totality

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In philosophy , the term totality summarizes the totality of the many in one.

In the natural sciences , totality is a concept of phenomenology , see e.g. B. the totality zone in solar eclipses.

Totality in philosophy

Since Plato and Neoplatonism , this way of looking at completeness, closeness, perfection and interrelation have been seen together in an overarching system. As one of the possible object and world views from the leaves myth derivable unit universe from the Aristotelian concept of substance universe and of Homer Physical Universe differ.

The idea was taken up by pantheism within theology . For the historian Johann Gustav Droysen “the finite I rises above its finitude to the sensation, the certainty of a totality that is the truth” and thus establishes the relationship to God. Via absolute idealism , the notion of “concrete totality” came into the basic conception and conceptual apparatus of Marxism and critical theory, particularly through Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx .

Friedrich Hölderlin and Georg Lukács relate the form of perception of totality in particular to an aesthetic conception. Hegel, inspired by Hölderlin, applies the term to the history of philosophy on the one hand: "Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a real work of art, has totality in it." On the other hand, in his legal philosophy he mentions Montesquieu as exemplary in its truly historical and philosophical one The view that "legislation in general and its special provisions should not be viewed in isolation and abstractly, but rather as a dependent element of a totality, in connection with all other provisions that make up the character of a nation and a time".

In Marx's analysis of society and political economy , Joseph A. Schumpeter speaks of a “unity of vision” of the whole as a preliminary analytical act of knowledge. According to Jindřich Zelený, for Marx the scientific understanding of a social formation means to represent the character of a certain, developing type, organism, whole, in the form of a “structural-genetic analysis”. Marx himself spoke of an "artistic whole" with regard to the method of representation of his major work, Das Kapital :

“But I can't make up my mind to send anything away until the whole thing is in front of me. Whatever shortcomings they may have, that is the virtue of my typefaces, that they are an artistic whole, and that can only be achieved with my way of never having them printed before they are completely in front of me. With the Jakob Grimm method this is impossible and works better for writings that are not dialectically structured. "

Immanuel Kant

Kant speaks of the “concept of the world in general”.

The dissection of something that is essentially composed reaches its limit only in that part which is no longer a whole, i.e. in the simple.

Conversely, the connection only finds its limit in that whole that is no longer a part, that is: in the “world”.

A distinction must be made as to whether the whole is put together by an operation of the understanding or by the clear intuition of reason. The mind operates through general ideas; Reason, by joining part to part, is based on the conditions of time, and according to laws of intuition it combines or constructs the composite.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Fichte provides "science teaching" the following tasks:

"1) How is science even possible?"

"2) It claims to exhaust human knowledge based on a single principle."

The basic idea here is that in a systematically uniform, complete knowledge, everything is interrelated and justified.

“So the science of science has absolute totality. In it one leads to all and all leads to one. But it is the only science that can be accomplished; Accordingly, perfection is its distinguishing character. All other sciences are infinite and can never be accomplished; because they do not run back into their principle. The science of science has to prove this for everyone and state the reason for it. "

Georg Lukács

Like Hölderlin's aesthetic term, Georg Lukács “totality” also refers to the ideal of ancient Greece, where he finds unity, perfection and unity in diversity.

“Our world has become infinitely large and in every corner richer in gifts and dangers than the Greek, but this wealth annuls the supporting and positive meaning of their life: the totality. For totality as the formative prius of each individual phenomenon means that something that is closed can be completed; perfected because everything occurs in it, nothing is excluded and nothing points to a higher outside; perfected because everything in him matures to its own perfection and, when it is achieved, submits to the bond. Totality of being is only possible where everything is already homogeneous before it is encompassed by the forms; where the forms are no compulsion, but only the becoming conscious, only the stepping onto the surface of everything that has slumbered inside what is to be formed as an unclear longing; where knowledge is virtue and virtue is happiness, where beauty makes the sense of the world visible. That is the world of Greek philosophy. "

According to Victor Kraft , formal beauty, in contrast to the totality of the work of art, has been defined again and again since Shaftesbury as an articulated and unified variety of sensual content.

In his work History and Class Consciousness Georg Lukács advocated the idea that one can not grasp the "totality of the historical process" from the position of the individual - seen in isolation from social groups, such as those who prefer existentialism or personalism . This position has been interpreted in various ways that there is no place within Marxism for the conception of the individual. Adam Schaff rejects this interpretation . Marx turns against the fiction of the isolated individual exclusively. The individual and his real, practical actions are to be explained from the specifically present, historically conditioned, concrete social conditions.

Critical theory

Totality is a central concept in critical theory as represented by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno . Totality here denotes the systematic-structural, uniform connection of society , in particular of a capitalist society, as it essentially underlies it and in the decisive moments determines and shapes the diverse manifestations of this society. In addition, the concept of totality encompasses the interrelationships between individual social phenomena; that means: they can only be adequately grasped in their entirety and not separately from one another. Methodologically, the concept of totality aims at finding this basic structural connection and placing it at the center of the analysis. The formation of concepts and theories must be justified from this fundamental point of view, as this is the only way to achieve an appropriate understanding of the whole.

Horkheimer says that a term definition must remain abstract as long as necessary, as long as it is not placed in its logical connection to the other categories of the theoretical structure. An analysis of the respective social situation in its concrete historical totality requires the development of the entire "executed" social theory in relation to the practical tasks. Only then can one speak of a “true” definition that is no longer limited to juxtaposing abstract definitions.

The concept of totality played a larger role in the so-called positivism dispute . In this debate, which was held between Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas on the one hand and Karl Popper and Hans Albert on the other, Adorno distinguishes himself from what he calls the “positivist” methodology by making the connection between social totality and the central point of sociological reference Knowledge explained. Jürgen Habermas, who entered the controversy to defend Adorno, initially picked up Adorno's “favorite term”, but eventually left it behind in the dispute with Hans Albert.

"Of course, two of the motives suggested have remained unprocessed: the attempt to secure a place for the dialectical concept of totality in social science research, and the effort to demonstrate types of non-restricted experience in alternative forms of social science research."

The criticism against this type of concept revolves around the following points: holism , essentialism , incommensurability , criticism immunity .

Habermas finally threw off the concept of totality as "metaphysical ballast" in his theory of communicative action . This step immediately provoked the critical question of how the “critical theory” differs from one of the traditional types.

swell

  1. ↑ "This dialectical whole of generality, particularity and particularity now turns out to be a unity of diverging forces." (Max Horkheimer: General part. In: Studies on authority and family. Research reports from the Institute for Social Research. Librairie Félix Alcan Paris 1936, p. 75f; cf. GWF Hegel: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. §164)
  2. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The Origin of Spirit Metaphysics. In: Hans Joachim Krämer, Karl Albert, Thomas A. Szlezák , Karl-Heinz Stanzel: Platonic Philosophizing. Georg Olms Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-487-11435-6 .
  3. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Plotinus and Neo-Platonism. CH Beck, 2004, ISBN 3-406-51117-1 .
  4. ↑ Helmut F. Spinner: Justification, Criticism and Rationality. Volume I, Vieweg, Braunschweig 1977, ISBN 3-528-08376-X , p. 33.
  5. ^ Johann Gustav Droysen: History. Lectures on encyclopedia and methodology of history. (edited by Rudolf Huebner). 3. Edition. R. Oldenbourg, Munich 1958 (Jena 1936), p. 230.
  6. ↑ "Every philosophy is complete in itself and, like a real work of art, has totality in it." (GWF Hegel: Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's system of philosophy. Meiner, Hamburg 1962, p. 12)
  7. ↑ Dieter Henrich: Hegel and Holderlin. In: Dieter Henrich: Hegel in context. (= Edition Suhrkamp. 510). 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1971, p. 9 ff.
  8. ^ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Difference between the Fichte'schen and Schelling'schen systems of philosophy. (1801) Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1962, p. 12.
  9. ↑ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Johannes Hoffmeister ed.): Basic lines of the philosophy of law. 4th edition. Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1955, p. 22.
  10. ↑ Joseph A. Schumpeter, (Elizabeth B. Schumpeter, ed.): History of economic analysis. First part of the volume. Vandenhoeck Ruprecht Göttingen 1965, p. 79; 82f; Joseph A. Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy . Francke, 1993, ISBN 3-8252-0172-4 , p. 24.
  11. ^ The logic of science in Marx and 'Das Kapital'. Akademie-Verlag, 1968, p. 21f.
  12. ↑ MEW 31: 132) [ artistique = (French) artistic]
  13. ↑ Immanuel Kant: On the form of the world of the senses and the mind and their reasons. In: Writings on Metaphysics and Logic 1. (= Suhrkamp pocket book science. 188). Work edition, ed. by Wilhelm Weischedel. Volume V, ISBN 3-518-27788-X , pp. 13ff.
  14. ^ Fichte: On the concept of the science of science. P. 8.
  15. ↑ Johann Gottlieb Fichte: About the concept of science. P. 81f.
  16. ↑ Georg Lukács: The theory of the novel. A historical-philosophical attempt on the forms of the great epic. Paul Cassirer, Berlin 1920, p. 20.
  17. ↑ Viktor Kraft: Value Concepts and Value Judgments. (From: The basics of a scientific theory of values. Springer 2nd edition Vienna 1951). In: Hans Albert, Ernst Topitsch, (Ed.): Value judgment dispute. Scientific Buchgesellschaft Darmstadt 1971, ISBN 3-534-04161-5 , p. 46. For the connection between Shaftesbury and Hölderlin, see also: Dieter Henrich: Hegel in context. 1st edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1971, p. 13 ff.
  18. ↑ "Man - as much as he is therefore a special individual, and precisely his particularity makes him an individual and a real individual community - just as much he is the totality, the ideal totality, the subjective existence of the imagined and felt society for himself ... “Marx, Engels, MEGA, I. Abt. Volume 3, p. 117, quoted. according to Adam Schaff: Marxism and the human individual. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-499-55332-5 , p. 19.
  19. ↑ Adam Schaff: Marxism and the human individual. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1970, ISBN 3-499-55332-5 , p. 11.
  20. ↑ Max Horkheimer: General part. In: Studies on Authority and Family. Research reports from the Institute for Social Research. Librairie Félix Alcan Paris 1936, p. 23f.
  21. ^ Popper - The logic of the social sciences (PDF; 402 kB) Paper, published in: Cologne journal for sociology and social psychology, 14th year 1962.
  22. ^ Adorno - The logic of the social sciences (PDF; 408 kB) Supplementary lecture, published in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozial-Psychologie, 14th year 1962.
  23. ^ Adorno - The logic of the social sciences (PDF; 408 kB) Supplementary lecture, published in: Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozial-Psychologie, 14th year 1962.
  24. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Foreword to the new edition. On the logic of the social sciences. Adult edition. Frankfurt 1982, p. 362. Quoted from: Hans-Joachim Dahms: Positivismusstreit: The arguments of the Frankfurt School with logical positivism, American pragmatism and critical rationalism. Suhrkamp, ​​1994, ISBN 3-518-28658-7 , p. 362f.
  25. ↑ Helmut Spinner : Where have you been, Plato? A small protest against a "great philosophy". In: social world . Volume 18, 1967, pp. 144ff; ders .: Ways and aberrations of science. In: social world. Volume 20, 1969.
  26. ↑ Jürgen Habermas: Theory of communicative action. 2 volumes. 4th edition. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1987
  27. ^ Arpad A. Sölter: Modernism and cultural criticism. Jürgen Habermas and the legacy of critical theory. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1996, ISBN 3-416-02545-8 , p. 39f, note 12. [Diss. Univ. Cologne 1993.]

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