Experimentum Mundi
Experimentum Mundi. Question, categories of bringing out, practice is Ernst Bloch's old work. In this book the author tries to present his philosophy categorically. The title suggests that Blochunderstandsthe world ( Mundus ) as an experimental one in which the struggle for a better world is not over and will never be paid for.
The work was written from 1972 to 1974. Ernst Bloch, who is now blind and almost ninety years old, dictated the content to his colleague Burghart Schmidt , who completed the book. Bloch had already worked on his theory of categories, which he developed in the Experimentum Mundi , before the First World War .
content
The individual chapters are arranged in the procedural order of the progress of knowledge. It begins with the “turning beyond the immediate”. According to Bloch, one cannot only not see something when it is too far away, but also when it is too close. In addition to the temporal moment, there is also a darkness that is too close to the body. We have to turn it away from us to experience it and not just live it.
This turning continues in the distance from the all too close use of language through ideological criticism and logical "predication". The latter means that the logical conclusion, term - judgment - conclusion, has to be replaced by the sequence acquisition - judgment - term - conclusion . Grasping the immediate is at the beginning, this leads to judgment and only then is the concept formation based, which then enables conclusions.
However, as Marxist theory of knowledge, Bloch's theory of knowledge goes beyond a theory of logical inference. In the following chapter he presents the theory-practice relationship of his theory, especially in the advanced training theory , which dialectically mediates epistemological constructivism and the reflection theory based on image theory .
After a summarizing basic definition of the categories, he presents them dialectically expanded by an epistemological rotation / elevation in four consecutive chapters:
- the frame categories of time and space
- the transmission categories (objectifying categories) possibility, tendency and latency
- the figures as manifesting categories (archetypes as extracts with utopian content)
- The territorial categories which are formed by commonalities in spheres and regions - this is where the principle and the pre-semblance of a better world belong , as it is shown in art and religion.
The last chapter turns to the relationship between theory and practice.
literature
- Ernst Bloch: Experimentum Mundi. Question, categories of publishing , practice , Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag: 1975 ISBN 3-518-07400-8
Secondary literature
- Siegrun Wildner: Experimentum Mundi: Utopia as an aesthetic principle. On the function of utopian designs in Irmtraud Morgner's novel work Röhrig Universitätsverlag GmbH, Nov. 2000 ISBN 3-86110-249-8