Setting (philosophy)

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The positing is a theoretical or practical act of assertion or the positing of existence, or also a hypothetical assumption (the "positing"), which arises from the autonomy of the subject.

Concept history

The term becomes virulent in Kant , Fichte , Schelling and Hegel . Its use in German philosophy is based on the Latin equivalent terms ponere (to set) and positio (prerequisite, affirmation) in logic. Due to the proximity to numerous slang compounds of “to set” (such as presuppose, discuss, oppose, etc.), it is difficult to demonstrate a terminologically consistent use of the term in philosophy.

In Thomas Aquinas ' ponere means to stand or assert.

With Kant, the term refers rather unsystematically to a hypothetical assumption, to a “posited” reality in the sense of an ideal deduction and construction context (“imagine”) or to the assertion of logical connections. He emphasizes that being is not a property of things, but a positing by thinking.

For Fichte, positing is the all-determining form of action of intelligence, which is identical to the being of the I: the I is nothing other than its positing. The positing is the result of an act of action that underlies all consciousness and through which the originally indefinite ego differs as something independent of itself. The concept of positing always remains related to the transcendental construction of knowledge: the philosopher first sets facts through thinking and cancels them again in thinking. The self-positing of the ego is a possibility condition of the identity proposition, because the logical certainty of identity “A = A” depends on the validity of the more original proposition “I = I”, i.e. on the transcendental certainty of reason of the unity and identity of consciousness. Fichte later used the concept of the posited (the “position”) as the negation of non-being.

For Schelling, the positing of reality is an expression of the action of an intelligence, which is based on the unconditionality of the original self, in its self-power. Through this self-positing, an act of producing, the ego is the epitome of all reality, the posited being is the result of a construction process of the mind. By setting the individuality, however, a negation (restriction) of the activities is also set so that - the more the individual acts - his freedom is more and more restricted.

In Hegel the use of the term is initially reduced to the fact that something is brought to conceptual or real existence in various ways through positing. It is only in his “logic” that the concept of positing is refined and assigned to the sphere of reflection, that is, the essential logic, that is, the logic of passing over or conveying being into the concept, and is differentiated from the one-sided positioning of subjective idealism in Fichte.

Jean Paul ironizes the concept of setting and thus also Fichte's idealism when he describes how the setting ego in the form of the fictional Fichte supporter Heinrich Leibgeber creates worlds and universes and has to carry them around with him.

Modern use

Only Husserl was interested again in the concept of positing in connection with his investigations into perception. In every act the universal world horizon is implicitly set. This world setting ( apperception ) should be eliminated by the universal transcendental reduction in order to enable an even more prejudice-free research into the world-constituting subjectivity. Outside of the phenomenological school, WVO Quine once again makes setting ( position ) a central philosophical concept. Everything that is considered real from the standpoint of a theory is only a positing from a perspective describing the process of theory formation. Physical objects, like the Homeric gods, are cultural statements; however, the myths or theories behind them are differently effective in terms of structuring the experience.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Attempt to present a new representation of the science of science. (1797) In: all works , vol. 1 (1845), reprint 1971, p. 523.
  2. ↑ Set, set. I. In: Historical dictionary of philosophy. Volume 9. Basel 1995, column 698.
  3. ↑ The science of science. (1812) all works , vol. 2, reprint 1971, pp. 354, 358 f.
  4. ↑ Schelling: System of the transcendental idealism . 4th main section. System of practical philosophy based on the principles of transcendental idealism, online at zeno.org
  5. ↑ Jean Paul: Clavis Fichtiana seu Leibgeberiana. Appendix to the I. comical appendix of Titans. In: Complete Works , 1st Department, Volume 3, Munich 1963, p. 1044.
  6. ↑ Quine: Two Dogmas of Empiricism , 1951.

literature

  • Settling, settling. I. and II. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 9, Basel 1995, Sp. 698–721.