Paul Natorp

Paul Gerhard Natorp ( born January 24, 1854 in Dusseldorf, † August 17, 1924 in Marburg ) was a German philosopher and educator who is known as the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism.

Life

Paul Natorp was the son of Protestant pastor Adelbert Natorp and his wife Emilie cellar. He studied music since 1871, history, classical philology and philosophy in Berlin, Bonn and Strasbourg. He completed his dissertation written in Latin historiographical 1876 in Strasbourg by the positivist Ernst Laas from. After four years as a private tutor, he became a substitute librarian in Marburg, where he habilitated in 1881 in Cohen. In 1885 he became an associate professor and chair of the 1893 philosophy and pedagogy in Marburg, a position he held until his retirement in 1922. In the winter semester 1923/24, Natorp led by them by Marburg Martin Heidegger an intensive exchange of ideas, whose work on Duns Scotus, he had already read and excerpted a very early stage exactly. Paul Natorp has - made ​​also an organizer and leader of the Romanists founded in 1896 by Eduard Koschwitz " Marburger Summer School " earned - in addition to English studies Wilhelm Viëtor. On January 24, 1924, he received an honorary doctorate from the Theological Faculty of the University of Marburg. He was married to his cousin Helene Natorp since 1887 and had five children. Natorp was an ambitious composer who composed mainly chamber music ( Cello Sonata, Violin Sonata, Piano Trio). He also wrote about 100 songs and two choral works. Is known of his correspondence with Brahms, who dissuaded him to earn his living as a composer.

Philosophy

In epistemology Natorp represented similar Cohen a methodological idealism. The two tribes Kant's knowledge of perception and understanding were at his matter and form of knowledge. Space and time are thought determinations of the relation and size. What is given is for abandonment, which is pointless to ask. Findings are not subjective, but to objectify in the statutory provision of the apparitions. The synthetic unity is the fundamental law of cognition, which is determined by the basic functions of the categories ( quality, quantity, relation and modality ).

In reference to the regulative ideas of Kant Natorp certain "the law of the 'ought ' in the aufzufassenden as task pursuit of knowledge of the infinite. From this he derived the levels of aspiration than instinct, will and reason will, which he combined with a theory of virtue. The truly Concrete was not the individual, but the community for him. In the practical to Natorp used for its time quite controversial socialist education policy, especially for a gratuitous elementary school and equal educational opportunities for all.

The source of religion was for Natorp feel the immediate self-knowledge. The truth grounds of religion making it the subjectivity. The infinity of feeling leads to transcendence.

If one wanted to summarize the basic idea of the work of Natorp in one sentence, one could formulate:

• To think is not only " Applies to" ( Lotze ), but in relationships ( ratios ) are thinking is called.

This assumes Gottlob Frege Natorp - influenced by Lotze - program a " term foundation " that brought about Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein analytic philosophy on the way and with Robert Brandom Expressive reason is currently playing. While, however, in which the relations viewed on Wittgenstein professional end traditions of analytic and linguistic- structuralist provenance as "objects" under other or ever be devalued by appealing to the common sense as mere ' relations, so that a maximum content, application of relations - from " structure " to " syntax ," " semantics ", " pragmatics " to " competence" and " Perfomanz " - accompanied by a minimum of the reflection, presents Natorp " clearly and openly the relationship to the head of all logical consideration " and it does so to the" concept of the concept ". This transition from the concept of substance to the concept of relation is known by students Natorp, Cassirer as a transition from the " concept of substance to the concept of function " - and, as is attested to him on the part of physics, of undiminished relevance. He takes the anticipated what Richard Rorty has taken 70 years later in his memorable and popular image of the " mirror of nature ": that "representation", ie the pros and representation of the world, this is not " maps ", but originally created.

This basic premise of his " monistic Korrelativismus " that knowledge as the relationship of thought to the subject matter at the same time lead to its inclusion in the medium of thought, Natorp, and from the beginning in the service of embracing diverse areas such as nature and culture, logic and politics made especially education. All disciplines, from mathematics to language and history, should work their way into the formation of the whole people, and thus find their way back to life and practice self. This claim and scope of work of a Natorpschen for Philosophy and Education ( Education ) of the present are not to be underestimated importance.

Works

• Descartes epistemology, 1882
• Social Education, 1899 ( 7th ed 1974)
• Plato's theory of ideas, 1903; Re: Meiner, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 978-3-7873-1681-6
• Logic guiding principles in 1904
• Collected Essays on the Social Education, 3 volumes 1907
• Pestalozzi. Life and Teaching, 1909
• The logical foundations of the exact sciences, 1910
• Philosophy; their problem and their problems, 1911; Revision: Edition Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008 ( ed. and with an introduction by Karl -Heinz Lembeck ), ISBN 978-3-7675-3055-3
• The general psychology after critical method, 1912
• Social idealism, 1920
• Beethoven and we, 1920

• General logic (Posted in: Flat and Holzhey, epistemology and logic in the neo-Kantianism ), 1979
• Lectures on practical philosophy, Erlangen 1925
• Philosophical system. Reprint of the 1st edition v. 1958. Meiner, Hamburg, 2004. ISBN 978-3-7873-1687-8