Helmut Fleischer (philosopher)

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Helmut Fleischer (born November 8, 1927 in Unterrodach , Upper Franconia; † October 12, 2012 ) was a German philosopher , social scientist and historian. From 1973 to autumn 1995 he was professor of philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt and made a name for himself as a Marxism researcher and contemporary diagnostician.

Life

Fleischer grew up in a Christian house, was drafted into the Wehrmacht as a 17-year-old high school student and sent to the Eastern Front for the last weeks of the war. He was captured in the turmoil after the capitulation and in 1945 was interned in a camp east of Moscow .

As a “course student” at an “ Antifa school for prisoners of war”, Fleischer came into contact with Stalin's “ Soviet Marxism ” or “ Marxism-Leninism ”, through contact with other participants also with the German labor movement and their Marxist thinking. This section of his life story aroused his interest in the history of the peoples and the fortunes of the people, above all in the consequences of the Russian October Revolution and the mistaken path of the German nation in this century.

Studying the original Russian literature and studying post-Stalinist Soviet philosophy later became part of the scientific research work. Fleischer returned to his Franconian homeland in 1947 , made up his Abitur and studied philosophy, modern history and psychology at the University of Erlangen . He received his doctorate in 1955 with a thesis on Nicolai Hartmann .

After coming into contact with student-political organizational contexts and the 1968 movement, Fleischer kept his distance in this regard. After 1965, during the years of the practice group , he was also a critical and participatory observer at the Korčula international summer school and brought his independent perspective to these fields of communication through contributions to the discussion and highly regarded publications.

Fleischer immersed himself in particular in historical-critical Marxism studies. He initially worked at the Eastern European Institute (Berlin) of the Berlin Free University , worked for eight years in Eastern European research until he established himself in university philosophy: from 1969 he was a lecturer at the philosophical seminar at the Free University of Berlin, and finally professor from 1973 to autumn 1995 for philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt.

Research priorities

Studies on Marx and Marxism

Helmut Fleischer is best known for his work on Marx and Marxism. Other main topics are National Socialism and the Soviet Revolution, reflections on ethical issues and studies on modern contemporary history.

In connection with the confrontation with the National Socialist past and scientific controversies, including the historians ' dispute , Fleischer turned against moralizing arguments and instead pleaded for his practice-analytical, socio-historical differentiating approach. Accordingly, he was concerned with a de-ideologization of the understanding of Soviet socialism: the essentials are not to be understood simply in the sense of “totalitarian rule”, but rather from the special constellation of the given historical forces. Nor is it a question of the realization of a Marxian theory; rather, it should at best be assessed as a detached ideological criticism of the Soviet revolution.

Studies on Marx and Marxism occupy a large space. It is peculiar that Fleischer hardly takes Marx's critique of political economy into account. He sees the decisive factor in Marx's “turn of philosophy towards practice” as the social-historical reality and at the same time as the analytical key for a realistic approach to events. The dialogue with Marx is fruitful if one refers to these and other achievements such as the critique of ideological consciousness.

The spiritual center of his work can therefore be located in its own form of critical practical thinking. This is inspired by Marx, but essentially focuses on the actions of concrete subjects under the respective material, effective social conditions. Fleischer therefore sought to keep a distance from the historical-philosophical ideas of a Marxist philosophy of practice as well as from a critical theory that argues socially and ethically .

The Marxism is from this perspective already a perversion of Marx's thinking approach to ideology, and especially from a legitimate apply socialism as an understood than its counterpart capitalism as disabled "Fetish terms" from the era of confrontation system. Fleischer does not speak of capitalism, but of societies of a capitalist industrial civilization.

This exemplary way of dealing with the historical does not take place without a point of view ultimately gained from it: the conception of his “ethics without imperative” means the rejection of a moral universalism. Instead, it aims at gaining a lively, practical ethos that is modeled in civil life. This could be assessed against problematic modernization tendencies.

Mueller's practical and historical thinking is concentrated, similar to that of Norbert Elias , in a term of “civilization”. This means a practically synthetic unity of all functions of social life. From this point of view, one looks at the situation of humanity on the threshold of the 21st century: Here the historian sees a continued struggle for the shape of civilization. He counts the overcoming of a market-based absolutism as well as the enormous civilizational divide that exists on a world scale as a human-friendly future orientation. Civilization in this sense is a "political issue" in which we ourselves are involved. After all, a look ahead would only be possible from the internal perspective of social practice, within a limited historical horizon, at least not on the basis of postulates and visions that are brought forward to the social and historical.

Epistemology and category theory

"If you think in terms of categories, you save yourself a lot of detours, which is why the detour via the categories is definitely worthwhile" ( Helmut Fleischer : December 31, 1999)

1954 Fleischer was the subject of Nicolai Hartmann's ontology of the ideal being in obtaining Anton Ernst Berger doctorate . In the 1990s Fleischer took up the subject of ontology and epistemology again; however, there are only unpublished scripts. Most recently in 1993 about the fourfold branching of the conceptual language diremtion 12, 1993.

Based on Immanuel Kant and above all Nicolai Hartmann and Roman Ingarden , Fleischer developed a theory of knowledge based on the sensual, the perception in space and time, on the concrete (Nicolai Hartmann). Self-experience, mental faculties, the interlinking of self-being and being with the world create categories for knowledge . In everyday practice as the primary medium, the basis of terminology and categorical apprehension is formed; Practice means being active and experiencing an active or passive reaction to being active. The subject initially perceives itself in its own way, but is also perceived by others, and perhaps also differently from self-perception. In addition to being oneself and being with others, the relationship to the environment is formative. The subject is simultaneously the subject of knowledge and the subject of action and perceives being based on its own experience of being.

The experience level plays on a primary level, perception; the knowledge on a further, secondary, the level of reflection. So knowledge is a secondary act and the only act that is non-emotional. Knowledge goes ontically from the secondary to the primary, i.e. H. to the fundamental. Perception and knowledge are always woven into an experience context, into the reality in which we live. Knowledge always has the entire context of life behind and in front of it. This applies to naive experience as well as to scientific knowledge, i.e. feel, experience, experience, recognize. We are in the world as being subjects and our being belongs to the being of the world. Reality is the real world of things and people, and the handling of things in relation to people in situations. It is about personal activity and personal ability, about initiative and adaptability, about work that needs to be mastered.

Categories are representatives of cognitive actions; they testify of things and of the way people treat their own kind. They run with the cognitive process and figure in it, while cognition arises. They denote achievements of analysis and synthesis . The spontaneously active moment that is in categorically organized knowledge, we humans ourselves, who grasp what is real and describe what is perceived. The being of the categories is our presence in knowing and in what is known as what is known. We feel the meaning of being first in our own being alive, in our own work. Categories are based on what we originally experienced, experienced, felt; Category knowledge is categorical self-awareness, a kind of accountability.

Not judging, but perception is the primary place of categorical analysis and synthesis, which leads to the formation of linguistic concepts. The categorical thinking is above all the mediation of self-reflection and self-control. The reflexive attitude also includes the willingness to postpone claims and proofs, and then also a certain courage to acknowledge one's own subjectivity .

Publications

  • Marxism and History. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1969, in the 6th edition 1977. Translations into Spanish, Italian, English, Portuguese, etc. a. Marxism and History. New York, Harper & Row, 1973. ISBN 0-7139-0347-3 .
  • Marx and Engels. The basic philosophical lines of their thinking. Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1970, 2nd edition 1974. ISBN 3-495-47189-8 .
  • Normativistic and materialistic understanding of the socialist transformation, in: PRAXIS, Philosophical Journal (International Edition). Anarchy, future, revolution. Issue 3–4 1972.
  • Critique of the Marxist-Leninist School Philosophy - Social Philosophical Studies. Olle & Wolter, Edition Prinkipo, Berlin 1973.
  • Karl Marx. The turn of philosophy to practice, in: Philosophy of the Modern Age II. Fundamental Problems of the Great Philosophers, Ed. J. Speck, Göttingen 1976.
  • Understanding of practice, in: Kasseler Philosophische Schriften Vol. 7, Baseline and Perspectives of a Philosophy of Practice, Eds. M. Grauer and W. Schmied-Kowarzik, Kassel 1982.
  • Ethics without imperative. On the critique of moral consciousness. Fischer paperback, Frankfurt am Main 1987.
  • Epoch phenomenon Marxism. How will Karl Marx outlast Marxism? edition social philosophy, Walter G. Neumann, Hanover 1993. ISBN 3-379-01515-6 .
  • Three studies on the post-history of the 20th century, (1) the political issue of civilization, (2) the new wars and their old imperial context, (3) Europe and the rest of the world. Vote for a political historicism. In: Zeitschrift KOMMUNE 11/2001, 2002, 5/2003.
  • Historical communication, historical terminology as well as perspectives and paradigms of historical perception. in: Erwägen, Wissen, Ethik (EWE) 13/2002, Issue 1, Second discussion unit on Ernst Nolte .
  • Historicity and historical thinking. In: Horst Müller (ed.), The PRAXIS concept in the center of socially critical science. Norderstedt 2005, pp. 138-153. ISBN 3-8334-3737-5 .
  • From Hitler's war through Stalin's GULag: a look back at a moving history. Centaurus, Freiburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-8255-0729-9 .

literature

  • Horst Müller : Fight for civilization. Helmut Fleischer's practice-analytical approach to social-historical location determination, in: Kommune. Forum for politics, economy, culture. Issue 6/2007, pp. 60-61.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helmut Fleischer: From Hitler's War through Stalin's GULag: Looking back on a moving story. Centaurus, Freiburg 2010. ISBN 978-3-8255-0729-9 . Life story and selected texts on the main works of Helmut Fleischer
  2. ↑ Helmut Fleischer, Social Philosophical Studies, Critique of the Marxist-Leninist School Philosophy, Edition Prinkipo, Berlin 1973. ISBN 3-921241-04-9
  3. ↑ Helmut Fleischer, Historically editing the "Fall Marx", in: Materials for the Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism, Fritz Haug on his 60th birthday, Argument Verlag, Hamburg 1996. ISBN 3-88619-396-9 , pp. 27 ff
  4. ^ Helmut Fleischer, The Marxism in his age, Reclam-Leipzig, 1994. ISBN 3-379-01515-6
  5. ↑ Helmut Fleischer, Geschichts-Materialismus, studies on the historical process of socialism, essays and lectures between 1975 and 1985, unpublished.
  6. ↑ A key text on Fleischer's positioning and at the same time delimitation is "Understanding Practice"
  7. ↑ In addition Fleischer's “Ten Theses on Marx and Marxisms” in: Epochenphänomen Marxismus, pp. 82–89
  8. ↑ An article in the magazine Kommune No. 11/2001 is titled “Politicum Civilization” and is reprinted in: From Hitler's War through Stalin's GULag, pp. 203-219. The otherwise unpublished text summarizes considerations on the world historical situation: "Civilization on the test stand" ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2014 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 / www.praxisphilosophie.de
  9. ↑ Helmut Fleischer has in the eight-volume work "Critical Dictionary of Marxism" [Dictionnaire critique du Marxisme], edited by Georges Labica, German by Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Argument-Verlag, Berlin 1983. ISBN 3-88619-431-0 the terms to the Letters H and F. ISBN 3-88619-434-5 translated.
  10. ↑ On epistemology and the theory of categories, see Veronika Schlüter: Categories and their formation, Traude Junghals Verlag, Cuxhaven and Dartford 2000. ISBN 3-932905-29-6
personal data
SURNAME Butcher, Helmut
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher, social and historical scientist
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Unterrodach
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 2012