Perspectivism

Perspectivism and perspectivity denote philosophical doctrines that state that reality depends on the point of view and characteristics of the viewing individual . The human way of thinking , recognizing and acting is finite, since it is subject to various restrictions resulting from the conditions of time and space , individual dispositions, environment and situation; for example of a cultural or social nature (see epistemology ). In a narrower sense, perspective means the spatial " perspective " and projective perspectivity .

philosophy

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz introduced the concept of perspective and the associated concept of standpoint into philosophy. In his theodicy and in his monadology , perspectivity is a fundamental property of the individual monads , the most elementary units of the (spiritual) world, with their necessarily different points of view in the given world.

"Et comme une même ville regardée de differens côtés paroist toute autre et est comme multipliée perspectivement, il arrive de même, que par la multitude infinie des substances simples, il ya comme autant de differens univers, qui ne sont pourtant que les perspectives d ' un seul selon les differens points de veue de chaque Monad. "

“And just as one and the same city, viewed from different sides, appears completely different, as it is, as it were, multiplied in perspective, the infinite amount of simple substances means that there are as many universes as it were, but only the perspectives of a single universe from the different points of view of each monad. "

Opposite this perspective view of man is the assumed divine timelessness and omnipresence, which from this total perspective helps to achieve absolute consciousness . An example of perspective thinking in Leibniz's philosophy is psychophysical parallelism , which postulates a fundamental double perspective ( body-soul problem ). In his commemorative speech on the occasion of Leibniz's two hundredth anniversary of death, Wilhelm Wundt characterized his style of thinking as it could also apply to Wundt: “... the principle of equal rights for mutually complementary viewpoints” plays an important role in his thinking, viewpoints that “complement each other, but at the same time can also appear as opposites, which only cancel each other out when looking at things more closely. "

But Gert König believes that it was only through Immanuel Kant that the concept of standpoint acquired a more radical meaning, because Kant emphasized that philosophy, if it wants to be science, must refer people to a standpoint that is appropriate to their human thinking situation.

The philosophical perspectivism of Ludwig Wittgenstein was influential . The language follows “customs” that we all master in language games . They determine what words mean, they determine the frame of reference . The language given to us in our linguistic community is relative to the point of view at which we are, and we design different images of reality depending on our perspective, e.g. B. the philosophical world or the perspective different, scientific or artistic world.

König mentions the position formulated by Gustav Teichmüller that all philosophical systems are to be understood from the point of view of perspective as "projective representations of our knowledge content" and quotes Friedrich Nietzsche's statements in Beyond Good and Evil about "the perspective" as "the basic condition of all life" . “There is only one perspective seeing, only one perspective 'knowing'; and the more affects we let speak about a thing, the more eyes, different eyes we know how to commit ourselves to the same thing, the more complete our 'concept' of this thing, our 'objectivity' will be ”. Expressions such as perspective, horizon, standpoint are characteristic of the phenomenology of perception designed by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty . Referring to Alfred North Whitehead , who represents the objective reality of perspectives, George Herbert Mead stated:

“The concept of perspective as something inherent in nature is… an unexpected gift from… physics to philosophy. Perspectives are neither distortions of any perfect structures nor selections of consciousness from a set of objects whose reality is to be sought in a world of things in themselves (noumenal world). In their mutual relationship to one another, they are nature that science knows. "

From King's point of view, it is part of the modern understanding of the history of science to describe the fundamental change in perspective.

psychology

Gustav Theodor Fechner emphasized the perspective approach:

“... if someone stands within a circle, then its convex side is completely hidden from him; if it is outside, the reverse is the concave side under the convex ceiling. Both sides belong together as inseparably as the spiritual and physical side of the human being and these can also be seen as an inner and outer side: but it is also just as impossible to see both sides of the circle at the same time from one point of view in the plane of the circle than from a standpoint in the realm of human existence these two sides of man. It is only when we change our point of view that the side of the circle that we see changes and that which is hidden behind the one we see. But the circle is only a picture and the question of the matter applies. "

Examples of psychological research on perspectivity are the reference systems and laws of spatial perception , deep vision with both eyes , Jean Piaget's genetic epistemology and Carl Friedrich Graumann's (1960) Fundamentals of a Phenomenology and Psychology of Perspectivity.

ethnology

In ethnology , the term perspectivism is mainly used by the Brazilian researcher Eduardo Viveiros de Castro to describe the worldview of the Arawaté ( indigenous group in the Brazilian Amazon ). According to Viveiros de Castro, the Arawaté give animals - just like (from a Western perspective) inanimate natural phenomena, plants and spirits - a spiritual quality with subjectivity and intentionality, which qualifies them as "persons". The physical appearance of these non-human persons is considered to be a shell that hides the actual and internal humanoid form - because animals, for example, were originally human. That is why people are able to enter into “social” relationships with other “persons”: cultivated plants are considered to be blood relatives of women, and hunted animals are relatives of the hunter. The hidden internal quality is visible to the shaman who can communicate with it. Different people have different ways of seeing the world (perspectivism): under normal circumstances the indigenous people see themselves as humans, animals as animals and plants as plants; but animals, plants and spirits also see themselves as human - they perceive their own habits as “culture” and their social organization as “society”, they see their food as human food (e.g. jaguars understand blood as cassava beer) and their physical attributes (e.g. claws, feathers, fur) as body decorations. From the perspective of the predators and ghosts, humans are seen as hunting animals, while from the perspective of the hunting animals, they are seen as ghosts or predators. “Similar to the world of the Arawaté, the pivotal points of their lives consist of hunting, fishing, cooking and enjoying fermented drinks. They too are about cross-cousins ​​and wars, about initiation rituals, medicine and their experts, about bosses and other forms of social hierarchies - and about ghosts. And their cultural instruments? Their body decorations, their fur, their feathers, claws, beaks… ”.

Perspectivism as an awareness of knowledge

Perspectivism is an epistemological basic attitude and a philosophical conviction that there is a fundamental dependence of knowledge on the point of view ( reference system ) and the characteristics of the observing individual. Perspectivist objectivism presupposes an objective reality that is perceived differently due to the different viewpoints and characteristics of the viewer (see Leibniz). Perspective subjectivism is based on a variety of realities (see Friedrich Nietzsche and Hans Vaihinger ). Ronald Giere (2006) in his book Scientific perspectivism advocates a middle position between objectivism ( realism ) and constructivism : “The result will be an account of science that brings observation and theory, perception and conception, closer together than they have seemed in objectivist accounts. "

Perspectivism is related to pluralism , relativism and also constructivism, but can be given a stricter version by defining the categories of the reference systems and the individual standpoints, requiring the mutual complementation of perspectives to form an overall picture and the perspective necessary to grasp full reality. Change should be emphasized.

See also

• First person perspective
• Complementarity principle
• Person perception
• Takeover of perspectives
• Point of view theory
• Philosophy of science

literature

• Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo: The cosmological pronouns and Indian perspectivism . In: Bulletin de la Société Suisse des Américanistes No. 61, 1997, pp. 99-114. ( online ; PDF; 2.2 MB)
• Jochen Fahrenberg : On the theory of categories in psychology. Complementarity principle. Perspectives and change of perspective. Pabst Science Publishers, Lengerich 2013, ISBN 978-3-89967-891-8 . [1] (PDF file 5.5 MB)
• Volker Gerhardt, Norbert Herold (Ed.): Perspektiven des Perspektivismus. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1992, ISBN 3-88479-739-5 .
• Ronald N. Giere : Scientific perspectivism . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 2006, ISBN 0-226-29212-6 .
• Carl Friedrich Graumann : Basics of a phenomenology and psychology of perspectives . de Gruyter, Berlin 1960.
• Friedrich Kaulbach : Philosophy of perspectivism: truth and perspective in Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1990, ISBN 978-3-16-145641-1
• Gert König: perspective, perspectivism, perspective. In: Joachim Ritter et al. (Ed.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Volume 7. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1989, pp. 362-375.
• Hartmut von Sass (ed.), Perspectivism. New contributions from epistemology, hermeneutics and ethics , Hamburg: Meiner 2019, ISBN 978-3-7873-3532-9

Individual evidence

1. ↑ König: perspective, perspectivism, perspective . 1989, pp. 362-375.
2. ↑ Quoted from König: perspective, perspectivism, perspective . 1989, p. 362.
3. ↑ Leibniz: The main works. Monadology. 1967, p. 143.
4. ^ Wilhelm Wundt: Leibniz on the two hundredth anniversary of his death . Kröner, Leipzig 1917, p. 117.
5. ↑ König: perspective, perspectivism, perspective . 1989, p. 362.
6. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein: Writings. Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Diaries 1914–1916. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1960, § 7 ff, § 199, §206.
7. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. On the genealogy of morals. In: Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari (ed.): Nietzsche's works: Critical Complete Edition, Volume 6, Part 2, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1968, p. 4 (cf. KSA 5, 12).
8. ↑ Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. On the genealogy of morals. 1968, p. 383 (cf. KSA 5, 365).
9. ↑ George Herbert Mead: Philosophy of Sociality: Essays on Cognitive Anthropology . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt a. M. 1969, quoted from König: perspective, perspectivism, perspective. 1989, p. 370
10. ^ Gustav Theodor Fechner: Elements of psychophysics . 2 parts, 2nd edition. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1889, p. 3.
11. ↑ Lotte Ri: “The jaguar's blood is his beer” - The theory of perspectivism by Viveiros de Castro. In: wordpress.com, March 15, 2013.
12. ^ Giere: Scientific perspectivism , 2006, p. 14.