Volker Gerhardt

Volker Gerhardt ( born July 21, 1944 in Guben / Brandenburg ) teaches philosophy at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His research interests lie in the area of ​​ethics, political philosophy, aesthetics, metaphysics and theology. His historical works are focused on the comparison of modern thought with ancient times and have mainly to work on Plato, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, but also to studies of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Karl Jaspers, Eric Voegelin, Hannah Arendt, Carl Schmitt and some other out. His systematic studies are focused on the relationship of living nature and productive culture in the epistemic, moral, political and aesthetic achievements of man.

Life

Volker Gerhardt grew up in Hagen / Westphalia and studied philosophy, psychology and law in Frankfurt and Münster; In 1974 he received his doctorate in Münster, where in 1984 the habilitation followed. In 1968/69 he was a board member of the Association of German Student Bodies (VDS ) and Deputy Chairman of the Higher Education Association for distance learning. He participated in the founding of the University of Hagen.

In 1975, he began as an assistant at the University of Münster / Westphalia. In 1985 he became professor of philosophy in Münster, in 1986, he held a visiting professorship at the University of Zurich and headed from 1988 to 1992, the Institute of Philosophy at the German Sport University in Cologne. In 1992 he was offered the founding Chair of Moral Philosophy in Halle, followed in October 1992, however, the call to the Chair of Moral Philosophy ( Focus: Law and Social Philosophy ) at the Humboldt University in Berlin and was after the fall of the first director the newly founded Institute of Philosophy.

In 1998 he became a member of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, from 2001 to 2007 was Vice President with responsibility for research projects and in 2001 took over the management of the central Science Commission of the German Academies of the responsibility for the coordination of all research projects; 2005 and 2009 he was re-elected. He is Chairman of Nietzsche and Kant Commission of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, member of advisory committees of the Bavarian and the Heidelberg Academy, the Leopoldina and member of the Senate of the German National Foundation.

From 2001 to 2007 he was a member of the National Ethics Council, and from 2008 to 2012, his successor, the German Ethics Council.

From 1997 to 2002 he was chairman of the Commission for the funding initiative Bioethics of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. From 2002 he has been involved in the publication of the critical edition of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Since 2002 he has worked for the Philosophical Yearbook as a publisher. From 2004 to 2007 he was a member of the Price Commission of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; In 2005, he led the nucleus Ethics Commission at the Senate Administration for Education, Youth and Sport of the State of Berlin and was responsible for the guidelines for the ethics classes in Berlin schools.

In October 2006 he was appointed to the Protestant university council of the Evangelical Church in Germany and is also a member of the Chamber of theology and was appointed for five years as a member of the University Council of the University of Marburg. The following year was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Wuhan in Hubei, People's Republic of China took place. 2008 given the title of Honorary Doctor of the University of Debrecen in Hungary was awarded.

From 2005 to 2009 he took over the management of the (along with Detlev Ganten and Julian Nida- Rümelin performed ) Human project, which explores the consequences of the Human Genome Project for the self-understanding of man. Attached was funded by the Federal Government junior program functions of consciousness. The results are documented in the meantime grown to number ten volumes of the series Human Project.

Since 2010, Volker Gerhardt is a member of the core values ​​of the SPD Commission and Chairman of the Humboldt -Universität zu Berlin Council; ; in 2011 and 212 he was chairman of the Humboldt -Universität zu Berlin Council, which he still belongs after his retirement in the fall of 2012 as a senior professor.

Work

Overview

If you wanted to bring a philosophical approach Volker Gerhardt under one title, one might speak of a rational existentialism, which expressly does not see itself as modern, but equally well by Socrates as Seneca, Michel de Montaigne, Jean -Jacques Rousseau, Kant, Hegel or Nietzsche would justify ago.

He asked in an anthology under the title of existential liberalism His political philosophy. The related method is that of exemplary thinking, which leads to an exemplary ethics in which everyone has to give itself an example of humanity in his own person.

In his critique of modernity 's obsession of modern thought, he warns that the philosophy of history facing contemporary philosophy, which is become nothing more important than entering into a new era, because it makes the story responsible for the unsolved problems of the present. In contrast, Gerhardt insists on the objective weight of the classic questions of cognition and action, emphasizes the importance of nature and life for the self-understanding of the mind, keeps the question of the divine ground of world and self is essential and demonstrates in his work that just under conditions of global individualization systematic thinking is one of the priority tasks of a philosophy that sees itself as a science.

In his recent work, he describes his approach as a reductionist neither traversed nor dualistic ending humanitarian naturalism, which takes the logical compelling combination of individuality and universality to the starting point of an empirically accreting existential rationalism.

Early work

The first philosophical work Gerhardt 1974-1981 deal with the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and ask about the relationship between individual motivations, social drives and reasonable claims. After the dissertation on reason and interest followed by a (together with Friedrich Kaulbach authored ) Research report for Kant reception and a study of law and rule, in which it already comes to the relationship between power and reality.

With attention to the problem of power Friedrich Nietzsche comes into view, the (collected in pathos and distance) and two monographs Gerhardt numerous articles devoted. In 1984 submitted (1995 published ) study of the will to power, the power problem is recognized as the central question of Nietzsche, with his theory of value and the detected first by Nietzsche questions about the meaning of life, the meaning of culture, morality and closely the truth related. In 1992 published and repeatedly reprinted overall presentation of Nietzsche's thought is interpreted in the context of his defense of the tradition to which he still belongs in all his philosophical oppositions. This is especially true for his relationship to Kant, Plato and Socrates. In a flashback to the centenary of the death in 2000 indicated Gerhardt Nietzsche's thought as a tragic philosophy of existence that does not escape the seduction of Selbstüberbietungsprozess of modernity. Consequently, the " exalted Renaissancismus " Nietzsche is under the title terms sensation and existence. The criticism contained therein Gerhardt later in his discussion of Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Body detail: As important as it is to start from the body, so decisive was the insight into the beyond the individual body organization of reason. It was not, as Nietzsche suggests, bound to the " leash " the individual body, but enables a social connection through mutual communication and evaluation of a comprehensive individuals, ultimately public awareness scale. Goes one step further criticism when it is Nietzsche holds up, its already based on a misunderstanding of truth criticism requires, in consequence of the dogmatic alleged amorality the suspension to the truth about themselves So Nietzsche put the authenticity of his own thinking into question.

Political Theory

In addition to the historical analysis, increasingly involve also the work of Plato, in the Münster inaugural lecture on metaphysics and politics (1985 ) are driven announced as well as in the Berlin inaugural speech about politics and life (1993 ) indicated in outline studies on the foundation of the policy. In 1995, the interpretation of Kant's Perpetual Peace, which provides evidence that Kant has not only created a legal and political theory in the strict sense, but an outreaching also pragmatic, historical and cultural theoretical issues in policy appears. Policy must, according to Kant as a " applied theory of law " be considered, which, although founded on moral and legal principles, but remains dependent considerably in the concrete implementation at the onset of situational judgment. The policy of the scientific, economic and technical dynamics of human action can not escape and must prove to reform their skills in readiness.

Then Gerhardt bases his theory of politics, the 2007 under the programmatic title participation. The principle of the policy appears and is explained by the 2009 standing under the title Existential liberalism essay collection. Along the way, four steps of the historical and systematic testing to be completed, to clarify the basics and make sure the humanitarian goal of politics:

Self-confidence and individuality

The first step takes place in the self-determination. The principle of individuality (1999). The ten chapters under the headings: structured self-knowledge, self-reliance, self- rule, self-organization, self-confidence, self-enhancement, self- responsibility, self- concept, self-legislation and self-realization work offers a foundation of ethics on the foundation of a self-organizing life. It develops the basic principles of an economy based on their own understanding human behavior in the context of a nature as their expectant part of the human being - as a cultural being - understands. Starting point and destination of human action is the self-awareness of man as an individual, that has to control under the encountered while changing conditions as he nature itself. Recognition and knowledge are the most indispensable and yet never sufficient means an individual self-determination, which remains dependent in all its phases to the presence and participation of understanding individuals. Self- determination presupposes the autonomy of comprehending itself as a reasonable individual, but can not do without on guidance and assistance by others. The required confidence in their own forces associated with the awareness of the limitation of their own abilities. Therefore, the self-realization of man are set not only external but also internal barriers. But that does not mean that the individual acts out of his own insight about his own reasons. However, if he does not do so in all situations, so he calls it by itself and can not deny it to others, without coming into conflict with itself.

Individuality and world

The second step in the published 2000 individuality. The element of the world completed. If ethics is founded on the autonomy of the person and the policy should be aimed at the conservation and development of every citizen is to clarify what the individuality in both cases, underlying meaning. First and foremost, it is the condition of the self-perception of each person. Especially compared to his peers, he has, even if he only wants to bring a common need of all to express than to make a particular living being identified that is unique with its life history and its location. Space and time come to meet the social distinction of the uniqueness of each human existence, because at this place at this time there can be only a single living creature. However, the individualizing function of space and time is not limited to human existence. For ( as an individual comprehending ) people every object and every event has the characteristic of uniqueness, which is closely linked to the impermanence of all phenomena. Therefore, he can not help when the to understand the world as a whole total of individual incidents that can not be understood otherwise than individual self. However, unlike a world of atoms is composed of discrete individuals individual world can not be solved by the self-perception of man as an individual. The thesis of the individuality as "Element of the world" can not therefore be understood as a statement about a physical situation, but is an attempt to link the mutual connection of all man- conceived incidents with his self- concept. It is the expression of a functional metaphysics of the human world, in which man is compelled if only for the sake of securing the forms of its knowledge and action to protect its socially and politically always vulnerable individuality.

Man and mankind

The originally planned third step was required by the discussion of conditions around the turn of the century because of the paradigm shift to the life sciences and the advances in biotechnology have led to increasing doubts as to the viability of the concept of humanity. In Man is born. Small Apology of Humanity (2001) is exhibited for both the theoretical as well as practical self and relationship to the world of man the indispensability of the concept of humanity. People are not by their very nature they genetically connecting equipment, but also by what they make it through their technical and cultural achievements for their globe for seamless life assurance, a connected in the common knowledge and action species. Living in self-created cultures Homo sapiens can be obtained only through the invention and production of industrial foods, which include the legally established institutions. So what is essential to the policy moral and legal understanding of man is recognized as a basic cultural requirement, without which it would not be possible to justify the human rights of all individuals. This evidence crossing is in the collection complements the innate dignity of man (2004) and extended in the tenth book of participation on the thesis of the indispensability of the ideas of humanity, objectivity and truth. It remains only to note that both the little apology as well as the collection of essays about the dignity of the human being a large part of the work gathered, published by the then current bioethics issues the author. His verdict on the start or end of human life, about stem cell research, abortion, euthanasia and genetic engineering is in a conceptual reported related to the understanding of man.

Individuality and Reason

The fourth step appeared in the light of the continuing doubts as to the viability of the concept of individual self-determination offered. Individuality and autonomy are to this day under the suspicion of being late conceptions of a long decay underlying modernity. The disputes in 2002 published the overall presentation of the life and work of Immanuel Kant. Your mind is to represent the recorded from the tradition and on Socrates and Plato received by Kant himself starting point of all thought the ego of man acting as the central focus of the Copernican revolution. Even the pre-critical Kant familiar in his delineation of Descartes and Leibniz on the self-conscious ego of their own intelligence. When he explains the " self- thinking" the only method and exclusive aim of philosophy, he not only follows Rousseau and Montaigne, but remains in the Reformation, humanistic and Stoic tradition of " Destiny of Man " by his own reason. Which, as Kant says, " humanity of science " is based on the " Leutseeligkeit ", can be communicated with the insights. This includes criticism of what make people for people. You can always be expressed only by individual people. Kant calls the criticism of the " zweyte eye of Self-knowledge of human reason," the science and culture need at all times. If one wants to maintain a difference between antiquity and modernity, then it lies in the deepening and intensification of old European and ancient oriental approaches to individualization of man, but not in a waiver allegedly substanzialistische positions of metaphysics. Kant shows rather that the metaphysics serves a function for the human insight and thus not themselves substances, but describes functions. The critique of metaphysics by Nietzsche has become a truism goes thus, at least as far as Kant, into the void.

The point of standing under the title of reason and life interpretation of Kant Gerhardt is that the self-determination is realized in recognizing and acting on his own intelligence profession the individual who both as a performance of self-organizing life as well as the act of a self- critical test of reason must be. So the self-determination, even if you located the end in itself of the autonomous understanding people, not just an expression of the self-organization of life, but also a moment of himself disciplining mankind, which develops in the process of the own responsibility of their civilization to culture. To make it clear, that the cultivated man remains a living, Gerhardt calls the morality of people worked to an "animal that gives an example." The formula supplemented his translation of the rational animal as a " beast that his own reasons " has to recognize and there that Kant, along the lines of Rousseau and in accordance with the oldest ethical teachings, as they are handed down by Confucius and Socrates, on the way is to be an exemplary ethics.

Participation as a principle of policy

The outlined considerations lead to the theory presented in 2007 the participation that sees the author as a " principle of policy." It is based on the principle of self-determination of individuals that receive to a their lives and unite unfolding organization on the principle of mutual " co-determination ". "Participation " is the Latin term for the participation in a request of all parties active social whole. The word is in common use since the Middle Ages translation of the tō metechein kriseōs kai Arches of Aristotle, who so ( following Plato ) the citizen ( Polites ) is defined as one who " participates in the courts and in the assemblies ." This oldest description of the political rights of the people can be regarded as still valid, because it is already established in antiquity on the freedom of citizens. Today she has the freedom associated with the postulate of equality, through the right to individual life protection, and to constitutionally securitized fundamental rights a particular weight.

The historical continuity that is not limited to the republican constitution of Rome and democratic polis of Athens, but incorporates the already legally written empires of the ancient East, is an essential element of a political theory that tries to obtain the natural history of man. The cultural, specifically the technical achievements of the people play a foundational role, because even the Political supporting the institution of law is technical in nature. This is the openness of the law of the ethical claims do not meet, but it is easier to understand why the policy is subject to such a strong pragmatic expectations.

An essential element of the theory of participation is the thesis of the parallelism between individuals and institutions that challenge mutually and in course of evolution of the policy supporting the achievements of representation, the constitutionalization of law, separation of powers, the approval of the opposition and the human right to the one as well as the autonomy of the individual on the other side out drive. Finally, there is the internationalization of law, which is essential for the global order of peace, emerge from the dialectic of political institution and moral person. Thus, the self-determination as a " principle of individuality " and participatory co-determination as a " principle of policy " not only systematic, but also historically linked.

In the contract structures of modern contractualism Gerhardt sees only a teaching aid to make the justice expectancy already contained in the already applied on a reciprocal right of course. Therefore, it may also be enough for him to define the policy as a " struggle for the right ", which is not to lead but without the active participation of those affected. Although justice can be represented in model structures and using argumentation in discourses, but must be fought for in political struggles of the underprivileged. Thus, participation is also true for the expansion and securing political rights. It proves to be the reason, the means and the goal of the policy.

The process of participation presupposes the self-confidence of the individuals involved, which formalize the essential for any policy public in the process of legally regulated participation. In the published work since 2007 Gerhardt has contradicted the impression that the principle of the public is restricted to the civil society of modernity. It allows rather already the simultaneity of the emergence of the arts, sciences and democracy in Athens in the 5th century and can be traced back to the time of the creation of the law and the Scriptures. If at the same time it can be shown that the individualisation of man in the early empires recognizable increases the Nile and the Euphrates, there are early historical evidence for the systematic connection between individual self-confidence and social public.

Public

The 2012 study appeared over public. The political form of consciousness speaks of the " quadrature of politics" by the principles of participation, representation, the Constitution and the publicity. In this case, the fourth principle, the public, a special stand apart because it includes individuals and institutions and thus connects the individual to the political organization from the inside.

Initially the factory shows that the public not only arises with the printing press and the newspaper industry; it not only requires the modern debates about the civic participation in the government power to express their political character. Rather, public belongs to the original form of organization of civilized cultures, is co-original with the invention of writing and law and has its first bloom in Greece of the classical period. Here they not only favors the autonomy of politics, but at the same time is the decisive condition for the Arts and Sciences created with politics. In this supporting function of the public is not consistently recognized by the political theory of modernity, but by many theorists in the footsteps of Erasmus of Rotterdam, John Milton and Kant to John Dewey, Karl R. Popper, Hannah Arendt and John Rawls fundamentally discussed. In this line of development can also be seen, in which the sought by the younger sociology " sense of the public" is: in facilitating a common political will on the basis of freedom of expression of individuals involved.

The fact that it converts the public continuously, goes without saying; also diagnosed by Jürgen Habermas 1962 " Structural Transformation of the Public " is one of them, although the terms thereof Marxist expectations have not been met. Obviously, however, is that bringing the electronic media is currently a fundamental transformation of the public with it. With the systematic considerations of the book also have an understanding of that change is possible, because they already understand the individual's consciousness as the original form of public. Individuals and institutions are two sides of an unfolding for centuries and increasingly dense civilizational context. Consciousness is a properly -containing form of notice, understanding and reason must be understood as instances of social intercourse and the spirit as einsichtiges framework of social bodies.

This redefinition of human consciousness takes place in the context of a fundamental revision of the relationship between nature, technology and culture, to which the author has presented a number of separately published studies.

Rational theology

In many attempts taken in attack investigation Volker Gerhardt brings the problem of God back to the center of philosophizing. He can show that science and faith are not opposites, but rather ask each other. He explains why the divine is by no means been considered already in the beginnings of the ancient philosophy merely from cosmic, but also logical, epistemological and aesthetic reasons as indispensable. And it makes sense than the organically as well as socially, mentally, intellectually and semantically well-founded support of the whole, the man needs to feel ever in an identifiable way and think and can be attributed to a lasting value. In this way, attributed to the notion of the divine, even under modern conditions an equally intellectual and affective function succeeds. In it man can not do without when he and his ilk want to have a secured through self and the world trust to himself.

In this way, the criticism of an anthropomorphic conception of God will be turned into something positive that God is originally related to the person of man instance, when the world gets its practical unit and before a man of his personal unity can enter the moment outlasting weight. By God, it 's like the problem of freedom, the existence of which no one can prove that but everyone must avail. Just as the freedom of speech carries the meaning of human action, as well-founded the limit concept of the divine the meaning of talk about the existence and the world. So God can be described as " basic " as " horizon of meaning " of the whole - and thus define a " sense of meaning ".

Public work

In his contributions to the human project Gerhardt has tried to show that it is possible the performance of the individual consciousness be understood only by analogy with the events in public space. Consciousness is " soziomorph " written, it has the structure of communication between different individuals who communicate in the common reference to facts. Consequently, the origin of the society at large is to be found already in the consciousness of the individual, which in turn requires the challenge by a public to express itself in communication and knowledge can.

According to this understanding Volker Gerhardt has also created his own public activity. Even the development of a distance education in the Federal Republic, then to the creation of philosophy at the Humboldt University and finally in the twelve years perceived coordination of the humanities academy project it was important to him, the organization of teaching, study and research, their own scientific work not to forget.

Writings

• Pathos and distance: studies on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Reclam, Stuttgart, 1988. ISBN 978-3-15-0085042.
• Friedrich Nietzsche. Beck, Munich, 4th edition, 2006. ISBN 978-3-406-54123-0.
• Immanuel Kant design ' Perpetual Peace '. A theory of politics. University Press, Darmstadt 1999. ISBN 978-3-110128017.
• The will to power. Anthropology and metaphysics of power in the exemplary case of Friedrich Nietzsche. de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1996. ISBN 978-3-110128017.
• Self-determination: the principle of individuality. Reclam, Stuttgart, 1999. ISBN 978-3-15-009761-8.
• Individuality. The element of the world. Beck, Munich, 2000. ISBN 978-3-406-45921-4.
• Man is born. Small Apology of humanity. Beck, Munich, 2002. ISBN 978-3-406-48543-5.
• Immanuel Kant: Reason and life. Reclam, Stuttgart, 2002. ISBN 978-3-15-018235-2.
• The innate dignity of man: essays on biopolitics. Parerga, Berlin, 2003. ISBN 978-3937262086.
• Participation. The principle of the policy. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 3-406-52888-0. Book review by Frank Hahn
• Exemplary Thinking: Essays on Mercury. Fink Verlag, Munich, 2008. ISBN 978-3-770545858.
• Existential liberalism: contributions to political philosophy and current affairs, published by Héctor Wittwer. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, 2009. ISBN 978-3-428129188.
• The sparks of the Free Spirit: Recent essays on Nietzsche's Philosophy of the Future, ed J.-Ch. Heilinger and N. Lukidelis. de Gruyter, Berlin, 2011. ISBN 978-3-110246629.
• Theodicy after Auschwitz. Attempt to preserve the human sense of life, Werhahn Verlag, Hannover, 2011.
• Public: The political form of consciousness, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2012, ISBN 3- 406-63303 -X.