Hans Driesch

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Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch

Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (born October 28, 1867 in Kreuznach , † April 17, 1941 in Leipzig ) was a German biologist and philosopher .

Life

Driesch attended the learned school of the Johanneum in Hamburg from 1877 to 1886 . He studied first from 1886 at the University of Freiburg with August Weismann , from 1887 at the University of Jena zoology with Ernst Haeckel and Oscar Hertwig and botany with Ernst Stahl . In 1889 he stayed at the newly established marine biological station Plymouth for studies. In 1889 he received his doctorate from Haeckel with his thesis "Tectonic Studies on Hydroid Polyps". In 1890 he went on study trips to India and Lesina . From 1891 he conducted research at the Naples Zoological Station . In 1907 and 1908 he lectured at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland as part of the Gifford Lectures . In 1909 Driesch became a private lecturer in natural philosophy at the University of Heidelberg , in 1911 an associate professor and in 1920 a full professor for philosophy at the University of Cologne and from 1921 a full professor and director of the Philosophical Seminar at the University of Leipzig . The University of Hamburg awarded Driesch an honorary doctorate in medicine in 1923, and the University of Nanking an honorary doctorate in the same year.

Hans Driesch was married to the writer Margaretha Reifferscheidt (1874-1946) since 1899. One of his children was the composer Kurt Driesch. At his funeral, Richard Wagner's Parsifal was played at his request .

Experimental research

From 1891 Driesch carried out experimental mechanical development studies on sea ​​urchin germs at the Naples Zoological Station . He separated the germs in their two-cell stage of the cleavage cells by vigorous shaking in a small glass tube. The surviving cleavage cells developed just as if they had not been separated from their sister cell. Each of the cells was thus able to produce a complete organism. Correspondingly, Driesch referred to the entire development potential of a cell as its “prospective potency” and that which actually emerges from the cell during normal development as its “prospective significance”. In the sea urchin, the prospective potency of the blastomeres is greater than the prospective importance.

Driesch varied these experiments many times with different organisms and repeatedly came across their ability to automatically restore what had been dismembered and destroyed. Because it was not possible Driesch, this with regard to the biological morphogenesis on mechanistic and materialistic to explain way it irritated this result. In the case of a “mechanism”, the “arrangement of the parts, the 'constellation', the 'structure' and the last laws of action between the parts” are decisive. However, the results observed in Driesch's experiments could not be explained by a mechanism understood in this way.

philosophy

Leipzig, former home of Hans Driesch from 1921 to 1941, Emil-Fuchs-Strasse No. 1 (2014)
Leipzig, memorial plaque for Hans Driesch on his former home, Emil-Fuchs-Strasse No. 1 (2014)
Leipzig, Hans Driesch's grave plaque on the New Johannisfriedhof

The result of his experiments, which in Driesch's eyes could not be explained under mechanistic and materialistic conditions, led him to philosophy . His initial question was: “Is a given, purely material structure conceivable as the basis for the formation of form or not?” He understood the term “mechanism” as follows: All future states can be derived from a present state if known in relation to the present state are: 1. the positions of each material element, 2. the speed of each element and 3. the law of interaction between the elements. In this sense, the future events are the geometric sum of all individual movements and forces of the material elements.

Driesch found it impossible to adequately explain the morphogenesis of organisms in this way. Although it was Driesch who introduced the concept of the biological system , he was of the opinion that even a systems biology view would not change this fact: "Ordered wholeness is not a 'mechanism', and wholeness can never result from a genuine mechanism [.. .] "

In addition to the physico-chemical processes, Driesch therefore demanded a natural factor that creates the orderly wholeness of the organism. In this factor he saw the decisive difference between the animate and the inanimate. He called it, based on Aristotle , " entelechy ". Occasionally he also spoke of "X-Agents". It is an immaterial factor that - since everything material is spatial - works into space as if from “outside”. "The vital causality, working with the concept of entelechy as a non-material agent that works 'into space', is called wholeness causality , because the organism is whole and becomes whole again after disturbances." but "only on the insight that something fundamentally alien to the matter is at work, which, in other words, is not worked from the matter, but with the matter here."

With this approach, Driesch became a central exponent of neovitalism , whose primarily natural philosophical works found widespread use in the 1920s among laypeople as well as biologists and zoologists. Starting from the narrower biophilosophy , Hans Driesch developed an extensive overall philosophy, which also includes the areas of psychology , philosophy of science, relativity theory , and ethics . The basic orientation of his philosophy consisted in a criticism of materialism or naturalism and their reductionist nature.

From 1924 Driesch also dealt with parapsychology , acted 1926-27 as president of the Society for Psychical Research and published in 1932 a method textbook for this area.

Honors

In Leipzig, a large street in the Leutzsch district is named after Hans Driesch, it extends the axis of Emil-Fuchs-Straße , on which his former house is located. In the Cologne district of Lindenthal , the work of Hans Driesch was also honored by naming a street.

Driesch worked for many years as a collaborator on the popular scientific illustrated monthly Reclams Universum , which commemorated him on the occasion of his 60th birthday in its October 27, 1927 edition.

Driesch was pacifist and democratic and was therefore one of the first professors to apply for his retirement under the pressure of the Nazi dictatorship due to his earlier advocacy for pacifist colleagues and was thus excluded from teaching at the university.

In 2013 Michael W. Driesch, who is not related to Hans Driesch, donated a Hans Driesch Science Prize , which is awarded by the University of Witten / Herdecke .

Driesch with Kurt Tucholsky

In view of a speech by Hans Driesch before the Reichsgericht in Leipzig in 1928 , in which he also campaigned indirectly for members of the German League for Human Rights who were accused of their publicly expressed radical pacifism, the poet Tucholsky Driesch described as "highly courageous, “Who“ stood up for the accused in a meritorious way ”, but he regrets that Driesch did not speak much more clearly and without regard to conventions.

student

Fonts (selection)

  • The "soul" as an elementary natural factor, Leipzig 1903.
  • Biology as an independent basic science and the system of biology, 2. Auf. Leipzig 1911.
  • The concept of organic form, Berlin 1919.
  • The Problem of Freedom, 2nd edition, Darmstadt 1920.
  • Body and soul, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1920.
  • The philosophy of the organic, 2nd ed. Leipzig: Engelmann, 1921
  • My system and its career, 2nd edition. Philosophy in self-portrayals, Leipzig 1922.
  • Ordnungslehre, 2nd edition Jena 1923.
  • Basic problems in psychology, Leipzig 1926.
  • The moral act. An attempt at moral philosophy, Leipzig 1927.
  • Theory of Relativity and Weltanschauung, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1929.
  • Reality theory, 3rd edition Leipzig 1930.
  • Philosophical research, Leipzig 1930.
  • Parapsychology, Munich 1932.
  • Present-day philosophical questions, Leipzig 1933.
  • Overcoming materialism, Zurich 1935.
  • Everyday riddle of mental life, Stuttgart 1938.
  • Man and the world, 2nd edition, Zurich 1945.

literature

Kurt Tucholsky ; Learn to laugh without crying
  • Raimund Schmidt (Hrsg. & Einf.): The German philosophy of the present in self-portrayals. First volume: Paul Barth / Erich Becher / Hans Driesch / Karl Joël / A. Meinong / Paul Natorp / Johannes Rehmke / Johannes Volkelt . Felix Meiner, Leipzig 1921.
  • Otto Heinichen: Driesch's philosophy. An introduction, Leipzig 1924.
  • Will Durant : The great thinkers, Zurich 1926, pp. 441–451.
  • Aloys Wenzl : Hans Driesch: Personality and Significance for Biology and Philosophy Today, Basel 1951
  • Emil Ungerer : Hans Driesch. The autonomy of organic life. In: Researchers and Scientists in Europe Today. 2. Physicians, biologists, anthropologists. Ed. Hans Schwerte & Wilhelm Spengler . Series: Gestalter Our Zeit Vol. 4. Stalling, Oldenburg 1955, pp. 218–227.
  • Reinhard Mocek: Wilhelm Roux, Hans Driesch. On the history of the developmental physiology of animals (" development mechanics "), Jena 1974.
  • Aloys Wenzl:  Driesch, Hans Adolf Eduard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 125 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Horst H. Freyhofer: The Vitalism of Hans Driesch. The Success and Decline of a Scientific Theory, Frankfurt / Main, Bern 1982.
  • Walter Hof: The philosophical range of modern natural science, Leer 1984, pp. 15–26.
  • Thomas Miller: Construction and Justification . On the structure and relevance of Hans Driesch's philosophy. G. Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 1991. ISBN 978-3-487-09514-1
  • Kurt Tucholsky ; Learn to laugh without crying. Selection 1928–1929; Berlin 1985
  • Hans-Peter Waldrich : Grenzgänger der Wissenschaft, Munich 1993, pp. 64–93.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Jeanische Journal of Science in 1889 and 1890
  2. See Kurt Driesch: Hans Driesch als Mensch, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 57 (1947) 19-21.
  3. Kurt Driesch: Hans Driesch als Mensch, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 57 (1947) 19–21, here 20.
  4. Hans Driesch: Philosophy of the organic. 4th edition, Leipzig 1928, p. 42 f.
  5. Hans Driesch: “Development mechanics studies. I-II. The value of the first two cleavage cells in echinoderm development. Experimental generation of partial and double formations. ”In: Journal for Scientific Zoology , Volume 53, 1891.
  6. Biology upper level. Total band. Edited by Ulrich Weber. Berlin 2001, p. 218.
  7. Hans Driesch: Memoirs. Basel 1951, p. 74
  8. Hans Driesch: Biological problems of a higher order. 2nd Edition. Leipzig 1944, p. 28.
  9. Hans Driesch: Overcoming materialism. Zurich 1935, p. 32.
  10. Hans Driesch: Philosophy of the organic. 4th edition. Leipzig 1928, p. 311.
  11. Heinz Penzlin: The phenomenon of life. Basic questions of theoretical biology. Springer Verlag, Berlin and Heidelberg 2014, p. 45.
  12. Hans Driesch: Reality theory. A metaphysical attempt. 2nd Edition. Leipzig 1922, p. 79.
  13. Hans Driesch: Parapsychology. Kindler Taschenbücher, Munich undated (approx. 1970), p. 109.
  14. Hans Driesch: Systematic self-presentation. ( German systematic philosophy based on its designers , edited by Hermann Schwarz) Berlin 1933, p. 156
  15. Hans Driesch: Biological Problems of a Higher Order, p. 15 f.
  16. Hans Driesch: Basic problems of psychology. 2nd Edition. Leipzig 1929.
  17. Hans Driesch: Philosophical research. Leipzig 1930.
  18. Hans Driesch: Theory of Relativity and Weltanschauung. 2nd Edition. Leipzig 1930.
  19. Hans Driesch: The moral act. An attempt at moral philosophy. Leipzig 1927.
  20. Hans Driesch: Overcoming materialism. Zurich 1935.
  21. This has been reprinted many times, for example as a paperback with contributions by Hans Bender .
  22. ^ Konrad Adenauer and Volker Gröbe: Streets and squares in Lindenthal . JP Bachem, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-7616-1018-1 , p. 62 f.
  23. Hans Driesch: Memoirs. P. 271 ff.
  24. ^ Information service science: "In 2013, the University of Witten / Herdecke awards the Hans Driesch Science Prize for the first time."
  25. Kurt Tucholsky: Learn to laugh without crying. Selection 1928-1929. Berlin 1985, p. 391.
  26. ibid.
  27. ibid.