importance
Importance ( Latin importance ) is the serious (important) meaning of an object or action or a significant object or a significant action itself. In contrast to the qualitative relevance used in the interest of adequate judgment, the importance is a quantitative, measurable one Size.
The word importance has been used in the German language since the 16th century. The underlying adjective important can be found in the Middle High German spelling wihtec as early as the 14th century. It goes back to the Middle Low German weight (t) and this in turn to the Middle Low German weight (e) . The adjective spread, as a word in commercial and merchant language with the meaning “balanced, fully important, heavy, weight”, from northern German cities up to the 16th century across the entire German-speaking area. From the 16th century, the today dominant transferred word use began, with the meaning "serious, meaningful, essential".
use
At the turn of the 18th to the 19th century, Immanuel Kant philosophized about "vastness and thoroughness or importance and fertility of knowledge" and equated importance with "content" and "diversity". He also pointed out that the importance - of a knowledge - can be determined by the "size or multiplicity of the consequences":
- But what in particular is the intense magnitude of knowledge, i.e. H. their content, or their diversity and importance, [...]:
- [...]
- Every knowledge that promotes the logical perfection of form according to the form is to be named logically important, [...] - The practical importance cannot be foreseen, but one has to wait for it.
- One need not confuse importance with severity. A realization can be difficult without being important, and vice versa. Gravity therefore decides neither for nor against the value and importance of a knowledge. This is based on the size or multiplicity of the consequences. The more or the greater the consequences a knowledge has, the more use can be made of it, the more important it is. - A knowledge without important consequences is called brooding; like z. B. was the scholastic philosophy.
The German legal language knows the legal term important reason , which can be found in several paragraphs of the BGB .
Mocking use
In German there is also a mocking and derogatory use of importance when a pretended importance is criticized. In this context, there are the mostly derogatory terms “important maker” and “busybody” as well as the adjectives important and important . "Self-importance" can refer to being self-important, i.e. any talking or behavior in the form of an elevation of a person, thing or context that is perceived as unjustified.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sentence according to the dictionary of contemporary German language (WDG) , Lemma importance 1 + 2. , online at http://www.dwds.de of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Accessed on November 2, 2009. This differentiation can also be found in other German-language dictionaries. The third, derisive use is neglected in the introduction to the definition; it is referred to in the back of the article.
- ^ Paragraph based on the collective of authors of the Central Institute for Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR under the direction of Wolfgang Pfeifer: Etymological Dictionary of the German , Akademie-Verlag Berlin, 1989, Lemma important
- ↑ Immanuel Kant: Logic - a handbook for lectures , The intensive size of knowledge , Königsberg, 1800. Quoted from http://www.textlog.de/kant-logik-intensive.html , accessed on November 4, 2009.
- ^ Sentence based on Brockhaus Wahrig - German Dictionary , sixth volume, 1984, Lemma importance . This word usage can also be found in other German-language dictionaries.
- ^ Sentence based on Brockhaus Wahrig - German Dictionary , sixth volume, 1984, Lemma Wichtmacher ff.
- ^ Sentence based on Brockhaus Wahrig - German Dictionary , sixth volume, 1984, Lemma Wichtigtuerei