Günter Figal

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Günter Figal (born July 15, 1949 in Langenberg, Rhineland ) is a German philosopher .

Life

Figal studied philosophy and German in Heidelberg . In his philosophy studies he was mainly influenced by Hans-Georg Gadamer , Michael Theunissen , Dieter Henrich and Ernst Tugendhat . In 1976 he received his doctorate in Heidelberg with Michael Theunissen and Dieter Henrich with a thesis on Adorno . 1987 followed, also in Heidelberg, the habilitation with a thesis on Martin Heidegger . In 1989 he was appointed professor of philosophy in Tübingen , in 2001 he followed a call to a C4 professorship in philosophy in Freiburg (chair Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger).

Figal has held numerous visiting professorships at several international universities, including Aarhus , Nishinomiya , Berlin , Rome and Boston . In the academic year 2005/06 he held the Cardinal Mercier chair at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven . From 2003-2015 was Figal chairman of the Martin-Heidegger Society and since 2009 editor of the series Heidegger Forum in Publisher Vittorio Klostermann , Frankfurt. Since 1998 he has published the series Philosophical Investigations , since 2002 the International Yearbook for Hermeneutics , both of which are published by Mohr Siebeck , Tübingen. Figal has been publishing the first German-language Heidegger lexicon in De Gruyter- Verlag since 2013 . From 2013 to 2016 he was a member of the board of directors of the Collaborative Research Center “Leisure” at the University of Freiburg.

In January 2015 Figal resigned from the chairmanship of the Martin Heidegger Society. In an SWR interview , he gave the reasons for the “Black Booklet” published in 2014 as part of the Heidegger Complete Edition , which made it impossible for him to continue to represent society and the person in the future.

Research priorities

Figal is mainly concerned with metaphysics , phenomenology and hermeneutics across epochs .

"Objectivity" (2006)

With the work “Objectivity”, Figal has presented the draft of his own phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy, which primarily follows on from Heidegger and Gadamer . Using the problem of interpretation , Figal describes the loss of a realistic basic feature in modernity, through which “modern philosophy as a whole appears like a large-scale objective enterprise”. In contrast, Figal tries to establish "objectivity" as a basic philosophical problem of its own (§ 13). This shows up in the world as a “hermeneutic space”, which is characterized by the three dimensions of freedom , language and time . In this way, Figal integrates the modern philosophy of subjectivity (freedom), the philosophy of language according to the “ linguistic turn ” (language) and Heidegger's temporal ontology (time) into the hermeneutic question. Figal rejects the Heideggerian term " being " or " event " as a designation for the basic events in this room , but tries to rehabilitate the term " life " philosophically in the final chapter .

"Apparitions" (2010)

In “Things of Appearance” Figal develops a phenomenological aesthetic that sets itself apart from attempts to explain art in the context of metaphysical systems, as was characteristic of Hegel , Heidegger, but also Gadamer. In contrast to his own approach, Figal describes this form of thinking about art as an art philosophy in contrast to a philosophical aesthetic (§ 3). The book therefore uses Husserl's dictum as the motto that it is important to return to the "things themselves" instead of being misled by "wrong theories".

For Figal, this devotion to things is concretized in aesthetics as a devotion to the works of art as objects that are eminently phenomenal. This is why Figal calls them "apparitions". What distinguishes these objects as works of art is their “decentralized order”. This order is not structured conceptually. Figal thus takes over from Kant the idea that there is a “free game” (§ 4) in the experience of art, but explains this not as a game of subjective faculties, but as the phenomenal effect of the works of art themselves. Understanding works of art in this way as a decentralized order also enables Figal to understand them as “mixtures” (§ 9) of different genres. This allows him to differentiate between different manifestations of art - Figal discusses the rhythmic nature of music, the simultaneous appearance of images and the precise structure of lyrical language - without separating the various forms as art genres . Figal understands the unity of the various art forms as an eminently spatial one, which is why architecture is of paradigmatic importance for him. Works of art are characterized by the fact that they shape “places” (§ 13) in a special way and thus mark an absolute “here” (§ 15), just as, according to Husserl, only human bodies can.

Figal's aesthetic draws on a large number of examples to substantiate his considerations. New music , works of abstract expressionism and buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright  and Peter Zumthor are of particular importance - so the largest number of examples come from modern art . In addition to the critique of judgment , Paul Valéry 's essays in particular are important points of reference in art theory.

Fonts (selection)

  • Theodor W. Adorno. The natural beauty as a speculative figure of thought. Bouvier, Bonn 1977, ISBN 3-416-01351-4 .
  • Martin Heidegger. Phenomenology of freedom. 3. Edition. Beltz, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-895-47721-4 .
    • New edition: Martin Heidegger. Phenomenology of freedom. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2013, ISBN 3-16-152630-9 .
  • Martin Heidegger for an introduction. 7. completely revised Edition. Junius, Hamburg 2016, ISBN 3-885-06381-6 .
  • For a philosophy of freedom and strife: politics - aesthetics - metaphysics. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1994, ISBN 3-476-01204-2 .
  • Socrates. 3. Edition. Beck, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-406-54747-8 .
  • The sense of understanding. Contributions to hermeneutic philosophy. Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-150-09492-5 .
  • Nietzsche. A philosophical introduction. Reclam, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-150-09752-5 .
  • Entanglement in life and distance. “Behavior towards oneself” following Heidegger, Kierkegaard and Hegel. Attempto, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 3-893-08311-1 .
  • Objectivity. The hermeneutic and philosophy. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2006, ISBN 3-161-48857-1 .
  • Questions of understanding. Studies on phenomenological-hermeneutic philosophy. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2009, ISBN 3-161-49805-4 .
  • Appearance things. Aesthetics as Phenomenology. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 3-161-50515-8 .
  • Art. Philosophical treatises. Mohr, Tübingen 2012. ISBN 3-161-52242-7 .
  • Simplicity. About a Young-Jae Lee bowl. Modo, Freiburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-86833-150-9 , (bilingual German / English).
  • Inconspicuousness. The space of phenomenology. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, unchanged study edition 2016, ISBN 978-3-161-54346-3 .
  • Is there really something out there? Sketch of a realistic phenomenology. In: Information Philosophie , March 2016, Issue 1, pp. 8–17

Web links

proof

  1. ↑ See chairman of the Heidegger Society resigned , press release SWR2 , January 16, 2015; see. also: Bettina Schulte: The end of Heideggerianism . Interview with Günter Figal, Badische Zeitung , January 23, 2015.
  2. ↑ Günter Figal: Objectivity. Mohr Siebeck, 2006, ISBN 9783161488573 , p. 126. Restricted preview in the Google book search
personal data
SURNAME Figal, Günter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH July 15, 1949
PLACE OF BIRTH Langenberg (Rhineland)