Cosmopolitanism
Cosmopolitanism is a term from philosophical anthropology . It describes the release of humans from organic constraints ( instincts ) and their immediate environment and emphasizes their opening to a cultural world that they have created themselves . This goes hand in hand with the fact that humans are born without a fixed behavioral pattern and must always first acquire confidence in behavior in the world.
Colloquially, the term describes an openness towards other cultures. For example, a person or a society can be cosmopolitan; one speaks of a “cosmopolitan city”.
Concept history
Renaissance
The term can be traced back to Pico della Mirandola . He interprets the story of creation in such a way that after the completion of heaven , earth , fauna and flora , God no longer had a fixed place for man. However, this is not due to a fault of God, but precisely enables man standing in the middle of the world, knowing to create his own place.
18th century
In his treatise on the origin of language, Herder defines human beings as " defective beings " who create and pass on their own world, especially in language:
“Man does not have such a monotonous and narrow sphere where there is only one job waiting for him: a world of business and regulations lies around him. His senses and organization are not sharpened to one thing: he has senses for everything and of course for each individual weaker and duller senses. [...] Our mother tongue was at the same time the first world that we saw, the first sensations that we felt, the first effectiveness and joy that we enjoyed. "
20th century
In the philosophical anthropology that became very important at the beginning of the 20th century , the term has a central meaning for Max Scheler , who uses it to determine the difference between humans and animals . Man is released from organic-instinctual compulsions, he is no longer tied to his environment, but environmentally free and cosmopolitan . Man “has” the world. Due to his reduced instinct, he occupies a special position in nature . By being open to the world, man overcomes environmental closeness.
Arnold Gehlen takes up Scheler's definition. While the animal is directly exposed to the stimuli received from the environment, the human being is deprived of the environment and can react freely to the stimuli, ie is open to the world. This is justified, among other things, in an organic lack of means and unspecialization of the human being, which force him as a " deficient being " (Herder) to create structures of orientation and meaning for himself. The human being is thus a culture-producing being, which is characterized by foresighted, planned and joint action, which is why Gehlen calls him " Prometheus " (Greek: the one who thinks ahead; figure in Greek mythology ). He is biologically forced to dominate nature.
Helmuth Plessner rejected Scheler's definition of cosmopolitanism as overcoming environmental closeness. He emphasized that "in humans, environmental ties and openness to the world collide and only apply in relation to a mutual entanglement that cannot be compensated for"
Martin Heidegger explains man's openness to the world in basic terms of metaphysics (1929–1930) using the thesis: "The stone is worldless, the animal is poor, man is world-forming". As a result of its world poverty, beings as beings are not accessible to the animal ; it is interwoven in its environment, consisting of a "ring" of instincts, which disinhibit individual occurrences and lead to the animal being "accepted" by the thing. Thus the animal is denied a free " behavior " towards being; Behavior is peculiar to humans only. Through the connection of drive and its object , the animal is “dazed” in its actions. Because of this drowsiness and in contrast to human “behavior”, Heidegger says that the animal “behaves”. Heidegger relies on the research of Uexküll and his specific use of the term "environment" for the animal's bond with its environment, like Scheler in the past .
Humans, on the other hand, can freely “relate” to beings because they are able to “grasp something as something”, that is, to understand the being of one and the same being in various ways (see ontological difference ). Behaving in this way to beings , the human being forms a world by determining what is with regard to the whole. (Whether something is sacred or profane , for example , is only determined with regard to the order of the divine and the order of being as a whole.) If he always determines the individual being with regard to the whole, he is complementary , ie world- forming . For the animal, on the other hand, it is impossible to interpret a being with regard to a world as a totality of meaning. It remains limited to its environment and is therefore poor in the world, it lacks world. This also explains why the world in which man lives can change, because if something can and always has to be understood as something , then this " as " has not been established and can change over generations , whereas that Animal is “equipped” with a stable environment and adapted instincts and reaction patterns over many generations.
Jean-Paul Sartre later used Heidegger's definition of cosmopolitanism as a basis for the philosophical current of existentialism that he co-founded . Open-mindedness is equated with absolute freedom of the human being, to which he is condemned. According to Sartre, people cannot rely on any order or worldview because they are what they make of themselves:
"If existence precedes being, that is, if the fact that we exist does not relieve us of the need to create our being for ourselves through our actions, then we are condemned to freedom as long as we live ..."
The psychologist and social philosopher Erich Fromm refers indirectly to Sartre, without explicitly mentioning the term cosmopolitanism, whereby he comes to a contrary opinion. The fact that “the human species can be defined as that primacy which occurred at the point of evolution when instinctive determination had reached a minimum and the development of the brain reached a maximum” serves him as the basis for his concept of religion. According to Fromm's broad definition, religion is “any system of thought and action shared by a group that offers the individual a framework of orientation and an object of devotion.” It is vital for human beings because without this “framework of orientation” they despaired of the alternative senselessness of his existence, lapsed into passivity and finally died mentally and physically. For Fromm, openness to the world does not mean the rejection of all orders and worldviews, but, on the contrary, it is their legitimation .
Open-mindedness in theology
The knowledge of man's openness to the world is also used in theology as one of the foundations for the formulation of the Judeo-Christian image of man, according to which man is “the image of God” (Gen 1.26):
“The fact that man and only he is called the“ image of God ”among all living beings is first of all an expression of his being lifted out of nature. This prominence can be demonstrated in individual phenomena: differentiation of the organic system, biological unspeciality, cosmopolitanism, rationality, language, consciousness, self-determination, conscience, etc. a. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herder: Treatise on the origin of language . ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Quoted from: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy : Open-mindedness. Vol. 12, p. 497.
- ↑ Martin Heidegger: Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. World - finitude - loneliness . GA 29/20, p. 261.
- ↑ Cf. Martin Heidegger: Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. World - finitude - loneliness . GA 29/20, p. 369f.
- ↑ Cf. Martin Heidegger: Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. World - finitude - loneliness . GA 29/20, p. 344ff.
- ↑ Martin Heidegger: Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. World - finitude - loneliness . GA 29/20, p. 397.
- ↑ Cf. Martin Heidegger: Basic Concepts of Metaphysics. World - finitude - loneliness . GA 29/20, p. 498f.
- ↑ See Erich Fromm: To have or to be . SPIEGEL Edition 28, p. 158.
- ↑ See Erich Fromm: To have or to be . SPIEGEL Edition 28, p. 156.
- ↑ Duhn / Pölling: Man again! Hildesheim u. a. 1993
