Gotthard Günther
Gotthard Günther ( born June 15, 1900 in Arnsdorf, County Hirschberg, Silesia, † November 29, 1984 in Hamburg ) was a German philosopher and logician. Günther designed one over the classical bivalent ( Aristotelian ) logic calculus beyond calculus, polycontextual logic ( abk: PKL ). Polycontextual logic requires a Morphogrammatik called pre- logical theory of shape. The notation framework for both supplies, also developed by Günther kenogrammatics. PKL, Morpho and kenogrammatics form the so-called Polykontexturalitätstheorie. Gunther starting point for the development of this theory is a fundamental philosophical and epistemological critique of based strictly Identitätsontologie classical ( mono- contextural ) standard and non-standard logic calculi.
- 7.1 Gotthard Günther's writings
- 7.2 periodical
- 7.3 fonts, conceptual development of Polykontexturalitätstheorie
Study and Emigration
Gunther grew up in a parsonage in Upper Silesia where he soon came into contact with works of classical education. He studied philosophy and Indology addition, classical Chinese, Sanskrit and comparative religion. He acquired in May 1933 his doctorate with Eduard Spranger. The extended dissertation outline of a new theory of thinking in Hegel's logic appeared in the same year at Felix Meiner. His Jewish wife Marie Günther, born Hendel lost, after the seizure of power by the National Socialists her job as a teacher and went to Italy. Günther lost his scholarship in 1935 and took a job as assistant to in the four years younger Arnold Gehlen, who had just been appointed to Leipzig. Thus, Gunther was part of the environment of the Leipzig school of sociology. Günther was, unlike the Leipzig Gehlen and Helmut Schelsky, who in 1937 published the book Christian metaphysics and the fate of modern consciousness with Günther, never a Nazi.
1937 the couple emigrated Günther via Italy to South Africa, and from there in 1940 to the United States. Guenther was awarded a research scholarship and worked at the Widener Library at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During this time, a friendship develops the also living in Cambridge Ernst Bloch.
1945 Gunther began his work of reflection theoretical interpretation of multivalent logics, which led him to develop his role logics, which he later referred to as " ontological local value system ." The couple took Günther in 1948, eight years after immigration, U.S. citizenship to. Günther met the writer John W. Campbell know who drew his attention to the importance of the American science - fiction literature.
1952 Gunther was in Karl Rauch Verlag ( Dusseldorf ) an annotated by him four volume series ( " smoke space books" ) of selected American science fiction literature out, authors, inter alia: Isaac Asimov ( I, Robot of ), John W. Campbell ( The Incredible Planet), Jack Williamson ( 4 Wing ), Lewis Padgett et al (overcoming time and space, short story collection ). In this year he was at the suggestion of Kurt Gödel a research contract of the Bollingen Foundation.
1953-1955 first publications Gunther in the U.S. appeared on logical and metaphysical subjects. Since the papers were rejected by the relevant philosophical journals in the U.S., Günther published this work in a rewritten, understandable even for interested laymen form in the U.S. science fiction magazines " Astounding Science Fiction", later renamed to " Analog", and " Startling Stories ": Can Mechanical Brains Have Consciousness? ( Startling 1953), The Logical Parallax ( Astounding 1953), Achilles and the Tortoise ( Astounding 1954), Aristotelian and Non Aristotelian Logic ( Startling 1954), The Seetee Mind ( Startling 1954), The Soul of a Robot ( Startling 1955), The Thought Translator ( Startling 1955).
Scientific and philosophical achievements
Published in 1957 some of the relevant work Gotthard Günther: The awareness of the Machines - A metaphysics of cybernetics, and metaphysics, logic, and the theory of reflection, and in 1959 the idea and plan view of a non- Aristotelian logic.
1960 Gunther learned one of the fathers of cybernetics, Warren Sturgis McCulloch neurophysiologists know, an acquaintance of vital importance for further research Gunther. She had not only the beginning of a deep friendship with the founder of cybernetics and modern neuroscience computer science result but also Gunther's employment at the Heinz von Foerster led Biological Computer Laboratory ( BCL ) that the Department of Electrical Engineering of the University of Illinois at Urbana heard and worked with scientists such as Gordon Pask, Lars Löfgren, W. Ross Ashby and Humberto Maturana.
Also in 1960 Guenther said in a letter to Kurt Gödel first of his " discovery of a generalization of its value system." In this respect, this time also marks also the beginning of a theory of sibling numbers, an idea that obviously McCulloch in 1945 in his - must have had in mind work A Heterarchy of Values Determined by the Topology of Nervous Nets - today hardly perceived. It is known that McCulloch has been dealing with the extension of the classical logical calculus. What is the significance attributed Günther even this encounter, the eulogy, Number and Logos can - Unforgettable Hours with Warren S. McCulloch, the obituary of his friend to death in 1969 will be taken.
From 1961 to 1972 Gotthard Günther held a research professorship at the BCL. During this period the main structural elements of the Polykontexturalitätstheorie formed. Gunther came in the course of exploration of reflexive value systems, ie polykontexturaler logic calculi to the problem of morpho - and kenogrammatischen structures he public in works such as Cybernetic Ontology and Transjunctional Operations ( op dialectic, Vol 1) The metaphysical problem of formalization of the transcendental dialectic logic (op. dialectic, vol 1), logic, time, emanation and evolution ( op dialectic, Vol 3) or Natural Numbers in Trans -Classic Systems (op. dialectic, Vol 2) presented.
By his retirement in 1972, Günther finished his work at the BCL. He moved to Hamburg and held at the university until his death in 1984 lectures on philosophy; as well as lectures in West Berlin and the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin.
Appeared in 1975 Günther's autobiography " self-expression in the mirror America " in which he drew a first summary of his work. His efforts to stellenwertige reflexive logic and arithmetic culminated in his "Theory of polycontexturality " - a theory that he opposes presented the classic ( monokontexturalen ) standard and non - standard logic systems and the classical arithmetic.
On the Hegel - Congress 1979 in Belgrade Günther founded a general " theory of negative languages " under the title " Identity, Counter Identity and negative language " as a complement to traditional object-related, positive science languages.
On November 29, 1984 Gotthard Günther died in Hamburg. He was ( later his wife Marie Günther ) buried in the cemetery at Ohlsdorfer the Jewish graves. Its scientific estate is owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and is located in the Manuscript Department of the Berlin State Library.
On the theory of polycontexturality
Designed by Gotthard Günther Polykontexturalitätstheorie represents a formal theory, which allows non- reductionist and logical to model complex, self-referential processes that are characteristic of all life processes consistent. In his works, he creates a parallel -linked calculus, which he introduces as polycontextural logic ( PKL ) in science.
The basic idea of this calculus is to link individual logic systems, which he called contextures new, he introduced operators mediating each other. The PKL is characterized by distribution and placement of various logical contextures being within a contexture - ie intra- kontextural - all the rules of classical propositional logic strictly apply, while inter - kontextural - ie between the contextures - new operations that do not exist classically, be introduced. This makes it possible, self-referential processes logically consistent not only for modeling, but also admitting in principle an implementation.
For the distribution and placement of the logical contextures a special pre- logical theory is needed, the Günther has introduced under the name Morphogrammatik. Günther had the morphogrammatische incompleteness of the classical propositional logic by and came thus to the need to broaden the base of kenogrammatischen logic principle to make a generalization of logic can. The resulting kenogrammatische theory that kenogrammatics, it represents a theory of this vacancy formation
In the design of the Günther'schen kenogrammatics forms the framework of the notation Morphogrammatik and polycontextural logic.
The kenogrammatics represents a range of formals, which precedes all classical logic and form concepts. It means a structure theory, which is still not approved by the difference between form and content. In her particular is the logical and semiotic principle of identity not valid.
The Polykontexturalitätstheorie includes both PKL and Morpho and kenogrammatics and provides the basis for a state point dependent systems theory, a theory of qualities or generally dar. for a theory of subjectivity
A detailed description can be found in R. Kaehr, Th Mahler: Morphogrammatik - An introduction to the theory of logical form.
The philosophy
Gotthard Günther presents as a metaphysician and logician among the philosophers of the 20th century in many ways a special dar. It can be assigned to any philosophical school directly.
As coined by the spirit of Prussia rationalist he wanted to tackle the study of the humanities systematically, and so his ambitions led him first to the eastern philosophy. " Since the development of Indian culture by about 400 years before the Greek must be prepared and he wanted to start the history of philosophy chronologically, it was natural for him to deal initially with the beginnings of Indian philosophy ", according to his in the third person written autobiography, self-Portrait in America mirror. Added to this was the study of classical Chinese. In the study of Western philosophy " [ ... ] he discovered what the Asian philosophy was slowly fade into the background for him, the pursuit of accuracy, he had [ ... ] missing in Indian and Chinese philosophy. " The critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant he thought was " the culmination of all philosophy at all," to be an academic teacher Eduard Spranger drew his attention to the importance of Hegel, the first turning point in Günther's thinking, which was from then on in the tradition of German idealism. Even if he went out in his later works far beyond this, he took over again interpretive reference to Hegel, Schelling and Fichte, whose work he discovered by Arnold Gehlen font theory of free will of its own. In particular, Schelling's philosophy of nature formed the basis for Gunther's last lectures he already was over eighty, at the University of Hamburg. In the paragraph of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which is about the Amphiboly " concepts of reflection " and the " transcendental illusion ," he saw the basal Note that "you can not pass through without dialectic ," - a hint that it continues to Hegel and the other idealists leads.
"What is the mechanism that produces the bill, which irritates our minds again and again? and in a type of fraud that is " unhintertreiblich " as Kant says literally. The bill arises when I talk about the subject, because I can not talk differently about the subject than that I take it as an object, that is, by being object for me, and thus no longer is what it is. The speeches, judgments about a subject runs it into its opposite. Even if I have uncovered this note for me, I was brought him on, can not get out of it. [ .... ] Kant was critical of the pioneers who has exhibited the problem, Fichte, and Hegel have developed a systematic theory on it. You have so developed the dialectic of thing and self- experience of consciousness, the relationship between subject and object, being and nothingness, essence and appearance, unity and multiplicity systematically. "
But Günther's philosophy takes only a starting point in the German idealism and the machined by him first philosophy, metaphysics. In a letter dated 23 May 1954, he wrote to the mathematician and logician Kurt Godel: I am - except for the Neo - Thomists - pretty much the only metaphysician who is convinced that you can not drive metaphysics today without the results the symbolic mathematical logic presupposing. And the symbolic logic of neo- Thomism ( Ivo Thomas, for example ) is in my opinion on a wrong track. It is there that is not admitted that logical positivism has convincingly demonstrated that the classical ontological metaphysics is scientifically untenable. Instead of using the results of the logistics for a new metaphysics, they attempt to still the medieval church metaphysics to prove ( fundamental ontology ) with mathematical logic. On the other hand, there is Heidegger, who recently reopened the logistics, has called a " degeneracy " that surrounds himself with a " semblance of productivity ." - Of these people here, my thoughts can so experienced no control. I have to turn to mathematical logicians so already.
Günther hereby continues in a double contrast to two of his contemporary philosophies., But with the excuse for Hegel and his contemporaries that adequate formal methods were not yet on the one for German Idealism and his epigones such as Martin Heidegger, whose rejection of logical- formal tools he sharply criticized the early 19th century are available. On the other hand, there is a contrast to logical positivism to neo-positivism and analytic philosophy today, whose formal work although he expressly affirms, but their opposition on principle to the study of metaphysical topics also finds Gunther sharp criticism. "It is childish to claim to have abolished the traditional metaphysics, as long as you still use the logic that has sprung from this metaphysics, as the organon of its own rationality. You insist on classical logic, just the issues of the old metaphysics remain, so one also displeased the answers given so far. This is the current ratio between idealism and materialism: each side holds the answers that gives the opponent to the riddles of philosophy, is wrong; but neither side it falls in their self-righteousness, a, to give an account as to whether not, perhaps, the whole question, which arises from the irreconcilability of the answers is long outdated. "
Günther confirmed with this attitude that for him had Husserl correspondence between logic and formal ontology validity. That's what he has in common with the Husserl -student Martin Heidegger. Methodically, he saw himself in the tradition of Hegel but less than that of Leibniz, the last Western philosophers, who was both in philosophy and metaphysics as well in mathematics at the level of scientific knowledge of his time.
Starting from the one proposed by Hegel topic of "pure self-identity in otherness " which - as an identity theoretical problem - on the ground of Kantian rationality with the " tertium non datur " of classical logic and the available formal tools can no longer be cope is - the main reason for the " German Idealism as deep -rooted hatred of the logical formalism, which reach almost grotesque forms in Hegel ," said Günther - he underwent beginning with his dissertation, the underlying logic of Western Ontologiekonzeption a structural analysis. In the not just leading back into the second affirmation negation of Hegel he saw the main indication that the current ontology is structurally poor to represent the relation richness of reality even comes close to. He was able to lift the beginnings of a new formal structure in Hegel and this is first to develop a value system in which several so-called logical domains ( contextures ) are mediated by side. The concept of " polycontextural logic " came later, it can be traced to the early seventies.
Gotthard Günther 1959 got in touch with the neurophysiologist and father of cybernetics, Warren S. McCulloch, who in 1945 demonstrated that certain topologies of neural networks violate the Transitivitätsgesetz classical logic, a problem of formal description of neuronal processes, as isomorphic to the German idealism treated philosophical problems turns out. The encounter with McCulloch brought about the logic, the nature of number into the game and led to the development of Günther kenogrammatics and the dialectical theory of numbers. Your basic ontological data drained ( kenos for empty), these structures provide an option to self-imaging of self-reference, which is something completely different quality than trying to model self-referentiality on recursive functions.
In 2000 appeared from the estate out and on the occasion of Günther's centennial in 1954, the incurred and previously unpublished writing The American Apocalypse - Ideas for a metaphysics of history in the Western Hemisphere. Starting from the discovery of America, which he treated as geschichtsmetaphysisches problem, Günther took mainly related to Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, a work that had impressed him in his youth, and underwent the excited Spengler two-stage culture cycles theory of a fundamental critique, which he justified by the lack of a future of Spengler's concept. America, primarily the U.S., he was presented as the next drive belt for the development of a third human history stage of planetary civilization, in which the previous civilizations in the Faustian - Western culture - this term comes from Spengler - and developed in America machine technology and cybernetics accept and even - on technology mediated - experience cultural transformations. Developments since the early eighties, especially in the context of computer and internet seem to give Günther posthumous right. America is a synonym for a transitional stage in the cultural melting pot of man undergoes a reduction to what is common to all men and not one of the specifics of the historical previous regional cultures with Günther. " What we find in the machine is been articulated life is a living being and old passion, the man has not been spared to pass the death of the object world. Only this death is the gateway to the future. The historical perspective Spengler with the relapse of mankind in the Bios is the perspective of weakness [ ... ] " says Guenther's essay machine, soul and world history.
Philosophy of Technology
This will Gotthard Günther to the philosophers of technology, whose conception of the subject is as flawed being beyond the Gehlen'schen interpretation of man, which only uses his technique to compensate for these same defects. A similar Günther view of the technology found in the work of Vilém Flusser, but which is more focused on the essay and not based on formal analysis of Western Ontologiekonzeption.
In the technique showed up for Günther the problem of subjectivity as a process of active volition ( volition ) as opposed to subjectivity as a process of knowing (cognition ) and the dialectical entanglement of both. "The technology is the only historical figure, in which the wool can give a general binding form."
In contrast to German idealism so that was the problem of subjectivity for Gunther to a problem of this world. He stood so close to the dialectical materialism. Another contrast arises for today in the philosophy of mind tended compatibilism or soft determinism.
" At this point it should be emphasized that it is not right really to speak of two causal chains - a sprung in the inanimate object and the other in the living - and that is because all living systems are originally emerged from precisely the environment of the then they have shielded themselves. In fact there is only one causal chain, arising from and. Spreading through the environment and reflected back into this environment through the medium of the living system The law of the determination expressed here, however, in two different modalities from. We must distinguish between irreflexive and reflexive causality. By this we mean that the causal chain on their way through a living system undergoes a radical change of character. "
The dialectical problem of entanglement of freedom and necessity, respectively. Willing and knowing, Günther identified as the problem of a feedback loop between subject and object, respectively. objective environment, but from a level of complexity that has so far technically implemented feedback loops far exceeds. The dispute about the freedom of the will is obsolete in light of the Günther'schen philosophy.
" An act of the will of a subject includes a much higher structural complexity than we observe in the physical irreflexive causality in the object area. [ ... ] Suppose, however, that reality is fully determined as the integration of objectivity and subjectivity, then we can say that the causality of the objective contexture of the universe, a feedback loop through the subjectivity back into the environment forms. With such statements, however, we must be very careful, because the feedback to which we are referring to a much higher structural complexity than those feedback that we observe in physical systems. "
However, Günther saw the possibility of technical access given to such feedback loops: "For the ideological consciousness of a coming cultural level so the causal nexus will never be the same for us the only reality schema in the play between fact occurred."
But with regard to the technical realization of functions of consciousness, he clearly said that an engineer will be only able to " build a machine that subjectivity respectively. Functions of consciousness does. Mind does, and not one that has functions of consciousness! A machine that has consciousness, is a contradiction in terms. This applies not only to the classical tradition of our thinking, but also for all future trans- classic machine theory. "
Gotthard Günther's merit is to have shown that a trans- classical logic as a formal calculus, with which one can expect, is feasible. In addition, he claimed to have discovered the dialectic of the number. He himself described his life work as unfinished, a work in progress, as he candidly admitted against his laudatory speech on his eightieth birthday, Willy high Keppel, in THE TIME. Günther was a rationalist. Given this, and the fact that he has shown in form and content, that dialectical materialism and dialectical idealism just focusing reflecting ideological consequences constitute one and the same Ontologiekonzeption, his philosophy can be provided with the label " dialectical rationalism ".
Effect and reception
In the years of his employment as an assistant to Arnold Gehlen from 1935 until his emigration in 1937 took Günther influence on idealist philosophy in Saxony, and in particular the Leipzig School and his younger friends Arnold Gehlen and Helmut Schelsky. He should get a chair at the University of Jena, however, refused the oath to the Führer and had to emigrate.
1955 Gotthard Günther was invited at the initiative of his friend Helmut Schelsky and CF von Weizsäcker, to hold a lecture at the University of Hamburg, with the aim to enable Gunther's reintegration into the academic life of Germany. Outside the context of his lecture, he gave a public lecture before the members of the Faculty of Arts with the theme " The philosophical significance of cybernetics ". As Günther himself said he had thus placed in a " irreconcilably opposed to the academic zeitgeist ". Hegelian all varieties treated him with kind of understanding and modern logicians did not take his work to the attention.
1961 to 1972, during his time at the BCL at Urbana took Gotthard Günther for his work on logic and value theory influence on the development of the so-called second-order cybernetics, the so-called second -order cybernetics.
Gunther 1959 in the first edition published in 1962 in the second edition most famous work " The consciousness of the machine - a metaphysics of cybernetics " undergoes a reception in the circles of the '68 movement. The release was followed by a lively discussion among international cybernetics in East and West, including Karl Steinbuch, Max Bense, Helmar Frank, George Klaus.
The 1968 published and marked by sharp criticism review of Habermas's " Logic of the Social Sciences", entitled " Critical Remarks on the current scientific theory " was not perceived by Jürgen Habermas. By contrast, saw the sociologist Walter L. Buhl in Günther's line of argument a " compelling " reason for the end of the divalent sociology.
The more powerful social scientist Niklas Luhmann and especially the student Elena Esposito tried, next to the second -order cybernetics and the work of Gunther, especially the Polykontexturalitätstheorie to make it usable for the systems theory. To that extent enjoyed Gotthard Günther in sociology a certain popularity, even if the Günther plenty quoting Luhmann, the settlement Walter L. Bühl According to the work of the philosopher " in its essential design elements [ ... ] misinterpreted " have.
A strong, although not formally logical reception Günther learned in the work of social and linguistic philosopher John Henry who professes in its reflection of the social systems theory as well as in his general understanding of philosophy as a reflection theory to Gunther's basic idea. Henry looks at his going out of four equally original meaning elements ( I, You, It, sense - medium, instead of the traditional subject-object dualism ) and his method of " dialectical subsumption " as a non- formal implementation of logical polyvalence in Günther sense. Furthermore, Günther was received in the works of sociologists Arno Bammé, Lars Clausen and Elke M. Geenen.
A deeper sociological reception of the work done on the BCL basic research in general and the work of Günther in particular found in the work of the sociologist Peter M. Hejl.
The philosopher and mathematician Rudolf Kaehr, who did his doctorate at Gotthard Günther, continued the logical calculus and technical work of Gunther. He deserves to have also the merit of the works of Gotthard Günther's and Jacques Derrida's mutually correlated. Derrida's critique of Phonologozentrismus was " [ ... ] access to the work of Gunther, the very long on the primacy of speech held in his reflection theoretical studies, although he actually in his logical Formalisierungsschritten initiated a primacy of Scripture ". In Derrida's intellectual figure of différance Kaehr saw a structure that can be reconciled with the kenogrammatics, and the aim is to record the conditions of possibility of a general speech frame.
At German universities is a growing interest in the Gotthard Günther recorded philosophy, inter alia, in the seminars Peter Sloterdijk.