Oswald Schwemmer

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Oswald Schwemmer (born June 10, 1941 in Hilden ) is a German philosopher . He is Professor of Philosophical Anthropology and Cultural Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin .

Life

Oswald Schwemmer was born on June 10, 1941 to Karl and Margarete Schwemmer. He studied mathematics and Catholic theology at the University of Bonn and philosophy in Pullach . There he acquired in 1966 at the Jesuit Philosophical University Berchmanskolleg, the predecessor institution of the Munich School of Philosophy SJ , the canonical diploma of a licentiate in philosophy.

He studied philosophy, sociology and psychology at the University of Munich before continuing his studies with Paul Lorenzen and Wilhelm Kamlah in Erlangen in 1967 . In 1970 Schwemmer received his doctorate from Paul Lorenzen, one of the founders of Erlangen's constructivism . In his habilitation thesis, which Lorenzen also accepted, Schwemmer demonstrated for the first time that circular-free explanations are possible in cultural studies .

After several years of teaching in Marburg (1982-1987) and Dusseldorf followed 1993 the call to the "Institute of Philosophy with special consideration of philosophical anthropology and philosophy of culture , including the scientific theory of Cultural Studies " at the Institute of Philosophy of the Humboldt University of Berlin , he held until 2009.

As a senior professor , from 2009 to 2011 he was in charge of the third-party funded project “Ernst-Cassirer-Nachlassedition” at the Institute for Philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

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Philosophical anthropology

Relationship to the human sciences

The task of philosophical anthropology is to emphasize the special position of humans compared to other living beings . For Schwemmer, this always has to be done taking into account the results from the natural and social sciences . The answer of philosophy to the question “What is man?” Is different from the different answers of the individual sciences. Philosophy also takes into account the terminological and methodological restrictions of these individual disciplines and works out a perspective orientation in the entire area of ​​questions about people.

The symbolic existence of the mind

Since different discourse traditions of both scientific and philosophical traditions overlap with respect to humans, the task of a modern philosophical anthropology is primarily to create conceptual clarity. Therefore Schwemmer differentiates between the different cognitive performances of humans, which depending on the perspective can be represented as neural , psychologically conscious or mental phenomena. The interface that is particularly interesting for philosophical anthropology is in this case between the consciousness that is tangible to us in feeling and being present, and the spiritual world of cultural symbolisms that affect our content of consciousness. Without these cultural symbolisms, mind and consciousness would simply be identical. The mind can, however, be defined as an interaction between consciousness and (consciousness-transcendent) symbolisms. This result is significant for philosophical anthropology insofar as it overcomes the one-sidedness of a purely neuronal- organic conception of man as well as that of a purely idealistic one .

Not only does the concept of spirit have a function again, Schwemmer also updates the concept of subjectivity in the context of his anthropology. Schwemmer understands subjectivity as a non-representational ability to be an object . This is to say that the ability to symbolically objectify the world itself cannot be described again by a single - for example neuroscientific - discourse, but must be viewed as a link between autonomous productivity and inter-individual symbols.

Extended emergence scheme

The brain, consciousness and spirit show different internal structures on a phenomenological level, which cannot be reduced to one another. Mental and conscious performance must therefore be viewed as emergence phenomena. Their respective content and the mutual relation of their contents cannot be described exclusively by neural structures - although all conscious processes are of course assigned parallel neural processes.

This basic emergence scheme must also be opened up to the public symbolisms, the sum of which forms the traditional human culture. The cultural and historical content of spiritual worlds can neither be explained in terms of neural configurations, nor is it solely a component of consciousness. Rather, the spirit is open to this public dimension, which is itself independent. The assignment of individual symbols and neural configurations is therefore only possible in one direction: a specific neural configuration can only be assigned based on the mental content.

Culture philosophy

Basics

With his philosophy of culture Schwemmer follows on from the work of Ernst Cassirer, to which, however, he lends a new foundation through a media-theoretical foundation. The talk of form is indeed a key concept in Cassirer's cultural-philosophical analyzes, but with far-reaching disregard for the materiality and mediality of symbolic contexts included therein .

In contrast to the mere resistance of material properties, media for Schwemmer are dynamic systems in which our articulation processes initiate or use self-structuring . An example of this is language as a medium that is given to us and, in its different cultural characteristics, decisively co-determines our possibilities of thinking and articulation. Nevertheless, we can intervene in the language in a creative and creative way to a certain extent, so that we can express ourselves individually in a free relationship with it.

One of the main tasks of cultural philosophy is to examine the different internal structures of the individual media. For Schwemmer, considerations about the impact of literacy on cultures are just as much a part of this as image theoretical investigations and detailed analyzes of the grammar of our senses.

Inferences

From a cultural philosophical perspective Schwemmer also comments on the problem of free will of the people as well as the question of the role of art in our time.

Free will problem

In the debate about free will, a distinction must first be made between the level of action at which conscious-voluntary decisions can be spoken of. For Schwemmer, these are not to be sought in forms of individual body movements, such as the finger movement in the Libet experiment , insofar as these are carried out routinely. In general, to lead a successful life, we depend on not having to think about every single step we take. Rather, we rely on the public organizational patterns that pre-structure our actions in the form of collective thoughtlessness . For an appropriate concept of human freedom, the restriction to a momentary volition and unimportant movements, as undertaken in the Libet experiment, seems disproportionate. Rather, freedom for Schwemmer takes place in a complex field of action within which we weigh up different motives for our intentions and plans. Of course, these motifs can also be reconstructed afterwards. However, it should not be concluded from this that free action is only possible in the absence of any motive - it would be downright absurd to assume that actions are only free if they do not result from any consequential context.

In order to get a clear picture of the problem of free will, it is necessary for Schwemmer to distinguish between the various forms of describing freedom. There is an essential difference between the preconscious processes of consciousness (perceiving and thinking) and their representation (what is perceived and thought), i.e. the part that is accessible to us. The two levels of process and representation correspond to the descriptive level of the first-person perspective and the third-person perspective . By simply equating both perspectives or even claiming that the first-person perspective is negligible, neurobiological argumentation reduces both levels to a causally describable model. This creates a sequence of linked representations of consciousness that are correlated to certain neural configurations. Causality can now be asserted of these latter. In addition, a neurobiological view often tends to isolate individual moments of representation. She does this on the assumption that these moments removed from the overall event (bending a finger) can now be individually tested for their freedom properties. Rather, it must be assumed that human freedom can only be constituted in the entire field of thoughts, feelings, experiences and ideas that make up a person with their own biography in the context of a culture. With this, Schwemmer's argument ties in with the cultural-philosophical and media-theoretical perspective: Freedom consists in linking the representations and public symbolisms that are present to one another in a creative way. Freedom means getting involved in the figurative dynamics that different media keep ready according to their meaning and form, to make use of these dynamics, to abandon themselves to them or to consciously break with them.

Task of art

If the freedom of our actions depends crucially on our conscious handling of cultural forms, then art has a special role in this context. In that art seeks to consciously confront common forms, questioning them, rearranging them, modifying, ironizing, distorting, emphasizing or de- and recontextualizing them, it brings us at a distance from what was previously taken for granted. When forms come about through the formation of conciseness (following Cassirer's concept of conciseness ), art turns out to be a creative shift in conciseness . By liquefying the forms that have congealed into a matter of course in this way, according to Schwemmer, it has the social task of maintaining and further developing our cultural adaptability in a constantly changing world.

Collective identity and the foreign

Schwemmer defines the concept of identity for the individual as “the coherent configuration ... to which the attitudes that shape the perceptual and expressive life, the emotional life and thinking and thus the striving, the activity and (social) affiliations of persons in the sense of some of basic orientations. ”In its social dimension, such an identity goes beyond the symbolically defined culture; it is part of the common practices of a culture. For pre-Socratic societies one can also assume that the social practices and the existing symbolic culture mutually confirm each other and are thus in a stabilizing reciprocal relationship. So there is not only an individual , but also a collective identity. This collective identity is only broken when its individual elements, i.e. the practices, attitudes and traditions, develop their own dynamic and break away from the reference to the other elements. The closed affirmation relationship is then broken up in favor of a dynamic inherent in logic. The more this differentiates itself in a society, the more the collective identity of a culture loosens, partialized identities only form fragmentarily . Nevertheless, the human form of existence remains dependent on identity, since this, as the form of the self, offers us orientation on an individual and collective level in the first place and we as cultural beings are dependent on a certain permanence of our symbolic representations.

When we meet someone who follows other basic patterns of orientation, they appear alien to us. However, this does not result in complete misunderstanding, only partial misunderstanding. Nevertheless, we mostly understand how certain utterances are meant, even if we do not understand their content. In this way we can understand the personal individual we meet, even if we are not familiar with their cultural background. This difference between the personal and the cultural individual also applies to our self-perception. In order for us to appear to the other as a personal individual, we must also be able to distance ourselves from our own collective identity. Because one's own culture offers a certain relief through its traditional forms of expression, but also induces thoughtlessness. Here in particular, the exchange with other cultures proves to be particularly fruitful, as it helps to break up the old self-evident. This does not mean giving up your own culture. Following Max Weber , Schwemmer defines cultures as historical individuals . Acceptance of other cultures must therefore take place in a creative “integration of a stranger by transforming it into an impulse within oneself”. In the context of increasingly stronger international relationships on all social levels, this ability to take in the foreign is ultimately to be seen as a decisive factor in cultural survival. This is especially the case when the alternative is to withdraw to one's own culture or to dissolve in a minimalized form of a global culture with maximum possibility of dissemination.

Cassirer reception

Ernst Cassirer

The edition of Ernst Cassirer's posthumous writings has been associated with Schwemmer's chair since 1994; it is developed in cooperation with publishers in Germany, North America, Italy, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland. Cassirer's philosophy, like the philosophy of culture as a whole, is currently receiving a great deal of attention.

Schwemmer has with Ernst Cassirer. A philosopher of European modernism presented a systematic and compact presentation of Cassirer's philosophy. He emphasizes the implicit ethical-practical dimension of the free personality , as well as a metaphysics of the work that is fruitful for the philosophy of art . In addition, from a philosophical and historical point of view , he underlined the special importance of the Renaissance for Cassirer.

With regard to the disputation between Cassirer and Martin Heidegger on the occasion of the Davos university courses in 1929, Schwemmer attempted under the title Event and Form to put both positions in a constructive relationship to one another. While Cassirer, as a philosopher of form, assumes that all human expression and self-awareness is only possible via the detour of form, Heidegger is opposed to such a definition in concrete-symbolic forms. For him it is important to linger “in the event”, insofar as every once established form of expression confronts the person as something independent and thus determines his thinking and acting, while the contingency attached to it is forgotten. Since, on the one hand, humans are dependent on design for all thinking and acting, and on the other hand, the contingency of cultural forms cannot be resolved by final justifications, Schwemmer and Jean-François Lyotard advocate that the form at least “must bear witness to the event”.

Publications

Books

  • Philosophy of practice. Attempt to lay the foundations of a doctrine of moral reasoning in connection with an interpretation of Kant's practical philosophy . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1971 (dissertation); New edition with an epilogue ibid. 1980.
  • with Paul Lorenzen : Constructive Logic, Ethics and Philosophy of Science . Bibliographisches Institut, Mannheim 1973; 2nd, improved edition 1975.
  • Rational Explanation Theory. On the methodological foundations of cultural studies . CH Beck, Munich 1976 (habilitation thesis).
  • Ethical research. Questions about some basic terms . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1986.
  • Plot and structure. On the philosophy of science in cultural studies . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1987.
  • The philosophy and the sciences. To criticize a delimitation . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1990.
  • Ernst Cassirer. A philosopher of European modernism . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1997.
  • The cultural existence of man . Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1997.
  • Culture philosophy. A media-theoretical foundation . Fink, Munich 2005.
  • The event of form. To analyze linguistic thinking . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich 2011.

Editing (selection)

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Ernst Cassirer estate edition on the website of the Institute for Philosophy at the HU Berlin.
  2. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: The cultural existence of people , Berlin 1997, p. 46.
  3. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: The cultural existence of people , Berlin 1997, p. 68.
  4. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: The cultural existence of people , Berlin 1997, p. 96.
  5. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: The cultural existence of people , Berlin 1997, p. 101.
  6. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: The cultural existence of people , Berlin 1997, p. 116.
  7. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 54 ff.
  8. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 55.
  9. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 230.
  10. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 234.
  11. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 238 ff., Here especially the Kleist example.
  12. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 166 ff.
  13. ^ Oswald Schwemmer: Culture Philosophy. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 257.
  14. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Kulturphilosophie. A media-theoretical foundation , Munich 2005, p. 259.
  15. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: Mixed culture and cultural identity. Some theses on the dialectic of the foreign and the own in the unity of a culture , in: Iablis. European Process Yearbook , 2002.
  16. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: Mixed culture and cultural identity. Some theses on the dialectic of the foreign and the own in the unity of a culture , in: Iablis. European Process Yearbook , 2002.
  17. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: Mixed culture and cultural identity. Some theses on the dialectic of the foreign and the own in the unity of a culture , in: Iablis. European Process Yearbook , 2002.
  18. ↑ See Oswald Schwemmer: Mixed culture and cultural identity. Some theses on the dialectic of the foreign and the own in the unity of a culture , in: Iablis. European Process Yearbook , 2002.
  19. ↑ Cf. Oswald Schwemmer: Event and Form. Two thought motifs in the Davos disputation between Martin Heidegger and Ernst Cassirer , in: Enno Rudolph, Dominic Kaegi (eds.): Cassirer - Heidegger. 70 years of the Davos disputation . Hamburg 2001, pp. 48-65 (Cassirer Research, Volume 9).
personal data
SURNAME Schwemmer, Oswald
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH June 10, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Hilden