World riddle

This article deals with the world enigma in metaphysics. For the non-fiction book by the biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel from 1899 see Die Weltträtsel .

World puzzle is a term that became common in the 19th century and later developed into a catchphrase . It was used to describe metaphysical questions that may never be answered.

Riddle is used in a wide range of meanings between mystery and puzzle . The speech moves between an optimistic and a pessimistic position, a competence to explain the world on the one hand and a skeptical attitude of the fundamental unknowability of the world - and thus the unsolvability of its puzzles - on the other.

History of philosophy

As early as the 18th century, the whole of the world , certain of its areas or man himself was described as a permanent puzzle.

David Hume questioned the certainty of a priori judgments, rejected metaphysics, viewed science as an accumulation of probabilities, and referred to the power of habit .

David Hume: "The whole of the world is a riddle."

The mind should not wander into supersensible regions, but should limit itself to the field of experience , without which knowledge and truth cannot be spoken of. In contrast to the continental tradition of rationalism , Hume emphasized that the mind cannot grasp any truths by itself, but can only receive sensory impressions, which formed the basis of knowledge. But no picture of the whole of the world can be built from the sensory data . Since even causality was traced back to habit ( induction problem ) and the possibilities of reason were questioned in this skepticism , for Hume the insight into human blindness and weakness was the result of philosophy. Hume described the enigmatic character of the world with the words: “The whole of the world is a riddle, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, uncertainty, abstention from judgment are the only results to which the most rigorous and careful investigation can lead us. "

Arthur Schopenhauer: The philosopher stops in amazement in front of the great sphinx of existence itself .

For Arthur Schopenhauer the world appears as will and idea . While on the level of knowledge - in the tradition of Kant - he viewed the world as imagined and things as appearances , for him the actually metaphysical principle that prevailed behind things and went beyond Kant's intelligible “thing in itself” was the will .

The human body - like all other life - is objectified, incarnated will in different forms. The human being as animal metaphysicum is puzzling about his own existence : it lies in his consciousness, which, depending on intellect and spiritual powers, is individually differently capable, so that for Schopenhauer there were people who have a "at least ten times higher degree of existence" than others . While most people spend their existence, driven by the needs and duties of life, in a form of "dull conscious drift (s)" as a restless and confused dream , the scholar becomes conscious of existence as a whole. But it is only with a philosopher and poet that prudence reaches a degree that no longer explores a certain element in existence, but rather "existence itself". Schopenhauer describes this as the great sphinx , in front of which the philosopher pauses in amazement in order to make it his problem.

Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864)

The Sphinx itself has been widely regarded as a symbol of the world puzzle. and the riddle solver Oedipus had, as Nietzsche wrote, "because of his excessive wisdom [...] to plunge into a confusing vortex of misdeeds."

While Schopenhauer, in his pessimistic-idealistic metaphysics of suffering, saw the thing in itself in the unreasonable will roaming through eternity and viewed it as the “solution to the riddle of the world”, Friedrich Nietzsche believed he had discovered the solution to the world riddle in the will to power . In one of the fragments that have been left there are the words: “And do you also know what the world is to me [...] The world: a monster of power, without beginning, without end [...] a sea storming within itself and flowing forces, forever changing, eternally running back [...] - this my Dionysian world of eternal-self-creation, this my beyond of good and evil, without a goal, if there is not a goal in the happiness of the circle [ ...] do you want a name for this world? One solution to all of your riddles? [...] This world is the will to power - and nothing else! "

The seven world riddles

Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond, author of the "Seven World Riddles"

It was the German physiologist Emil Heinrich Du Bois-Reymond who postulated "seven world riddles" and presented them in his 1880 lecture of the same name. He referred to seven difficulties for thinking, which he presented in the range of possible solvability to unsolvable:

1. The essence of matter and force
2. The origin of the movement
3. The origin of sensation
4. The origin of life
5. The functional facility of nature
6. Human thinking and speaking
7. Free will

Du Bois-Reymond described the first three world riddles as transcendent in the Kantian sense , and therefore in principle unsolvable. On the other hand, Du Bois-Reymond considered the origin of life and the purposeful arrangement of nature to be solvable in principle, if not yet solved. The ability to reasonably think and the related question of the origin of language can also be explained in principle. On the other hand, he left open whether the riddle of human free will could be solved, but tried to clear up this riddle - like that of human language - within the framework of a psychological determinism .

In Du Bois-Reymond's work, the world riddles - unlike Schopenhauer - relate only to questions within the world, not to the existence of the world in general.

Du Bois-Reymond's stance on metaphysical questions is that of agnosticism . It was already formulated in the earlier work “On the Limits of Natural Knowledge”, culminated in the popular saying Ignoramus et ignorabimus and led to heated controversy.

The world riddles

→ Main article : The world riddles

Ernst Haeckel considered the world riddle solvable.

In contrast to Du Bois-Reymonds, the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel considered the world riddle to be solvable. He made the expression extremely popular at the end of the 19th century with his book " Die Weltträtsel ". The monistic philosophy, based on Spinoza and Goethe , on which he had already taken earlier works as a basis, reflected the unclouded belief in the progress of science and aimed at a unification of world views.

Haeckel's natural philosophy explained the creation of the universe from a single original substance that unfolded according to the principle of development . He understands by monism a unified, pantheistic view of "total nature". In his mind, God and the world are one, the world itself a "cosmic unit". In this way Haeckel wanted to overcome anthropism , the idea that man is the ultimate goal of creation and separated from the rest of nature.

According to Haeckel, science can in principle solve all world riddles. The “greatest, most comprehensive and most difficult” is “that of the origin and development of the world”, while the most important question remains that of the origin of man.

Haeckel believed that the world consisted of itself, beginning and endless. Like Du Bois-Reymonds, he did not direct his attention to the general riddle of world existence in general, but to individual questions of specific natural phenomena.

The monistic doctrine was in the tradition of materialism of the 19th century , although Haeckel himself protested against the assessment of being a materialist . He started from a concept of substance, which assigns spirit and energy as attributes. According to Haeckel, these attributes were recorded by the law of conservation of mass formulated by Lavoisier and the first law of thermodynamics by Robert Mayer .

Starting from a mechanistic-causal principle of explanation , Haeckel viewed the humanities only as sub-areas of natural science and believed that he could find solutions to the world riddles that metaphysicians had previously considered largely unsolvable.

Darwin at the age of 51 when he published his theory of evolution.

Haeckel saw another key to solving the world riddle in Charles Darwin's theory of evolution , which he aggressively supported and propagated. The deep secrets of the origin of life, thought and language would be revealed by the theory of evolution; the supposed teleology of nature refuted by the theory of selection . Haeckel considered the freedom problem discussed since Rousseau and Kant to be obsolete because of the principle of causality, and since the immortality of the soul is a fiction, the spirit can also be explained as a biological phenomenon.

With his easygoing superstructure of empirical research, the then-popular popular scientific exposition of his thoughts as well as the optimism about progress, Haeckel proved to be typical "child of the 19th century." His theories, his rejection of metaphysical and mystical questions and transcendental speculation led to long disputes, one "Battle for Haeckel", in which there was also a polemic between supporters and opponents. On the other hand, Haeckel's “world riddles” made the state of the natural sciences known to a wide audience and supported the acceptance of the theory of evolution.

20th century

The early Ludwig Wittgenstein did not yet believe in unsolvable riddles. In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he formulated: “To an answer that cannot be expressed, one cannot express the question either. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be asked at all, it can also be answered. ”“ The correct method of philosophy would actually be: to say nothing other than what can be said, that is, statements of natural science [...] and then whenever Another wanted to say something metaphysical, to prove to him that he had given certain signs in his sentences no meaning. ”The work ends with the famous words:“ What one cannot speak of, one must be silent about it. ”

This position is reminiscent of Martin Heidegger's attempt at a fundamental ontological reconstruction of metaphysics through the basic question: "Why is there at all and not rather nothing?", Which Heidegger had raised in reference to Leibniz . In contrast to his later pejorative use of the term “metaphysics”, he presented the analysis of existence in its mutual relation as metaphysics in the Metaphysical Beginnings of Logic at the beginning of Leibniz .

Philosophers of the Vienna Circle or of logical empiricism such as Rudolf Carnap represented a scientific worldview that left no room for theological and metaphysical speculations, a radical position that was later relativized by Karl Popper . He explained his interest in science and philosophy. a. with wanting to “learn about the mystery of the world we live in”.

literature

• Hermann Helbig : World riddle from the point of view of modern science: emergence in nature, society, psychology, technology and religion . Springer, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-662-56288-8 (XX, 787, [1] - reading sample).

Web links

• Rudolf Eisler, Dictionary of Philosophical Terms

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, Welträtsel, Vol. 12, p. 507
2. ↑ Volker Spierling , Brief History of Philosophy , David Hume, p. 198, Piper, Munich 2004
3. ^ Wilhelm Weischedel , Die philosophische Hintertreppe , David Hume or the skeptical shipwreck, p. 212, Nymphenburger, Munich 1996
4. ↑ cit. based on: Wilhelm Weischedel , Die philosophische Hintertreppe , David Hume or the skeptical shipwreck, p. 212, Nymphenburger, Munich 1996
5. ↑ Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena , Psychological Considerations, §333, p. 699, Complete Works, Vol. 5, Stuttgart, Frankfurt am Main, 1986
6. ^ Wilpert, Lexikon der Weltliteratur, Oedipus and the Sphinx, p. 985
7. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. 40, The Birth of Tragedy, Untimely Considerations I-IV, Nachgelassene Schriften, Critical Study Edition, Vol. 1, Ed .: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, dtv, November 1988
8. ↑ Friedrich Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente 1884-1885, Critical Study Edition, Vol. 11, Ed .: Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, German, November 1989
9. ↑ Eisler: Dictionary of Philosophical Terms. History of Philosophy, Vol. 2, p. 721
10. ↑ Kirchner / Michaelis, Dictionary of Basic Philosophical Concepts , History of Philosophy, p. 282
11. ↑ Kirchner / Michaelis, Dictionary of Basic Philosophical Terms , History of Philosophy, p. 28
12. ^ ^{A b c} Kindler's New Literature Lexicon, Vol. 7, Ernst Haeckel, Die Welträtsel , p. 151, Kindler, Munich 1991
13. ↑ Metzler Philosophen-Lexikon, Ernst Haeckel , p. 343, Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar 1995
14. ^ E. Haeckel: Die Welträtsel , 1918, chap. 13, p. 140; quote here. according to: FJ Wetz: Art. Weltträtsel , in: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Vol. 12, pp. 507-510, here p. 508
15. ↑ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 6.5., Work edition Volume 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main
16. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 6.53., Work edition Volume 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main
17. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 7th, work edition Volume 1, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main
18. ^ Philosophy of the Present, Martin Heidegger , Was ist Metaphysik, p. 310, Kröner, Stuttgart 1999
19. ↑ cit. after: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, World Puzzle, Vol. 12, p. 509