Volker Bialas

Volker Bialas (born October 18, 1938 in Berlin ) is a German science historian and philosopher. He is particularly concerned with the life and work of the astronomer Johannes Kepler .

biography

After scientific, philosophical and historical studies in Berlin, Marburg and Munich, Volker Bialas received his doctorate in 1968 from the Technical University of Munich on Johannes Kepler's Rudolphine tables and completed his habilitation three years later with a thesis on the accuracy of planetary observations in the early modern period. From 1981 he was an adjunct professor at the Technical University of Munich and from 1985 to 2003 scientific director of the publication of Kepler's collected works at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . Bialas is a member of the "Johannes Kepler" working group of the International Astronomical Union and was a board member of the Austrian Society for the History of Science until the end of 2012. Bialas was a member of the advisory board of the Humanist Union .

In his research on Johannes Kepler, Bialas re-indexed Kepler's academic legacy and edited it for the first time in essential parts. Kepler is honored by him not only as a great astronomer and mathematician, but also as a philosopher. By accentuating his holistic philosophical thinking, Bialas consciously sets a counterpoint to the conventional Kepler image.
For Bialas, the history of astronomy is embedded in the cultural history of mankind. Your sub-area of ​​archaeoastronomy should therefore consider not only astronomical interpretations but also the sacred reference to stone monuments from the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

Active in the peace movement since the 1980s , Bialas shares in his peace work the view that the peacelessness of the time remains organized, especially in the form of structural violence : First justice is the measure of peace. In his philosophy of life, Bialas is about truthfulness in science and religion, mindful experience of nature and meaningful lifestyle in a society that is oriented towards social justice . Rationality as the exclusive means of access to reality has to be overcome if the whole of human existence is to be perceived. Invisible threads of being run through all of nature, the spiritual quality of which only becomes conscious in humans.

Fonts

As an author

• Scientific and technical revolutions in the past and present. Pahl-Rugenstein, Cologne 1978
• Earth form, cosmology and worldview. The history of geodesy as part of the cultural history of mankind. Wittwer, Stuttgart 1982
• Astronomy and beliefs in megalithic culture: On the critique of archaeoastronomy (= treatises of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Mathematical and natural science department, new series, no . 166). Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1988
• General History of Science: Philosophical Orientations. Böhlau, Vienna 1990
• The second chance for a peaceful world-building - conditions for a global peace order. In: Peace order as a task of the present epoch. Contribution to the symposium of the international project group “Global Peace Order” from November 15 to 16, 1996 in Dresden. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers , Dresden 1997, issue 32, pp. 3-14.
• Social crisis and the culture of peace. In: Peace in Practice: Dialogue of Civilizations - Culture of Peace. Contribution to the symposium of the international project group “Global Peace Order” from November 14th to 16th, 1997 in Dresden. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 1998, Issue 41A, pp. 16-27. urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-qucosa2-340413
• From the heavenly myth to the world law. A cultural history of astronomy. Ibera, Vienna 1998
• Peace (= library of basic dialectical terms. Issue 2). Aisthesis, Bielefeld 1998
• People picture , with H.Holz, D.Losurdo and H.Brenner. Aisthesis-Verlag, ~ 2000
• Resisting violence - for a culture of peace. In: Peace and War on the Cusp of a New Millennium. Contributions to the 8th Dresden Peace Symposium on February 12, 2000. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspektiven (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2000, Issue 53, pp. 38–42.
• Civil society approaches to solving global problems. In: Opportunities and obstacles on the way to a global peace order. Contributions to the 5th Dresden Symposium "For a Global Peace Order" on November 18, 2000. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspektiven (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2001, issue 57, pp. 56–66.
• Global ethic versus new world order. In: Ideas in the struggle for a peaceful world. Contributions to the 6th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 24, 2001. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2002, issue 60, pp. 8-18.
• Theses on violence and justice. In: Analyzing and Thinking for Peace and Human Rights. Ernst Woit on his 70th birthday. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2002, issue 62, pp. 11–16.
• The backyard as the model for the empire? Parameters of US-Latin America policy. In: “Pax Americana” or just peace. Contributions to the 7th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 23, 2002. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2003, issue 64, pp. 45–54.
• Johannes Kepler. Beck, Munich 2004 (= Beck's series of thinkers. Volume 566).
• Introduction and The Popanz of Anti-Americanism. In: Justification for War Today. Contributions to the 8th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 29, 2003. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2004, issue 68, pp. 3–5 and 34–42.
• Minimum democratic standards for a European peace order. In: European integration and peace. Ideas, concepts, strategies. Contributions to the 9th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 27, 2004. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitsppolitik (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2005, issue 73, pp. 29–38.
• The chronic threat of nuclear war and the logic of disarmament. In: Nuclear weapons and the future of humanity. Contributions to the 13th Dresden Symposium “For a Global Peace Order” on November 15, 2008. (Ed.) Dresdener Studiengemeinschaft Sicherheitspektiven (DSS) e. V: DSS working papers, Dresden 2009, issue 93, pp. 3–13. urn : nbn: de: bsz: 14-qucosa2-340349
• Searching for Truth and Finding Yourself: The Experience of the Divine. Eos, St. Ottilien 2009.
• Paths and limits: meditations on life and nature. Eos, St. Ottilien 2009.
• Justice and Peace as Principles of Global Order: A Plea for a Different World System. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2011.
• Community bond and world awareness: Broken perspectives in relation to social life. Eos, St. Ottilien 2013.
• Patrick of Ireland. Life and writings . EOS Verlag, St. Ottilien 2015, ISBN 978-3-8306-7718-5 .
• The saints of Ireland. At the beginning of the Irish Church. EOS publishing house. St. Ottilien 2017. ISBN 978-3-8306-7844-1
• The rainbow woman. A tale of the new lament for peace. Verlag Königshausen & Neumann 2019. ISBN 978-3-8260-6863-8

As editor

• Co-editor of the collected works of Johannes Kepler . Beck, Munich 1983-2009.
• with Hans-Jürgen Häßler : Two hundred years of Kant's draft for Eternal Peace: the idea of ​​a global peace order. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1996.
• with Hans-Jürgen Häßler, Ernst Woit: The culture of peace. World order structures and peace building. Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1999.

literature

• Daniel A. DiLiscia, Friederike Boockmann, Hella Kothmann: Miscellanea Kepleriana: Festschrift for Volker Bialas on his 65th birthday. Rauner, Augsburg 2005, ISBN 3-936905-08-8 .

Web links

• Book author Volker Bialas at Perlentaucher

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Kürschner's German Scholar Calendar . 18th edition (1996). Vol. 1, p. 229.
2. ^ Previous members of the Advisory Board of the Humanist Union. Accessed November 15, 2017