Gotthard Günther

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Gotthard Günther (born June 15, 1900 in Arnsdorf , Hirschberg district , province of Silesia , † November 29, 1984 in Hamburg ) was a German philosopher and logician .

Günther designed a calculus that goes beyond the classic two-valued ( Aristotelian ) logic calculus, the polycontextural logic (PKL for short). Polycontextural logic requires a pre-logical theory of form called morphogrammatics . The kenogrammatics, also developed by Günther, provide the notation framework for both. PKL, morpho- and kenogrammatics form the so-called polycontexturality theory . Günther's starting point for the development of this theory is a fundamental philosophical-epistemological criticism of the classical (mono-contextural) standard and non-standard logic calculi based on strict identity ontology .

Life

Education

Günther grew up in a pastor's house in Upper Silesia and came into contact with works of classical education at an early age. In addition to philosophy, he also studied Indology, Classical Chinese, Sanskrit and comparative religious studies. In May 1933 he received his doctorate from Eduard Spranger . The extended dissertation Fundamentals of a New Theory of Thought in Hegel's Logic was published by Felix Meiner in the same year . His Jewish wife Marie Günther, b. Hendel, lost her job as a teacher after the National Socialists came to power and went to Italy. At the Vigiljoch , above Lana , she co-founded the Alpine school home on the Vigiljoch in November 1933 . Gotthard Günther also worked as a teacher at this school for a short time after he too had left Germany.

Günther lost his scholarship in 1935 and accepted an assistant position with Arnold Gehlen , who was four years his junior and who had just been appointed to Leipzig. Günther therefore belonged to the environment of the Leipzig School of Sociology . Unlike the Leipzig Gehlen or Helmut Schelsky , who published the book Christian Metaphysics and the Fate of Modern Consciousness with Günther in 1937, Günther was never a National Socialist .

emigration

In 1937 the Günther couple emigrated from Italy to South Africa, and from there in 1940 to the USA. Günther received a research fellowship and worked at the Widener Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this time, a friendship developed with Ernst Bloch, who also lived in Cambridge .

In 1945 Günther began his work on the reflection-theoretic interpretation of multi-valued logics, which led him to the development of his place-value logics, which he later also referred to as the "ontological system of place values ". The Günther couple took American citizenship in 1948, eight years after immigration. Günther met the writer John W. Campbell , who made him aware of the importance of American science fiction literature.

In 1952 Günther published a four-volume series of Rauch's space books of selected American science fiction literature, annotated by him, at Karl Rauch Verlag (Düsseldorf) , authors a. a .: Isaac Asimov ( I, the Robot ) , John W. Campbell (The Incredible Planet) , Jack Williamson (Wing 4) , Lewis Padgett u. a. ( Overcoming space and time , collection of short stories). That year he received a research contract from the Bollingen Foundation at the suggestion of Kurt Gödel .

1953 to 1955 Günther's first publications appeared in the USA on logical-metaphysical topics. Since the articles were rejected by relevant philosophical journals in the USA, Günther published these works in a rewritten form that was understandable for interested laypeople in the US science fiction magazines " Astounding Science Fiction", later renamed "Analog", and "Startling Stories": Can Mechanical Brains Have Consciousness? (Startling 1953), The Logical Parallax (Astounding 1953), Achilles and the Tortoise (Astounding 1954), Aristotelian and Non Aristotelian Logic (Startling 1954), The Seetee Mind (Startling 1954), The Soul of a Robot (Startling 1955), The Thought Translator (Startling 1955).

Scientific and philosophical achievements

In 1957 some of Gotthard Günther's authoritative works appeared: The consciousness of machines - a metaphysics of cybernetics , and metaphysics, logic and the theory of reflection, and in 1959 the idea and outline of a non-Aristotelian logic.

In 1960 Günther met one of the fathers of cybernetics , the neurophysiologist Warren Sturgis McCulloch , an acquaintance of crucial importance for Günther's further research. It not only resulted in the beginning of a deep friendship with the founder of cybernetics and modern neuroinformatics, but also Günther's position at the Biological Computer Laboratory (BCL) headed by Heinz von Foerster , which belongs to the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana is owned and worked with scientists such as Gordon Pask , Lars Löfgren , W. Ross Ashby and Humberto Maturana .

Also in 1960 Günther spoke for the first time in a letter to Kurt Gödel of his "discovery of a generalization of his system of values". In this respect, this point in time also marks the beginning of a theory of secondary numbers, an idea that McCulloch must have had in mind in 1945 in his work A Heterarchy of Values ​​Determined by the Topology of Nervous Nets , which is hardly noticed today . It is known that McCulloch dealt with the extension of the classic logic calculus. What importance Günther himself attached to this encounter can be seen in the laudation, Number and Logos - Unforgettable Hours with Warren S. McCulloch , the obituary for the death of his friend in 1969.

From 1961 to 1972 Gotthard Günther was a research professor at the BCL. During this time the essential construction elements of the polycontexturality theory emerged. Günther came across in the course of researching reflexive place value systems, i. H. polycontextural logic calculus on the problem of morpho- and kenogrammatic structures, which he presented to the public in works such as Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations ( op.Dialektik , Vol. 1), the metaphysical problem of a formalization of transcendental-dialectical logic (op.Dialectic, Vol. 1), Logic, Time, Emanation and Evolution (Op. Dialectic, Vol. 3) or Natural Numbers in Trans-Classic Systems (Op. Dialectic, Vol. 2).

With his retirement in 1972 Günther ended his activity at the BCL. He moved to Hamburg and held lectures on philosophy at the university there until his death in 1984; as well as lectures in West Berlin and at the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin.

In 1975 Günther's autobiography “Self-Presentation in the Mirror of America” was published, in which he drew a first summary of his work. His endeavors to establish reflective logic and arithmetic with a higher priority culminated in his “Theory of Polycontexturality” - a theory that he opposed to the classical (monocontextural) standard and non-standard logic systems as well as classical arithmetic.

At the Hegel Congress in Belgrade in 1979, Günther founded a general “theory of negative languages” under the title Identity, Counter-Identity and Negative Language as a complement to the conventional, object-related, positive scientific languages.

Gotthard Günther died on November 29, 1984 in Hamburg. He was buried (like his wife Marie Günther later) in the Ohlsdorf Jewish cemetery in Hamburg, which is adjacent to the Ohlsdorf cemetery . His academic legacy is in the possession of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and is in the manuscript department of the Berlin State Library.

Act

On the theory of polycontexturality

The polycontexturality theory designed by Gotthard Günther represents a formal theory that makes it possible to model complex, self-referential processes that are characteristic of all life processes in a non-reductionistic and logically consistent manner. In his work he designs a parallel networked calculus, which he introduces into science as polycontextural logic (PKL).

The basic idea of ​​this calculus is to mediate individual logic systems, which he calls contextures, to link with one another via new operators he has introduced. The PKL is characterized by the distribution and mediation of different logical contextures, whereby within a contexture - i.e. intra-contexturally - all the rules of classical propositional logic strictly apply, while inter-contexturally - i.e. between the contextures - new operations that classically do not exist, be introduced. This makes it possible not only to model self-referential processes logically without contradictions, but also to implement them in principle.

For the distribution and communication of the logical contexts, a special pre-logical theory is required, which Günther introduced under the name Morphogrammatik. Günther demonstrated the morphogrammatic incompleteness of classical propositional logic and thus encountered the need to fundamentally expand the kenogrammatic substructure of logic in order to be able to carry out a generalization of logic. The resulting kenogrammatic theory, the kenogrammatics , represents a theory of these empty spaces.

In Günther's conception, the kenogrammatics form the notational framework for morphogrammatics and polycontextural logic.

The kenogrammatics represents an area of ​​the formal that precedes all classical logic and form conceptions. It means a structural theory that is not yet burdened by the difference between form and content. In particular, the logical and semiotic principle of identity is not valid in it.

The polycontexturality theory includes PKL as well as morpho- and kenogrammatics and represents the basis for a point-dependent system theory, a theory of qualities or, in general, a theory of subjectivity.

A detailed description can be found in R. Kaehr, Th. Mahler: Morphogrammatik - An introduction to the theory of logical form .

S. Heise presented a critical - albeit monocontextural - analysis of morphograms and their embedding in naive set theory.

To philosophy

Gotthard Günther, as a metaphysician and logician, is a specialty among the philosophers of the 20th century in various respects. He cannot be directly assigned to any philosophical school.

As a rationalist shaped by the spirit of Prussia , he wanted to approach the study of the humanities systematically, and so his endeavors first led him to Eastern philosophy.

"Since the development of Indian culture has to start around 400 years before Greek and he wanted to begin the history of philosophy chronologically, it was quite natural for him to deal with the beginnings of Indian philosophy for the time being."

- Gotthard Günther : self-portrayal in the mirror of America

This is what it says in his third-person autobiography Self-Portrait in the Mirror of America . There was also the study of classical Chinese. When dealing with occidental philosophy

"[...] he then discovered what for him slowly pushed Asian philosophy into the background, the pursuit of an exactness that he [...] had missed in Indian and Chinese philosophy."

- Gotthard Günther : Self-Presentation in the Mirror of America, p. 8

The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant he thought was "the culmination of all philosophy in general" (p 9) until it his instructor Eduard Spranger on the importance of Hegel drew attention, a first turning point in Gunther's thinking that from then on the tradition of German idealism stood. Even if he went far beyond this in his later work, he repeatedly made interpretative references to Hegel, Schelling and also Fichte , whose work he discovered for himself through Arnold Gehlen's book Theory of Freedom of Will . In particular, Schelling's natural philosophy formed the basis for Günther's last lectures, which he gave at the University of Hamburg, already over eighty. In the paragraph of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason , which deals with the amphibolism of “the concepts of reflection” and the “transcendental appearance”, he saw the basic hint “that one cannot get through without dialectics” - a hint that takes him further to Hegel and the other idealists.

“What is the mechanism that produces the appearance that repeatedly irritates our thinking? in a kind of deceit that is “unintrusive,” as Kant literally says. The appearance arises when I talk about the subject, because I cannot talk about the subject other than taking it as an object, that is, by becoming an object for me and thus no longer what it is. Talking and judging about a subject turns it into its opposite. Even if I have uncovered this bill for myself, I still succumb to it, I cannot get out of it. [...] Kant was the critical pioneer who pointed out the problem, Fichte and Hegel built a systematic theory on it. They have systematically developed the dialectic of thing and self-experience of consciousness, the relationship between subject and object, being and nothing, essence and appearance, unity and multiplicity, etc. "

- Claus Baldus, Gotthard Günther : Phaedrus and the glider: From the architecture of reason to technical utopia

But Günther's philosophy only takes a starting point in German idealism and in the prima philosophia, metaphysics , which he worked on . In a letter dated May 23, 1954, he wrote to the mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel :

“Apart from the neo- Thomists , I am pretty much the only metaphysicist who is convinced that one cannot do metaphysics today without assuming the results of symbolic mathematical logic. And the symbolic logic in Neo-Thomism ( Ivo Thomas for example) is, in my opinion, on the wrong track. It is not admitted there that logical positivism has convincingly demonstrated that classical ontological metaphysics is scientifically untenable. Instead of using the results of logistics for a new metaphysics, attempts are still being made there to prove medieval church metaphysics ( fundamental ontology ) with mathematical logic. On the other hand, there is Heidegger , who recently called logistics a “degeneracy” that surrounds itself with a “semblance of productivity”. - From these people, my thoughts cannot experience any control. So I have to turn to mathematical logicians. "

- Gotthard Günther : Kurt Gödel: Collected Works . Volume IV

Günther is in a double opposition to two of his contemporary philosophies. On the one hand to German idealism and its epigones like Martin Heidegger, whose rejection of logical-formal tools he sharply criticized, albeit with the apology for Hegel and his contemporaries that adequate formal methods were not yet available at the beginning of the 19th century. On the other hand, there is a contrast to logical positivism , neopositivism and today's analytical philosophy , whose formal work he expressly affirms, but whose fundamental rejection of dealing with metaphysical topics also finds Günther's sharp criticism.

“It is childish to say that classical metaphysics has been abolished as long as one still uses the logic that has arisen from this metaphysics as the organon of one's own rationality. If one insists on classical logic, the questions of the old metaphysics remain, no matter how much one displeases the answers given so far. This is the current relationship between idealism and materialism: each side considers the answers that the opponent gives to the riddles of philosophy to be wrong; but it does not occur to either side in their self-righteousness to give themselves an account of whether perhaps the whole question, from which the irreconcilability of the answers arises, is long out of date. "

- Gotthard Günther : Self-Presentation in the Mirror of America, p. 51

With this attitude Günther confirmed that for him the Husserlian correspondence between logic and formal ontology was valid. He has this in common with Husserl's student Martin Heidegger. Methodically, however, he saw himself less in the tradition of Hegel than in that of Leibniz , the last occidental philosopher, who was at the height of the scientific knowledge of his time in philosophy and metaphysics as well as in mathematics.

Based on the topic of “pure self-equality in otherness” proposed by Hegel, which - as an identity-theoretical problem - on the basis of Kantian rationality with the “ tertium non datur ” of classical logic and the available formal tools no longer applies mastering is - the essential reason for the "hatred of logical formalism so deeply rooted in German idealism, which in Hegel reaches downright grotesque forms", according to Günther - starting with his dissertation he subjected the occidental ontology conception underlying logic to a structural analysis. In Hegel's second negation, which does not lead back to the affirmation , he saw the main indication that the previous ontology is structurally too poor to be able to even approximate the wealth of relationships of reality. In Hegel's work, he succeeded in raising the beginnings of a new formal structure and initially expanding it into a system of values ​​in which several so-called logical domains (contextures) are mediated to one another. The term “polycontextural logic” came about later, it can be dated to the beginning of the 1970s.

In 1959 Gotthard Günther got in touch with the neurophysiologist and father of cybernetics Warren S. McCulloch , who had already proven in 1945 that the topologies of certain neural networks violate the transitivity law of classical logic , a problem of the formal description of neural processes that turns out to be isomorphic to im German idealism highlights the philosophical problems dealt with. The encounter with McCulloch brought the essence of numbers into play beyond logic and led Günther to the development of kenogrammatics and dialectical number theory. Empty of their ontological basic data ( kenos for empty ), these structures provide an option for self-mapping of self-reference, which qualitatively represents something completely different than the attempt to model self-referentiality using recursive functions .

In 2000, on the occasion of Günther's hundredth birthday, the previously unpublished book The American Apocalypse - Ideas for a Historical Metaphysics of the Western Hemisphere was published from the estate . Based on the discovery of America, which he treated as a historical metaphysical problem, Günther referred above all to Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West , a work that had impressed him even in his youth, and subjected the two-stage culture cycle theory suggested by Spengler to a fundamental criticism, which he justified with the futility of Spengler's concept. He represented America, especially the USA, as the coming belt for the development of a third stage of human history in planetary civilization, in which the previous high cultures were those in the Faustian-Occidental culture - this term comes from Spengler - and the machine technology and cybernetics developed in America take over and experience cultural transformations yourself - mediated by technology. The developments since the beginning of the eighties, especially in the context of computers and the internet, seem to prove Günther right posthumously. For Günther, America is a synonym for a transitional stage, in whose cultural melting pot people experience a reduction to that which is common to all people and is not one of the specifics of the historically preceding regional high cultures. “What we encounter in the machine is past life, is lively feeling and old passion that man has not shied away from handing over to death in the world of objects. Only this death is the gateway to the future. The historical perspective of Spengler with the relapse of mankind in the bios is the perspective of powerlessness [...] ” says Günther's essay Machine, Soul and World History .

Technology philosophy

Thus Gotthard Günther becomes the philosophers of the art of the topic, which considered beyond the Gehlen 'rule interpretation of man as a deficient being is that only uses his technique to compensate for these same shortcomings. A view of technology similar to Günther's can be found in Vilém Flusser's work , which, however, is more essayistic and not based on formal analyzes of the Western ontology conception.

In technology, Günther saw the problem of subjectivity as a process of active expression of will ( volition ) in contrast to subjectivity as a process of cognition ( cognition ) and that of the dialectical entanglement of both. "Technology is the only historical form in which the will can give itself a generally binding form".

In contrast to German idealism, the problem of subjectivity thus became a problem of this world for Günther. He thereby placed himself close to dialectical materialism . Another contrast arises to the compatibilism or soft determinism cultivated today in the philosophy of spirit .

"At this point it should be emphasized that it is actually incorrect to speak of two causal chains - one originated in the inanimate object and the other in the living - because all living systems originally emerged from the environment, from which they then shielded themselves. Indeed, there is only one causal chain, springing out and spreading through the environment and reflected back into that environment through the medium of the living system. The law of determination is expressed in two different modalities. We have to distinguish between irreflexive and reflexive causality . By this we mean that the causal chain experiences a radical change in character on its way through a living system. "

- Gotthard Günther : Knowing and Willing

The dialectical problem of the entanglement of freedom and necessity, resp. Willing and knowing, Günther identified as the problem of a feedback loop between subject and object, resp. objective environment, but of a degree of complexity that far exceeds the feedback loops that have been technically implemented up to now. The dispute over the freedom of will is obsolete against the background of Günther's philosophy.

“An act of will of a subject contains a much higher structural complexity than we observe in the physical, irreflexive causality in the object area. […] But if we assume that reality is fully determined as the integration of objectivity and subjectivity, then we can say that the causality of the objective context of the universe forms a feedback loop through subjectivity back into the environment. We have to be very careful with such statements, however, because the feedback we are referring to has a much higher structural complexity than the feedback we observe in physical systems. "

- Gotthard Günther : Knowing and Willing

However, Günther saw the possibility of technical access to such feedback loops:

"For the ideological consciousness of a coming cultural stage, the causal nexus will no longer be the only reality scheme in which reality processes take place, as it is for us."

- Gotthard Günther : The American Apocalypse

But with regard to the technical realization of consciousness functions, he said very clearly that an engineer would only be able to

“To build a machine, the subjectivity resp. Functions of consciousness. Mind you: performs, and not one that has conscious functions! A machine that is conscious is a contradictio in adjecto. This applies not only to the classical tradition of our thinking, but also to all future trans-classical machine theory. "

- Gotthard Günther : Machine, Soul and World History

Gotthard Günther's merit is to have shown that a trans-classical logic is feasible as a formal calculus that can be reckoned with. In addition, he claimed to have discovered the dialectic of numbers . He himself described his life's work as unfinished, as work in progress, as he frankly admitted to his 80th birthday laudator, Willy Hochkeppel , in DIE ZEIT . Günther was a rationalist. As a result and in view of the fact that he has shown formally and in terms of content that dialectical materialism and dialectical idealism are only the reflective ideological consequences of one and the same ontology conception, his philosophy can be labeled "dialectical rationalism" .

Effect and reception

In the years he was employed as an assistant to Arnold Gehlen from 1935 until his emigration in 1937, Günther had an influence on idealistic philosophy in Saxony, in particular on the Leipzig School and his younger friends Arnold Gehlen and Helmut Schelsky . He was supposed to get a chair at the University of Jena, but refused to take the oath on the Führer and had to emigrate.

In 1955, on the initiative of his friend Helmut Schelsky and CF von Weizsäcker , Gotthard Günther was invited to give a lecture at the University of Hamburg with the aim of enabling Günther to reintegrate into academic life in Germany. Outside the framework of his lecture, he gave a general lecture to the members of the Philosophical Faculty on the subject of "The Philosophical Meaning of Cybernetics". As Günther himself said, he had put himself in "irreconcilable opposition to the academic zeitgeist". Hegelians of all varieties met him with friendly incomprehension, and modern logicians ignored his work.

1961-1972, in his time at the BCL in Urbana Gotthard Günther took through his work on logic and value theory influence on the development of so-called second-order cybernetics , the so-called. Second cybernetics order .

Günther's best-known work "The Consciousness of Machines - A Metaphysics of Cybernetics", published in 1957 in the first edition and in 1962 in the second edition, experienced a reception in the circles of the 1968 movement. The publication was followed by a lively international discussion among cyberneticists in East and West, among others. a. Karl Steinbuch , Max Bense , Helmar Frank , Georg Klaus .

The review of Habermas' “Logic of the Social Sciences” with the title “Critical Remarks on the Current Theory of Science”, which appeared in 1968 and was characterized by sharp criticism, was not noticed by Jürgen Habermas . In contrast, the sociologist Walter L. Bühl saw Günther's argument as a “convincing” reason for the end of two-valued sociology.

The powerful social scientist Niklas Luhmann and above all his student Elena Esposito tried to make Günther's work, in particular the polycontexturality theory, useful for systems theory in addition to the second order cybernetics . In this respect, Gotthard Günther enjoyed a certain popularity in sociology, even if Luhmann, who frequently quotes Günther, according to Walter L. Bühl's account, misinterprets the work of the philosopher "in its essential construction elements [...]".

Günther experienced a strong, albeit non-formal, logical reception in the work of the social and language philosopher Johannes Heinrichs , who acknowledges Günther's basic ideas in his reflection system theory of the social and in his general understanding of philosophy as a reflection theory. Heinrichs regards his starting from four equally original meaning elements (I, You, It, meaning medium, instead of the traditional subject-object dualism) as well as his method of "dialectical subsumption" as a non-formal implementation of logical polyvalence in Günther's sense . Günther was also received in the works of the sociologists Arno Bammé , Lars Clausen and Elke M. Geenen .

A more in-depth sociological reception of the basic research carried out at the BCL in general and the work of Günther in particular can be found in the work of sociologist Peter M. Hejl.

The philosopher and mathematician Rudolf Kaehr , who did his doctorate under Gotthard Günther, continued Günther's logical and calculus-technical work. He also deserves the credit for relating the works of Gotthard Günther and Jacques Derrida to one another. Derrida's critique of Phonologozentrismus give

"[...] an approach to the work of Günther, who in his reflective-theoretical investigations held on to the primacy of speech for a very long time, although he in fact introduced a primacy of writing in his logical formalization steps"

- Rudolf Kaehr, Joseph Ditterich : Practice in a different reading, diagram of a reconstruction of Günther's theory of negative languages

In the Derridasch figure of thought of the Différance Kaehr saw a structure that can be brought into harmony with the kenogrammatics, and in which it is a matter of noting the enabling conditions of a general linguistic framework.

There is a growing interest in Gotthard Günther's philosophy at German universities. a. in the seminars of Peter Sloterdijk .

See also

literature

Writings of Gotthard Günther

  • The logical-methodological prerequisites for Hegel's theory of thought . Eduard Stichnote, Potsdam 1933 (dissertation).
  • The discovery of America and the matter of space literature (science fiction) , Düsseldorf (Karl Rauch-Verlag) 1952.
  • Outlines of a new theory of thought in Hegel's logic . 2., with a new foreword. Edition. Meiner, Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-7873-0435-5 (first edition: 1933).
  • The consciousness of the machines. A metaphysics of cybernetics . 3rd, exp. Edition. Agis, Krefeld, Baden-Baden 2002, ISBN 3-87007-009-9 (first edition: 1957).
  • Life As Poly-Contexturality . ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed on April 19, 2015]).
  • Idea and outline of a non-Aristotelian logic . 2., through Edition. Meiner, Hamburg 1978, ISBN 3-7873-0392-8 (first edition: 1959).
    • Oskar Becker : Book Review: Idea and Outline of a Non-Aristotelian Logic. Volume 1: The Idea and its Philosophical Requirements . In: Hegel studies . tape 2 , 1963, p. 322–325 ( vordenker.de [PDF; 15 kB ; accessed on April 19, 2015]).
  • Number and Logos - Unforgettable Hours with Warren S. McCulloch . In: R. Kaehr, A. Ziemke (Ed.): Realities and Rationalities, Self-Organization, Yearbook for Complexity in the Natural, Social and Human Sciences . tape 6 . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1995, p. 318–348 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  • Contributions to the foundation of an operational dialectic . Meiner, Hamburg (first volume 1976. second volume 1979. third volume 1980).
  • Self-representation in the mirror of America . In: LJ Pongratz (Ed.): Philosophy in Self-Representations II . Meiner, Hamburg 1975, p. 1-76 .
  • Identity, counter-identity and negative language . Lecture at the International Hegel Congress, Belgrade 1979. In: Hegeljahrbücher 1979 . S. 22–88 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  • Bernhard Mitterauer, Klaus Sander (ed.): Lifelines of subjectivity. Cybernetic reflections . Original sound recordings 1965–1984. Audio CD. Cologne 2000, ISBN 3-932513-14-2 .
  • The American Apocalypse . A collective pseudonym of the Klagenfurt research group around Arno Bammé. In: Kurt Klagenfurt (ed.): Technology and science research . tape 36 . Profil, Munich, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-89019-496-6 .
  • Dieter von Reeken (ed.): Gotthard Günther. Science fiction as metaphysics? Introduction and comments on the four »Rauch Space Books« (1951/52) . Afterword by Franz Rottensteiner (with a contribution by Rainer Eisfeld ), 2nd edition Lüneburg (Dieter von Reeken Verlag) 2016. ISBN 978-3-945807-06-4

periodical

  • Journal of basic studies in cybernetics and humanities. Publishing house Schnelle, Quickborn. (Gotthard Günther was co-editor, other editors were: Max Bense , Felix von Cube , Gerhard Eichhorn, Helmar Frank , Abraham Moles , Elisabeth Walther. Frequency of publication: four issues make up an annual volume, plus a supplement, first published in 1960.)

Writings, conceptual advancement of the polycontexturality theory

Note: Only publications are listed here that explicitly deal with the further development of the polycontexturality theory.

  • Rudolf Kaehr: Materials for the Formalization of Dialectical Logic and Morphogrammatics 1973–1975 . Attachment. In: Idea and outline of a non-Aristotelian logic . 2nd Edition. Meiner, Hamburg 1978 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed on October 20, 2015]).
  • Engelbert Kronthaler: Foundation of a mathematics of qualities . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-8204-9168-6 .
  • Rudolf Kaehr, Thomas Mahler: Morphogrammatics - An Introduction to the Theory of Logical Form. (PDF, 1.2 MB) Working report of the research project: Theory of Complex Biological Systems - Autopoiesis and Polycontexturality: Formalization, Operationalization and Modeling. (Biosciences competition, Volkswagen Foundation). Retrieved October 20, 2015 .
  • Rudolf Kaehr: Dissemination. (PDF, 577 kB) Retrieved October 20, 2015 .
  • Rudolf Kaehr: Sketch of a web of computing spaces in a thinking void. (PDF, 1.2 MB) Retrieved October 20, 2015 .
  • Rudolf Kaehr: Derrida's Machines. (PDF, 1.9 MB) Retrieved October 20, 2015 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arno Bammé: Unleashed Logic. Gotthard Günther: A life between worlds . In: Ernst Kotzmann (ed.): Gotthard Günther - technology, logic, technology . Profil, Munich / Vienna 1994, p. 11–31 ( guenther.uni-klu.ac.at ( memento of February 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed on April 19, 2015]). Logic unleashed. Gotthard Günther: A life between the worlds ( Memento of the original of February 22, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / guenther.uni-klu.ac.at
  2. ^ A b Warren S. McCulloch: A Heterarchy of Values ​​Determined by the Topology of Nervous Nets . In: Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics . tape 7 , 1945, p. 89–93 (English, vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  3. ^ C. Longyear: Towards a Triadic Calculus . In: Journal of Cybernetics . 1972, p. 50-65, 7-25 and 51-78 .
  4. ↑ Written information from the Förderkreis Ohlsdorfer Friedhof eV from June 29, 2017. The grave location is L3, 31–32.
  5. ↑ Heise, Steffen: Analysis of the morphogram. In: Contributions to the Klagenfurt technology discussion, issue 50; ISSN 1028-2734. Bammè, Arno; Baumgartner, Peter; Berger, Wilhelm; Kotzmann, Ernst, 1993, accessed on March 14, 2014 (d).
  6. ↑ a b c d Gotthard Günther: Self-portrayal in the mirror of America . In: LJ Pongratz (Hrsg.): Philosophy in self-portrayals . tape 2 . Meiner, Hamburg 1975, p. 1-76 .
  7. ^ A b Claus Baldus, Gotthard Günther: Phaidros and the glider: From the architectonics of reason to technical utopia . From conversations with Gotthard Günther. In: The Adventure of Ideas. Architecture and philosophy since the industrial revolution . International Building Exhibition Berlin 1987. 1987, p. 69–83 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  8. ↑ Note: Günther uses the now outdated synonym logistics for formal logic.
  9. ↑ Kurt Godel: Correspondence A-G . In: Solomon Feferman, John W. Dawson Jr., Warren Goldfarb, Charles Parsons, Wilfried Sieg (Eds.): Collected Works . tape IV . Clarendon Press, Oxford 2003, pp. 456-535 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]). Note: The letters from Günther to Gödel are in the estate "Kurt Gödel" in the Firestone Library at Princeton University (USA) , (The letters from Gödel to Günther are also in the estate "Gotthard Günther" in the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Manuscript department)
  10. ↑ Hegel: Phenomenology of Spirit , p. 61. Digital Library, Volume 2: Philosophy, p. 38817, cf. Hegel-W Vol. 3, p. 53
  11. ↑ Gotthard Günther: The death of idealism and the last mythology . Unpublished manuscript (fragment), after 1950. Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, manuscript department, estate no. 196, Gotthard Günther. ( vordenker.de ).
  12. ↑ a b Rudolf Kaehr, Joseph Ditterich: Practice in a different reading, diagram of a reconstruction of Günther's theory of negative languages . In: Philosophical Yearbook . 86th century 1979, p. 385–408 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  13. ^ Gotthard Günther: Number and Logos - Unforgettable Hours with Warren S. McCulloch . In: R. Kaehr and A. Ziemke (eds.): Realities and Rationalities, Self-Organization. Yearbook for Complexity in the Natural, Social and Human Sciences . tape 6 . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1995, p. 318–348 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  14. ↑ a b Gotthard Günther: Machine, Soul and World History . In: Gotthard Günther (Hrsg.): Contributions to the foundation of an operational dialectic . tape 3 . Meiner, Hamburg 1980, p. 211–235 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  15. ↑ Gotthard Günther: Identity, Counter-Identity and Negative Language . Lecture at the International Hegel Congress, Belgrade 1979. In: Hegeljahrbücher 1979 . S. 22–88 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  16. ↑ a b Gotthard Günther: Recognize and Will . An abridged version of Cognition and Volition . First published in: Cybernetics Technique in Brain Research and the Educational Process . 1971 Fall Conference of American Society for Cybernetics, Washington DC Dt. Translation by the PKL Group. Complete version in The Consciousness of Machines . AGIS, Baden-Baden 2002 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed on April 19, 2015]).
  17. ↑ Gotthard Günther: The American Apocalypse . In: Kurt Klagenfurt (ed.): Technology and science research . tape 36 . Profil Verlag, Munich / Vienna 2000, p. 144 .
  18. ↑ Willy Hochkeppel: Negative language to capture the world? The philosopher Gotthard Günther is eighty years old . In: The time . No. June 25 , 1980 ( vordenker.de [accessed April 19, 2015]).
  19. ↑ Gotthard Günther: Critical remarks on the current philosophy of science - On the occasion of Jürgen Habermas: To the logic of the social sciences . In: social world . tape 19 , 1968, p. 328–341 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  20. ^ Walter L. Bühl: The end of two-valued sociology . In: social world . tape 20 , 1969, p. 162–180 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  21. ↑ Walter L. Bühl: Luhmann's flight into the paradox . In: P.-U. Merz-Benz, G. Wagner (ed.): The logic of systems: To the criticism of the system-theoretical systems theory by Niklas Luhmann . Universitätsverlag, Konstanz 2000, p. 225–256 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed April 19, 2015]).
  22. ↑ Cf. especially J. Heinrichs: Language . tape 1 . Munich 2008, p. 58-67 . (“Methodological with reference to Gotthard Günther”); ders., Logic of the Social, Munich 2005.
  23. ↑ See Lars Clausen: The hunt around the wall . Klagenfurt 1991 .; Lars Clausen: On the asymmetry of prognosis and epignosis in the social sciences . In: Krasser social change . Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1994, p. 169-180 .
  24. ↑ Sandrina Khaled, Rudolf Kaehr: About death structure, machine and kenogrammatics . Rudolf Kaehr in conversation with Sandrina Khaled. In: Information Philosophy . 21st year, issue 5. Lörrach December 1993 ( vordenker.de [PDF; accessed on April 19, 2015]).
  25. ^ Peter Sloterdijk, Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs: Amphibious anthropology and informal thinking, serenity and polyvalence . In: Peter Sloterdijk, Hans-Jürgen Heinrichs (Hrsg.): The sun and death, dialogical investigations . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 2001, p. 351 ff .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 30, 2006 .
personal data
SURNAME Günther, Gotthard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Arnsdorf , district of Hirschberg , province of Silesia
DATE OF DEATH November 29, 1984
Place of death Hamburg