question du sens. Ellipses, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-7298-4871-1 .
• Ganty, Etienne: Penser la modernité. Essai sur Heidegger, Habermas et Eric Weil. Presses Universitaires de Namur, Namur 1997, ISBN 2-87037-214-0 .
• Kirscher, Gilbert: La philosophie d'Eric Weil. Systematicité et overture. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-13-042361-2 .
• Perine, Marcelo: Philosophy et violence. Sens et intention de la philosophie d'Eric Weil. Beauchesne, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-7010-1240-6 .
• Savadogo, Mahamadé: Éric Weil et l'achèvement de la philosophie dans l'Action. Presses universitaires de Namur, Namur 2003, ISBN 2-87037-429-1 .
• Schuchter, Patrick: The way of thinking into the present and the decision for reason. Passagen, Vienna 2014, ISBN 9783709201466

Web links

• Literature by and about Eric Weil in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature about Eric Weil in the state bibliography MV
• Center Eric Weil, Lille
• A thesis on the "Logique de la philosophie"

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hannah Arendt: I can't imagine how I'll live without you one day. Correspondence with friends Charlotte Beradt, Rose Feitelson, Hilde Fränkel, Anne Weil and Helen Wolff . Ed .: Ingeborg Nordmann / Ursula Ludz. Piper, Munich 2017, p. 19-225 .