Erwin Metzke

Erwin Metzke (born July 3, 1906 in Danzig ; † July 3, 1956 in Tübingen ) was a German philosopher who dealt in particular with the philosophers Hamann and Hegel as well as with the history of philosophy .

Life

Metzke, son of a professional soldier, attended the Marienwerder high school . From 1925 to 1929 he studied classical philology , philosophy and theology with Erich Seeberg in Cologne and Königsberg . He received his doctorate in 1929 under Heinz Heimsoeth with a thesis on " Karl Rosenkranz and Hegel ". He then focused on the school service and in 1930 passed the trainee exam. He completed the two-year preparation period in April 1932 with the assessor . Funded with a grant from the Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft , he submitted the work “ Johann Georg Hamann's Position in 18th Century Philosophy ” to the Königsberg Academic Society in January 1933 and received a full prize for it. The work became the basis of the habilitation at Heimsoeth, who had meanwhile moved to Cologne. The proceedings already scheduled for July 24th were suspended due to a decree of July 7th, 1933, in order to carry out the necessary examination under the law for the restoration of the civil service after the " seizure of power " by the National Socialists . Since the chances were slim without Nazi activity, Metzke joined the SA on November 3, 1933 and held his trial lecture three days later. After Metzke had attended an off-road sports camp in Zossen and a course at the Kiel School at the Lecturer's Academy in Kitzeberg , his habilitation was approved in August 1934 and Metzke was appointed private lecturer. His inaugural lecture on “Historical Reality” addressed the people's struggle for existence in the diversity and multiplicity of cultures, in which the individual is made aware of the specific binding ties of his blood and his ethnic nature. In 1936 Metzke took over the management of the press office of the Cologne lecturers' body, but without making any particular appearances. He was not a member of the NSDDB .

Metzke was a participant in the philosophical conference organized by Alfred Rosenberg in March 1939 at Buderose Castle . From 1940 he did military service, first as an aptitude psychologist in an air district command, then in a flak unit, where he was promoted to lieutenant . In October 1943, with the support of the NSDDB, Metzke received a substitute for an unscheduled professorship in Heidelberg, which he took up in July 1944 after he left military service. In November 1944 he was appointed as a regular professor.

After the Second World War , Metzke moved to Tübingen and revised the first two volumes (Antiquity and Middle Ages) of the history of philosophy by Karl Vorländer , but also dealt with Marxism and the issue of gender difference. He was editor of the first volume of the "Marxism Studies" (1954) and wrote an article in the second volume on the subject of "Man and history in the original approach of Marxist thought". He was also a member of the Paracelsus Commission, which dealt with the publication of his works. Metzke died unexpectedly on the morning of his 50th birthday.

Teaching

In his work on Hamann (1934) Metzke resorted to unpublished material from the “Londoner Schrifften”, which Josef Nadler did not publish until 1949. Metzke tried to show that he was using a concept of reality that was new for his time and that was linked to Revelation . Hamann then did not understand reality as an objective (ontic) substance or as a comprehensible-rational being, but as an act of God in which God comes close to the world and man. Hamann described this relationship with the term coincidentia oppositorum , created by Nikolaus von Kues , the simultaneity of opposites. The unknowable reality is only a symbol for the transcendent . Faith in Jesus Christ makes the contradicting character of being sensual. Revelation causes reason to contradict itself, so that the coincidentia oppositorum, as the supreme reality principle, does not lead to unity as in the case of Cues or Bruno , but acts as a driving concern. Metzke described Hamann's thinking as "a breakthrough through all abstractions, principles and doctrines to the most concrete, most contemporary reality, against which not only idealism but also so-called realism fades, but pantheism also remains abstract." Hamann is against the "dissolution of the bond of being." ”And“ division ”of being and consciousness occurred in western rationalism and subjectivism , in that he pointed to the“ historicity ”of man and the unavailability of existence . The order of being is to be recognized as God's creator order, which allows nature to be independent of a "rule of the thing category", as it was assumed by the scientifically oriented rational philosophy of the Enlightenment .

Metzke 's interpretation of Luther's view of the reality of the Lord's Supper has attracted philosophical attention . He saw in Luther's view of the Lord's Supper a symbolic and real presence of Christ, a unity of inner and outer, of spirit and body. The Lord's Supper is therefore a “real coincidentia oppositorum, which is based on God's action.” Bread and wine are real in the Lord's Supper, and at the same time Christ's presence is given with them. To clarify, Metzke referred to the linguistic form of a synecdoche , when a term "also denotes what is designated and something else". This is possible because God is always and everywhere in the infinite space, for which a separation into this world and the hereafter is inappropriate. God becomes comprehensible through bread and wine in the double sense of the word. Although Metzke is not a theologian in the strict sense of the word, W. Härle declares "Sacrament and Metaphysics" to be one of the basic texts of more recent Protestant theology, because in it a theologically interested philosopher expresses himself on a classic controversy of the Reformation conceptions of the Lord's Supper. Metzke argues that Luther opposes a real-local conception of God: God is not tied to a place - because of his ubiquity ( omnipresence ). God is everywhere, so logically also in bread and wine. The consequence of this doctrine of ubiquity is that God is not only in bread and wine, but also in all things and every creature. The special thing about the Lord's Supper is not the presence of God (which is always and everywhere given), but that in bread and wine there is a particularly impressive opportunity for people to have God's presence revealed. Härle is of the opinion that Metzke succeeds in explaining Luther's fundamentally coherent metaphysics , which is the background for the Lutheran real presence .

Metzke saw that Nikolaus von Kues and Hegel were very close, although the latter never mentioned them. In Hegel, too, he saw the coincidentia oppositorum as the principle of reality, because with him the dialectic is not the principle of order of the philosophizing subject, but rather the "form of execution of the originally moved being".

Fonts

• Karl Rosenkranz and Hegel. A contribution to the history of the philosophy of so-called Hegelianism in the 19th century . Heims, Leipzig 1929.
• Johann Georg Hamann's position in 18th century philosophy . Niemeyer, Halle 1934, reprint Darmstadt 1967.
• Historical reality. Thoughts on a German philosophy of history (philosophy and history booklet 57). Mohr, Tübingen 1935.
• Paracelsus' view of the world and of human life . Junker & Dünnhaupt, Berlin 1943.
• Sacrament and Metaphysics. A Luther study on the relationship between Christian thought and the physical-material . Cross, Stuttgart 1948.
• Hand dictionary of philosophy . Kerle, Heidelberg 1948.
• History of Philosophy , Vol. 1. Antiquity and Vol. 2 Middle Ages. By Karl Vorländer , revised by Erwin Metzke in 1949; with an appendix “source texts” selected by Ernesto Grassi and Eckhard Keßler, Rowohlt, Reinbek 1963 and 1964.
• Hegel's preface, with commentary on the introduction to his philosophy by Erwin Metzke . Kerle, Heidelberg 1949, 3rd edition 1970.
• Coincidentia oppositorum. Collected studies on the history of philosophy . Luther-Verlag, Witten 1961, ed. by Karlfried founder .

literature

• Christian Tilitzki : The German university philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Information on the biography largely based on: Christian Tilitzki : The German University Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and National Socialism, Academy, Berlin 2002
2. ↑ Writings of the Königsberg learned society, humanities class, 10th year, booklet 3.
3. ↑ Erwin Metzke: Historical Reality. Thoughts on a German philosophy of history. Mohr, Tübingen 1935, 28–33.
4. ↑ Hans Jörg Sandkühler : "A Long Odyssey" - Joachim Ritter, Ernst Cassirer and the philosophy in the 'Third Reich' ( Memento from September 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 275 kB), 30.
5. ↑ Erwin Metzke: “Anthropology of the sexes. Philosophical remarks on the state of the discussion ”, in: Theologische Rundschau 22 (1954) 211–241 as well as“… and created them, a man and a woman… ”, in: Zeitwende 26 (1955). 48-52.
6. ↑ Ulrich Asendorf: Holy Spirit and Justification, V&R unipress, 2004, 208.
7. ^ Erwin Metzke: Coincidentia oppositorum. Collected studies on the history of philosophy. Luther-Verlag, Witten 1961, ed. by Karlfried founder, 293.
8. ^ Erwin Metzke: Johann Georg Hamanns position in the philosophy of the 18th century. Niemeyer, Halle 1934, 117–121.
9. ↑ For example Dieter Kühn: Metaphysics and History: on theology of Ernst Lohmeyers, de Gruyter, Berlin 2005, 140–141; Oswald Bayer names Metzke the philosopher who was most able to honor Luther as a philosopher: In: Promised Presence, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2007, 337.
10. ^ Erwin Metzke: Coincidentia oppositorum. Collected studies on the history of philosophy. Luther-Verlag, Witten 1961, ed. by Karlfried Gründer, Section 6. Sacrament and Metaphysics, 158–204.
11. ^ Erwin Metzke: Coincidentia oppositorum. Collected studies on the history of philosophy. Luther-Verlag, Witten 1961, ed. by Karlfried Gründer, Section 6. Sacrament and Metaphysics, 200.
12. ↑ Wilfried Härle: Basic texts of the newer Protestant theology . 2nd Edition. 2012, p. XXXVIII-XXXIX .
13. ^ Erwin Metzke: Nicolaus von Cues and Hegel. A contribution to the problem of philosophical theology. In: Kant studies 48, 1956/57, 216–234, here 216.
14. ↑ Erwin Metzke, Nicolaus von Cues and Hegel, in: Coincidentia oppositorum. Collected studies on the history of philosophy, Witten 1961, 241–263, first in Kant studies 48, 1956/57, 216–234.