Hans Wagner (philosopher)

Hans Wagner (1980)

Hans Wagner (born January 10, 1917 in Plattling , Lower Bavaria, † February 1, 2000 in Bonn ) was a German philosopher . He taught and researched as a professor in Würzburg (1953–1961) and Bonn (1961–1982) with an interruption due to a visiting professorship at Yale University; In 1968 he turned down a call to Yale University and in 1975 a call to the New School for Social Research in New York.

Life

After studying in Regensburg, Vienna, Tübingen and, after the interruption due to military service, in Würzburg, he did his doctorate at the University of Würzburg with a thesis based on Nicolai Hartmann on "Apriority and Ideality" in the history of philosophy from Plato to New Ontology of the 20th century. Just two years later, he completed his habilitation on the subject of “Existence, Analogy and Dialectics. Religio pura seu transcendentalis ”. In 1953 he was appointed extraordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Würzburg and in 1955 extraordinary professor.

In 1956 he began to issue the papers of the neo-Kantian Richard Hönigswald . - Through intensive studies of Husserl's works , Hegel and Kant , he prepared an overall draft of all philosophical disciplines, which appeared in 1959 under the title "Philosophy and Reflection" and became the standard work of systematic philosophizing.

A wealth of systematic and historical studies arose during his time in Bonn, including the commentary on Aristotelian “Physics” (1967); A large part of the smaller works was summarized in 1980 in the volume "Critical Philosophy" and posthumously in the volume "Zu Kant's Critical Philosophy". From 1968 to 1978 Wagner published the renowned “Archive for the History of Philosophy”. After his retirement, Wagner published a small book on “The Aesthetics of Tragedy” and in 1992 another large, systematic and at the same time time-critical work entitled “The Dignity of Man”.

Achievement and importance

Wagner wanted to be satisfied neither with the hermeneutical reconstruction of a tradition stylized as the history of being nor with the formal analysis of the individual sciences, but rather wanted to win back the task of philosophy as the ultimate foundation of all thought and action.

He represented a transcendental philosophy, which was mainly oriented towards Kant and expanded through thought motifs of Hegel, Neo-Kantianism and phenomenology , and tried to substantiate it comprehensively in his main systematic work "Philosophy and Reflection" (1959).

The four-part correlation of subject, object, act (noesis) and content (noema)

In “Philosophy and Reflection” Wagner develops a radical new approach to the problem of reflection , which includes both object-oriented and self-reflective thinking, but ultimately also concerns the problem of validity of a theory of practice. The book begins with an elementary exposure to phenomena, the explication of subject , object , act and content of knowledge and thought in general. The closer analysis of the third and fourth members in this basic relationship, the analysis of the act ( noesis ) and the content ( noema ), shows two things: the reflection on the aspects of intentionality , namely on the constitution of the noema through the noesis and its relation to the world , can indeed (with recourse to Husserl's and Heidegger's considerations) work out important moments of a transcendental-philosophical concept of the subject. The problem of validity ( validity ) and the validity of the reason of knowledge but it takes on not yet adequately addressed.

Noematic reflection on validity and absolute subject

Only by means of the noematic reflection on validity , as has been attempted in the various branches of Neo-Kantianism, can the unconditional ground of validity be sought. Wagner undertakes this decisive path of reflection starting from the noematic concept of judgment (in today's more common phrase: the proposition ). In it, the validity-constituting relationships to the object (reference) and to the determining conceptuality (predication) are synthetically combined. Its validity conditions determine the transcendental- logical concept of the subject , the “subjectum veritatis”, as the principle-theoretical absolute, the unconditional ground of all truth and validity. This unconditional is nothing else than thinking in the sense of a principle of object determination in general, a complex principle of validity , in common parlance a 'logical construct'.

The logical principles - primary constitutive a priori

Wagner unfolds the predicate this absolute, subject 'by an appropriate analytical explication of the logical principles, wherein the purely formal always the cognitive functional aspect of the judgment is made explicit, so the applicability of these principles, as the conditions of all precision and all determination , genealogical to justify. In particular, the interpretation of the identity principle, right at the beginning of this explication, goes beyond the purely formal, inner-logical aspect, and makes the cognitive function of the judgment clear: the being of the object of judgment is to be thought of as being identical to the posited nature of the object and the determinateness of the object in itself ' as identical to the definition of the subject matter in the judgment . - This is followed by the explications of the principle of contradiction and the excluded third party, the principle of limitation and the genre, and finally the principle of dialectic. Wagner calls the entire fundamental theory, which includes formal logic and the genealogical justification of the object-determining function of logic, the 'primary constitutive a priori '.

The self-fulfilling skepticism and the secondary constitutive apriority

Subordinate to the primary is the 'secondary constitutive a priori ' of the principles that determine the object as such. Before these object-constitutive principles are unfolded, Wagner safeguards the final justification carried out so far against possible objections with a reflection on the "absolute ground of thought and the accomplished skepticism " (§ 18), which is the core of the validity theory of the 'elenkischen' argument known since Aristotle What is elaborated: If skepticism (like relativism) does not want to apply its skepticism (or relativity thesis) to itself (as one has to admit it), then it is not spared from having to properly justify this exemption from skepticism and relativity to justify. But then it has to establish itself as a noematic reflection of validity; and then finally he must use and legitimize the logical principles that are the absolute basis of all truth. (The argument reappears later, in a modification of the communication pragmatic, also with Karl-Otto Apel and his student Wolfgang Kuhlmann ). For Wagner it goes without saying that the exposition of the 'absolute soil' given in the last statement should by no means be confused with the 'infallible measurement' of this soil (cf. Aschenberg 2002, p. 38).

Wagner derives the subject-constitutive principles from the primary constitutive principles with reference to Kant's supreme principle of synthetic judgments. This results in both an ontology based on transcendental philosophy and a philosophy of science that determines the function of sensual receptivity and methodology (regulative and systematic a priori).

Facticity of the concrete subject and practical reflection

The absolute subject, conceived in terms of principles, is a ›logical construct‹. In order to be able to function as a validity principle , a concreteness is required, and therefore also a concretization principle as its correlate. The facticity of the concrete subject is required , and not only because the abstract idea would otherwise not justify anything and because the factual subject is subject to the principles of the transcendental and must be measured and tested against it, but because the factual subject also has that The testing subject is and must be, just as the subject already is who carries out the reflection on the principles of validity (§ 29). Here Wagner can tie in with the phenomenological theorists in their various forms ( Husserl , Heidegger , Sartre ).

However, the fact that the concrete subject does not have principles as existing determinations, but only as possibilities and tasks, constitutes for Wagner the necessity of a practical reflection in a comprehensive sense , which successively manifests itself as a reflection of validity on the self-shaping of thought, will (ethics), des Feeling (aesthetics), real existence and work (transcendental philosophy of the economic-social) unfolds.

Human dignity

This practical reflection is the main theme of Wagner's last great work, “The Dignity of Man”. It starts from the discrepancy between the public affirmation of the inviolability of human dignity and the inability of contemporary thought to justify its binding claim . Wagner sees the prevailing empiricism and positivism as the reason for this discrepancy - already in the philosophy of knowledge and science, which has led to a completely naturalistic image of man. Wagner subjects the theoretical foundations of this development to a detailed critical examination. In return, he shows that the idea of ​​the subject of a theory that claims to be valid and all responsible practice is still to be presupposed for that empiricism and positivism. It shows that this idea, far removed from that dignified idealism of the 19th century, is the ultimate and undeniable basis of human dignity. After a comprehensive reflection on the indispensable demands that this idea makes on the scientific community and our everyday consciousness, on our educational institutions and on public opinion and politics, Wagner shows the need for an empirical-critical approach in moral philosophy that goes beyond a pragmatic morality and to fall back on the Kantian principles of ethics and law.

Academic work

Hans Wagner trained a large number of students in Würzburg and Bonn, many of them who have taught philosophy at schools and universities at home and abroad (including: Gerd Wolandt , Werner Flach (philosopher) , Karl Bärthlein , Manfred Brelage , Hariolf Oberer , Gerhard Seel , Bernward Grünewald , Stephan Nachtsheim , Reinhold Aschenberg , Udo Thiel , Nikos Avgelis). - For his 60th, 70th and 80th birthday, a total of 5 commemorative publications were dedicated to him, which emphasize his professional importance.

Works

• Existence, analogy and dialectic. Religio pura seu transcendentalis. 1st half band. Munich and Basel 1953.
• Philosophy and reflection. Munich and Basel 1959; third edition 1980. ISBN 3-497-00937-7 ; New edition as vol. 1 of the Ges. Schriften, ed. by B. Grünewald, Paderborn 2013. ISBN 978-3-506-77643-3 ; (Partial translation of §§ 1–33 into Modern Greek: Φιλοσοφία καί σκέψη, edited and translated by Ν. Αυγελης, Thessaloniki 1981 and 1984).
• Systematic treatises (Ges. Schr. Bd. 3) ed. by B. Grünewald, Paderborn 2015. ISBN 978-3-506-78079-9
• Treatises on philosophy before Kant (Ges. Schr. Vol. 4), ed. from St. Nachtsheim, Paderborn 2018. ISBN 978-3-506-79256-3
• Treatises on the philosophy of Kant (Ges. Schr. Vol. 5), ed. v. H. Oberer, Paderborn 2017. ISBN 978-3-506-78577-0
• Treatises on philosophy according to Kant (Ges. Schr. Vol. 6), ed. v. R. Aschenberg, Paderborn 2017. ISBN 978-3-506-78484-1
• Writings on religion and on the philosophy of religion (Ges. Schr. Vol. 7), ed. v. R. Aschenberg, Paderborn 2017. ISBN 978-3-506-78731-6
• Aristotle physics lecture. Translated, introduced and commented. Berlin 1967; 5th edition 1995. ISBN 3-05-000927-6
• Critical philosophy. Systematic and historical treatises, ed. by K. Bärthlein and W. Flach. Würzburg 1980 ISBN 3-88479-019-6
• Aesthetics of tragedy from Aristotle to Schiller. Würzburg 1987. ISBN 3-88479-270-9 (special edition ISBN 3-88479-317-9 )
• Human dignity. Essence and norm function. Würzburg 1992. ISBN 3-88479-659-3 ; New edition as vol. 2 of the Ges. Schriften, ed. from St. Nachtsheim, Paderborn 2014 ISBN 978-3-506-77878-9 .
• On Kant's Critical Philosophy, ed. by B. Grünewald and H. Oberer, Würzburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-8260-3902-7
• Religious letters. From the estate, ed. by R. Aschenberg, Würzburg 2011. ISBN 978-3-8260-4551-6

literature

• Reinhold Aschenberg : validity and subjectivity , in: Wiener Jahrbuch für Philosophie 30, 1998, pp. 215–236.
• Reinhold Aschenberg, final reason? Contribution to a typological orientation , in: R. Hiltscher, A. Georgi (Ed.), Perspektiven der Transzendentalphilosophie, Freiburg / Munich 2002, pp. 11–42.
• Reinhold Breil, review: Hans Wagner, Human dignity. Essence and norm function , in: Philosophischer Literaturanzeiger 46, 1993, pp. 209–213.
• Wolfgang Cramer, review: Hans Wagner, philosophy and reflection , in: Philosophische Rundschau 11, 1963, pp. 68–90.
• Werner Flach: Basics of the theory of knowledge. Criticism of knowledge, logic, methodology . Würzburg 1994. ISBN 3-88479-972-X .
• Bernward Grünewald: Hans Wagner - Theory of Principles and Human Dignity , in: Wiener Jahrbuch für Philosophie 37, 2005, pp. 175–185.
• Christian Krijnen: Philosophy as a system: Hans Wagner and Werner Flach , in: Information Philosophy 2009, no. 4, pp. 27–33.
• Christian Krijnen, Kurt Walter Zeidler, reflection and concrete subjectivity. Contributions to the 100th birthday of Hans Wagner (1917–2000), Ferstl & Perz, Vienna 2017
• Steinar Mathisen: Hans Wagner . In other words: transcendental philosophy and system. On the problem of the structure of validity , Bonn 1994, pp. 99–115
• Peter Michael Lippitz: final reason. Werner Flach's theory of knowledge and the foundation approaches of Hans Wagner and Kurt Walter Zeidler , Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3205-5
• Hariolf Oberer: Bibliography Hans Wagner , in: Kant. Analyzes - Problems - Criticism, Volume III, ed. v. H. Oberer, Würzburg 1997, pp. 363-376.
• Manfredo Araújo de Oliveira: Subjectivity and Mediation. Study on the development of transcendental thinking in I. Kant, E. Husserl and H. Wagner , Munich 1973.
• GA Schrader: Philosophy and Reflection: Beyond Phenomenology , in: The Review of Metaphysics 15, 1961, pp. 81-107.
• Kurt Walter Zeidler: Critical Dialectics and Transcendentalontology. The outcome of Neo-Kantianism and the post-Neo-Kantian systematics R. Hönigswalds, W. Cramers, B. Bauchs, H. Wagners, R. Reiningers and E. Heintels , Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-416-02518-0

Web links

• Literature by and about Hans Wagner in the catalog of the German National Library
• Information about Hans Wagner, compiled by KW Zeidler, Archive for Systematic Philosophy, Vienna.