Harald Wohlrapp

Harald Rüdiger Wohlrapp (born June 6, 1944 in Hildesheim ) is a German philosopher and emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Hamburg . His specialty is argumentation theory.

Harald Wohlrapp

Career

Harald Wohlrapp studied comparative linguistics, psychology, sociology, political science and philosophy in Freiburg / Br., Paris and Erlangen from 1965 to 1970. He received his doctorate in philosophy in Erlangen in 1970 and completed his habilitation in 1980 in Constance. Wohlrapp has been Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg since 1983 . In September 2009 Harald Wohlrapp retired and held his farewell lecture on December 9, 2009 on the topic of What is religion? .

Reasoning theory

overview

Harald Wohlrapp's areas of work and research focus are dialectics ( Platon , Hegel , Marx ), pragmatism ( Peirce , Mead , Hugo Dingler ), philosophy of science ( Lorenzen , Feyerabend ), cultural theory and philosophy of language ( Wittgenstein , Kuno Lorenz ). The goal of Wohlrapp's philosophical engagement is the conceptual analysis and ideal determination of argumentative speech.

In doing so, argumentation theory is not regarded as some special area of philosophy , but as the condition for the possibility of future philosophizing. After the relativization thrusts of the 20th century (especially the relativization of meaning in the language game concept by Ludwig Wittgenstein , the relativization of knowledge in the paradigm concept of Thomas S. Kuhn and the breakdown of the concept of truth into about five concepts), philosophy has to secure its Productive further thinking only arguments, with which the question of what arguments are, what they can achieve, how they can prove any theses as valid, has become a fundamental question. Wohlrapp considers the traditional answers (logical conclusion and rhetorical figure), by which the current approaches to argumentation theory are largely shaped, to be inadequate: With logic, a new thesis can only be criticized, not supported, and rhetoric is blind to questions of validity.

Basic operations

The argumentation is interpreted in a dialogical manner, the arguments are thus addressed and the addressee is a competent critical opponent .

The basic operations claim, justify and object are worked out: A theory is built up by justification and dismantled by criticism. Justifications begin with beginnings from an epistemic theory and are continued through inferences from semi-formal steps. Objections are raised in the dialogical control of this procedure.

In doing so, Wohlrapp extends the usual logical reasoning based on a deductive premise-premise-conclusion scheme by a so-called retroflexive structure. Because the theses sometimes lack a theoretical basis, this is expanded and in this respect the thesis also supports the arguments without becoming circular.

Frame structures

An essential point for arguing is the frame in which something is written or in which something is seen. One understands something as something: A car can be seen as a means of transport or as a city devastation, i.e. it can be framed.

Frames represent structural prerequisites that go into the formulation of a thesis or arguments as subjective-conceptual components.

The suspension of frames, the shifting of frames, their transgression or the merging of two different frame perspectives hold the possibility of closing gaps in orientation or eliminating incompatibilities and thereby provoking the validity of a thesis.

Argumentative validity

Wohlrpp's approach sees argumentation as a practice in which the aim is to overcome deficits in orientation through probative theory improvement. In doing so, Wohlrapp develops a concept of the validity of theses, which then does not depend on opinion or approval, but on the potential of the theoretical basis available in each case.

A thesis that can be proven to be “faultless” before the “open forum of arguments” is suitable as a “new orientation”. With this concept, Wohlrapp offers a new perspective for dealing with the relativism problem. In view of the alternative between relativism and universalism , he appeals to the creativity of reason: We would have the opportunity to put our own point of view up for discussion and to develop it further in the direction of a less restricted worldview from within, by dealing with other views. In this context Wohlrapp refers to the principle of trans-subjectivity, which was developed by Paul Lorenzen and which focuses on a sensible definition of argumentation.

Although there are no longer any generally binding rules to which one could refer when dealing with controversies and conflicts, it is still possible to argue in order to create them yourself.

Subject areas

Wohlrapp likes to illustrate his approach using Colón's departure into the New World, the trial of Louis XVI. and based on the scientific episode about the heat substance phlogiston . From his argumentation-philosophical perspective, he participates in discourses on intercultural communication, human rights, the alleged justification of humanitarian wars and genetic research. Wohlrapp also works on the relationships between reasoning and belief.

Selection of publications

• Philosophy as a science of reflection : systematic studies on dialectics . - Erlangen, Univ., Diss., 1970
• Argumentation and Action : Drafting a Dialectical Intercognition Theory. - Hamburg, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1978
• Action research. Systematic considerations on a dialectical theory of action, especially endeavoring to understand the relationship between knowledge and action, according to which action is to be understood as both awareness and improvement of the situation, along with an illustration of what is meant based on the reforms of the psychiatrist Jan Foudraine . In: Method problems in the sciences of social action / ed. by Jürgen Mittelstrass. - Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1979, pp. 122-214
• Harald Wohlrapp (ed.): Ways of argumentation research. - Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt  : Frommann-Holzboog, 1995 ISBN 3772816606
• The search for a transcultural argumentation term . Results and Problems. In: Horst Steinmann and Andreas Georg Scherer (eds.): Between Universalism and Relativism . Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, ​​1998 ISBN 3518289802
• War for human rights? German Journal for Philosophy 48 (2000) 1, pp. 107-132
• Can human rights be offset? In: Georg Meggle (Ed.): Humanitarian Intervention Ethics. What does the Kosovo war teach us? - Paderborn: Mentis, 2004, pp. 181-200
• The concept of the argument. About the relationships between knowledge, research, belief, subjectivity and reason . Würzburg: Königshausen u. Neumann, 2008 ISBN 978-3-8260-3820-4
• Practice, value, peace: some arguments on the pragmatic foundations of business ethics . In: Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Unternehmensethik, 2009, 10 (3), 273–286. on-line
• The Concept of Argument. A Philosophical Foundation . Amsterdam / New York: Springer 2014 ISBN 978-9401787611

Further publications can be found in the list of publications.

literature

• Ursula Schmidt: How scientific revolutions come about: From pre-Copernican astronomy to Newtonian mechanics. Würzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 2010, Chapter 3.1 "The retroflexive structure of argumentation: Harald Wohlrapp's approach" (p. 92 ff.) ISBN 978-3-8260-4255-3
• Ralph Christensen / Hans Kudlich : Theory of judicial reasons. Berlin, Duncker & Humblot, 2001, ISBN 978-3-4281-0544-1
• Hans Julius Schneider : Review: The concept of the argument. About the relationships between knowledge, research, belief, subjectivity and reason by Harald Wohlrapp. Philosophical Review Vol. 56, No. 1 (2009), pp. 71-74

Web links

• University of Hamburg information page
• Interview in Chile in early 2013
• Five English-language contributions from a conference on Wohlrapp's approach
• Wohlrapp's answers to this in the same journal: informal logic

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Prof. Dr. Harald Wohlrapp. University of Hamburg, Philosophical Seminar, accessed on September 17, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Harald Wohlrapp: Der Term des Arguments, 2008, Chapter 4, pp. 185–235
3. ↑ Ursula Schmidt: How scientific revolutions come about. Würzburg 2010, pp. 92-97
4. ↑ Harald Wohlrapp: Der Term des Arguments, 2008, p. 313ff
5. ↑ Harald Wohlrapp: Der Term des Arguments, 2008, p. 239
6. ↑ Ursula Schmidt: How Scientific Revolutions Come About, 2010, p. 94
7. ↑ Harald Wohlrapp: Der Term des Arguments, 2008, 10 chapters, pp. 471–500