Wolfgang Stegmüller

Stegmüller ( born June 3, 1923 in Natters, Tyrol, † June 1, 1991 in Munich) was a German - Austrian philosopher with important contributions to epistemology, philosophy of science and analytic philosophy. In his work, the main currents of contemporary philosophy Stegmuller a German-speaking readership open access to analytic philosophy.

Life

Stegmüller studied at the University of Innsbruck, economics and philosophy. In 1944, he earned a degree in economics and a year later he reached the economics doctorate. Also at the University of Innsbruck, he received his doctorate in 1947 and qualified as a doctor of philosophy in 1949 with the theme being, truth and value in today's philosophy.

After spending a year at the University of Oxford Stegmüller returned in 1954 returned to the University of Innsbruck, where he was appointed in 1956 titular professor of philosophy. After short stays as a visiting professor at the Universities of Kiel and Bonn, he was offered a professorship at the University of Munich, where he became a professor of philosophy, logic, and philosophy of science and to the Executive Board of the Seminar II in 1958. His work in Munich was interrupted by two visiting professorships in 1962/ 63 and 1964 at the University of Pennsylvania. From 1977 to 1979 he was also Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy, Philosophy of science, and statistics.

Stegmüller from 1966 to corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and since 1967 a member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. From 1972 onwards he was a member of the Institut International de Philosophie in Paris.

1989 Stegmüller became an honorary doctorate from the University of Innsbruck. In 1990 he became Professor Emeritus at the LMU and elected in the same year as Honorary President of the Society for Analytical Philosophy. His grave is in the cemetery of Graefelfing.

The Society for Analytical Philosophy awards since 1994 named after him Wolfgang Stegmüller Prize for the promotion of young scientists.

Stegmuller eighteen of his students habilitation and thus unfolds a significant effect, although there is no Stegmüller school. However, common to all its students is the focus on analytical philosophy and the insistence on formal methods. The students count: Wolfgang Balzer, Ulrich blue, Klaus Butzenberger, Max Drömmer, Wilhelm Essler, Peter Hinst, Norbert Hoerster, Andreas Kamlah, Godehard link, Georg Meggle, Carlos Ulises Moulines, Felix Mühlhölzer, Mihai Nadin, Wolfgang Röd, Julian Nida -Rümelin, Matthias Varga von Kibed, Franz von Kutschera, Eike von Savigny, Reinhard Werth and Wolfgang Spohn.

Scientific fields of work

Stegmüller was made at the beginning of his career in 1948 by Karl Popper on the Logical positivism attentive, whose philosophical position after the Second World War in Germany was almost unknown. As a result, he was based in particular on Rudolf Carnap, however, without taking the political and anti- metaphysical views of the Vienna Circle. They describe the connection to Carnap was found for him from the fact that by the eligible positions on the one hand Wittgenstein held a strictly scientific philosophy impossible and Popper on the other hand the philosophy of language meted no special meaning. With his publications Stegmüller contributed significantly to knowledge acquisition and dissemination of analytical philosophy and philosophy of science in Germany. In his inaugural lecture mentioned Stegmüller the four problems of epistemology, which later central points should be in his work:

• Problem of induction
• Basic problem of experience
• Problem of theoretical terms
• Problem of scientific explanation

The philosophical work areas Stegmüller span a wide range. In addition to extensive work on contemporary philosophy, he published extensively on the foundations of logic, epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Logic

W. Stegmüller wore through his books The problem of truth and the concept of semantics (1957) and incompleteness and undecidability (1959 ) to the fact that the ideas of Alfred Tarski and Rudolf Carnap in the field of semantics and logic, as well as Kurt Gödel's contributions to were mathematical logic accessible to a German audience. Other important contributions in this field are his article The antinomies and their treatment (1955) and co-authored the book he structural types of logic ( 1961).

Epistemology

One of the most influential works Stegmüller is his first book published in 1954 metaphysics, skepticism, science, in which he represents the epistemological foundations of the three areas. He shows here that the search for these epistemological foundations inevitably leads to the problem of evidence, which he regards as not solvable. Also the possibility of a solution by demonstrating the self-contradiction of the universal knowledge skepticism he excludes, even if this self-contradiction would be really given. Rather, he comes to the conclusion that a universal skepticism knowledge can be represented without contradiction, if one renounces a justification for this position. Despite the insolubility of the problem of evidence evidence conditions are indispensable for both metaphysics and science; So both can search Stegmüller ultimately not be justified, but already presuppose a decision.

Another key point Stegmüller lay in the confrontation with the phenomenalism. In its publication " The phenomenalism and its difficulties " in 1958, he describes the extreme difficulties which preclude a consistent implementation of the phenomenalistic program.

Philosophy of Science

Stegmüller is considered one of the greatest philosophers of science in the second half of the 20th century. It is especially thanks to him that the problems and results of the theory of science and analytic philosophy in German-speaking were known to a wide audience.

Characteristic of Stegmüller work in the philosophy of science, the publication of the books The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn in 1962 and The Logical Structure of Mathematical Physics by Joseph D. Sneed in 1971 it should be. While Kuhn's publication entangled him by its own account in a deep spiritual crisis, he saw in the ideas Sneed's both a way out of the rationality crisis of Sciences - which has often been interpreted from Kuhn's publication - as well as an appropriate response to the problem of theoretical terms. The elaboration of Sneed's ideas by him and his area is now considered an important epistemological structuralism direction within the philosophy of science.

Work (selection)

• Main currents of contemporary philosophy. 1st Edition Humboldt -Verlag, Vienna, Stuttgart 1952. Second revised and expanded edition 1960, Kröner, Stuttgart with other, partly significantly expanded requirements before the four-volume edition 1989 ISBN 3- 520-30807 -X
• Metaphysics - skepticism - science. Humboldt -Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 1954.
• Language and logic. In: General Studies, Volume 9, 1956.
• The problem of universals, then and now. 2 parts. In: Archives of philosophy, Stuttgart, Volume 6, 1956; Volume 7, 1957.
• The problem of truth and the concept of semantics. Springer, Wien 1957.
• Incompleteness and undecidability. The meta-mathematical results of Gödel, Church, Kleene, Rosser and its epistemological significance. - 1. Edition 1959 3rd edition. - Springer -Verlag, Vienna, New York, 1973 ISBN 3-211-81208-3. . 116 pp.
• Faith, knowledge and cognition. University Press, Darmstadt 1965
• Unit and the problem of scientific knowledge of the world. Hueber, Munich 1967
• The phenomenalism and its difficulties. University Press, Darmstadt 1969
• Essays on the philosophy of science. University Press, Darmstadt 1970.
• Essays on Kant and Wittgenstein. University Press, Darmstadt 1970.
• Problems and results of the theory of science and analytic philosophy Volume I, explanation - justification - causality, 1983
• Volume II, Theory and Experience, 1974 First sub-band: theory and experiment, 1974
• Second subband: theory structures and dynamics theory, 1985
• Part 3 Band: The development of the new structuralism in 1973, 1986