Gotthard Günther
Encyclopedia
Gotthard Günther was a German
(Prussian) philosopher
.
and philosophy
at the universities of Heidelberg
and Berlin
, and wrote his doctor's thesis on Hegel in 1933 under the guidance of Eduard Spranger
. From 1935 to 1937, he worked at the institute of Arnold Gehlen
at the University of Leipzig
, publishing “Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal des modernen Bewusstseins” (“Christian metaphysics and the fate of modern consciousness”, together with Helmut Schelsky
in 1937). He was a member of the Leipzig School
.
In the same year, following his wife, the Jewish psychologist Dr. Marie Günther-Hendel, he emigrated from Germany first to Italy
, afterwards to Stellenbosch University
in South Africa
and, in 1940, to the United States. There he completed his system of place-valued logics and morphogrammatics. His great study “Die philosophische Idee einer nicht-Aristotelischen Logik” (“The philosophical concept of a non-Aristotelian logic”) went to print in 1957 (Hamburg, Meiner). As a research professor, he joined the department of electrical engineering
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
in 1960, working together with Warren Sturgis McCulloch
, Heinz von Foerster
, Humberto Maturana
and others. In 1962, he published Cybernetic ontology and transjunctional operations. Later he lectured at the University of Hamburg, until he died, in 1984.
According to Isaac Asimov, who considered Gunther "a good friend," Gunther "felt that civilization was a product of the Old World and could not flourish indigenously in the New." Asimov noted that Gunther thus "maintained [that] when Old World civilization was transplanted to the New World, a distortion was introduced and one of the wasy in which this distortion was evidenced was by the peculiar American invention of science fiction, which was not to be confused with earlier European ventures in the field (i.e., Jules Vernes)."
, Martin Heidegger
and Oswald Spengler
. He developed a trans-Aristotelian
logical approach (omitting the tertium non datur
). Günther's transclassical logic was the attempt to combine improved results of modern dialectic with formal logic. His focus on the philosophical problem of the "Du" ("You" /"Thou") was trailblazing. He also contributed to the fields of cybernetics
and to both natural and social sciences, especially to sociology
.
His œuvre (body of work), in German and English, is quite substantial. An overview can be gathered from his three volumes, helping make dialectics operationable (see below). He was of influence in the areas of philosophy, cybernetics, mathematics, and sociology. As of 2004, the Gotthard Günther Research Center (“Gotthard-Günther-Forschungsstelle”) is working at the University of Klagenfurt
in Austria.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
(Prussian) philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
.
Biography
From 1921 to 1933, Günther studied sinologySinology
Sinology in general use is the study of China and things related to China, but, especially in the American academic context, refers more strictly to the study of classical language and literature, and the philological approach...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the universities of Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
and Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and wrote his doctor's thesis on Hegel in 1933 under the guidance of Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger
Eduard Spranger was a German philosopher and psychologist.A student of Wilhelm Dilthey, Spranger was born in Berlin and died in Tübingen....
. From 1935 to 1937, he worked at the institute of Arnold Gehlen
Arnold Gehlen
Arnold Gehlen was an influential conservative German philosopher and sociologist.-Biography:His major influences while studying philosophy were Hans Driesch, Nicolai Hartmann and especially Max Scheler....
at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
, publishing “Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal des modernen Bewusstseins” (“Christian metaphysics and the fate of modern consciousness”, together with Helmut Schelsky
Helmut Schelsky
Helmut Schelsky, , was a German sociologist, the most influential in post-World War II Germany, well into the 1970s.-Biography:...
in 1937). He was a member of the Leipzig School
Leipzig school (sociology)
The Leipzig school was a branch of sociology developed by a group of academics led by philosopher and sociologist Hans Freyer at the University of Leipzig, Germany in the 1930s....
.
In the same year, following his wife, the Jewish psychologist Dr. Marie Günther-Hendel, he emigrated from Germany first to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, afterwards to Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University
Stellenbosch University is a public research university situated in the town of Stellenbosch, South Africa. Other nearby universities are the University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape....
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and, in 1940, to the United States. There he completed his system of place-valued logics and morphogrammatics. His great study “Die philosophische Idee einer nicht-Aristotelischen Logik” (“The philosophical concept of a non-Aristotelian logic”) went to print in 1957 (Hamburg, Meiner). As a research professor, he joined the department of electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
in 1960, working together with Warren Sturgis McCulloch
Warren Sturgis McCulloch
Warren Sturgis McCulloch was an American neurophysiologist and cybernetician, known for his work on the foundation for certain brain theories and his contribution to the cybernetics movement.- Biography :...
, Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster
Heinz von Foerster was an Austrian American scientist combining physics and philosophy. Together with Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Lawrence J. Fogel, and others, Heinz von Foerster was an architect of cybernetics.-Biography:Von Foerster was born in 1911 in Vienna, Austria,...
, Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana is a Chilean biologist and philosopher. He is considered a member of the second wave of cybernetics, known for developing a theory of autopoiesis about the nature of reflexive feedback control in living systems.- Biography :After completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de...
and others. In 1962, he published Cybernetic ontology and transjunctional operations. Later he lectured at the University of Hamburg, until he died, in 1984.
According to Isaac Asimov, who considered Gunther "a good friend," Gunther "felt that civilization was a product of the Old World and could not flourish indigenously in the New." Asimov noted that Gunther thus "maintained [that] when Old World civilization was transplanted to the New World, a distortion was introduced and one of the wasy in which this distortion was evidenced was by the peculiar American invention of science fiction, which was not to be confused with earlier European ventures in the field (i.e., Jules Vernes)."
Work and Legacy
Günther's work was based upon Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HegelGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...
, Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
and Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
. He developed a trans-Aristotelian
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
logical approach (omitting the tertium non datur
Law of excluded middle
In logic, the law of excluded middle is the third of the so-called three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is....
). Günther's transclassical logic was the attempt to combine improved results of modern dialectic with formal logic. His focus on the philosophical problem of the "Du" ("You" /"Thou") was trailblazing. He also contributed to the fields of cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
and to both natural and social sciences, especially to sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
.
His œuvre (body of work), in German and English, is quite substantial. An overview can be gathered from his three volumes, helping make dialectics operationable (see below). He was of influence in the areas of philosophy, cybernetics, mathematics, and sociology. As of 2004, the Gotthard Günther Research Center (“Gotthard-Günther-Forschungsstelle”) is working at the University of Klagenfurt
University of Klagenfurt
The University of Klagenfurt was founded in 1960 in Klagenfurt, Austria. It began as a College of Educational Studies . Since October 2004 the official German name is Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt in order to stress the intercultural connections between the Alpine regions and the Adriatic Sea...
in Austria.
See also
- More information at: German WiKi
- Günther Philosophy Web
Publications
- 1933, Grundzüge einer neuen Theorie des Denkens in Hegels Logik [Fundamentals of a Theory of Thinking in Hegel's Logic]. Second, expanded edition, with a new foreword. Hamburg: Meiner, 1978. ISBN 3787304355.
- 1937, Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal des modernen Bewusstseins. Leipzig: Hirzel.
- 1952, Uberwindung von Raum und Zeit: phantastische Geschichten aus der Welt von Morgen. Düsseldorf: Karl Rauch.
- 1957, Das Bewusstsein der Maschinen: eine Metaphysik der Kybernetik. Krefeld, Baden-Baden: Agis-Verlag. Second, expanded edition 1963. Third edition as Das Bewusstsein der Maschinen: eine Metaphysik der Kybernetik, mit einem Beitrag aus dem Nachlass: "Erkennen und Wollen", edited by Eberhard von Goldammer and Joachim Paul. Baden-Baden: Agis-Verlag, 2002. ISBN 3870070099. French edition, as La conscience des machines: une métaphysique de la cybernétique; suivi de Cognition et volition, third edition, edited by Eberhard von Goldammer and Joachim Paul, translated by Françoise Parrot and Engelbert Kronthaler, Paris: l'Harmattan, 2008.
- 1959, Idee und Grundriss einer nicht-Aristotelischen Logik, Bd. 1. Die Idee und ihre philosophischen Voraussetzungen. [Idea and Outline of a Non-Aristotelian Logic, vol. 1: The Idea and Its Philosophical Postulates]. Hamburg: F. Meiner. Second, revised edition, Hamburg: F. Meiner, 1978. Third edition, as Idee und Grundriss einer nicht-Aristotelischen Logik: die Idee und ihre philosophischen Voraussetzungen: mit einem Anhang Das Phänomen der Orthogonalität, und mit einem Fragment aus dem Nachlass Die Metamorphose der Zahl. Hamburg: Meiner, 1991. ISBN 3787310339.
- 1962, Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations. University of Illinois, Engineering Experiment Station. Technical Report no. 4. Urbana: Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory, University of Illinois.
- 1965, Cybernetics and the Transition from Classical to Trans-Classical Logic. Illinois University Biological Computer Laboratory BCL Report 3.0. Urbana: Biological Computer Laboratory, University of Illinois.
- 1967, Logik, Zeit, Emanation und Evolution. Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Forschung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen. Geistwissenschaften 136. Cologne-Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
- 1976, Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik, 1 (Contributions to the Foundation of an Operational Dialectic, 1). Hamburg: Meiner. ISBN 3787303715.
- 1979, Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik, 2, (Contributions to the Foundation of an Operational Dialectic, 2)
- 1980, Beiträge zur Grundlegung einer operationsfähigen Dialektik, 3, (Contributions to the Foundation of an Operational Dialectic, 3)
Further reading
- Actual research on polycontextural theories is documented at ThinkArt Lab Glasgow, Scotland.
- A comprehensive archive of Gunther's work (mainly out of print) is made accessible by Vordenker.
- A first insight into the terminology of Gunther's work is offered by the interactive Glossary.
External links
- Gotthard Günther's Philosophie website