Andreas Dorschel

Die philosophiegeschichtlichen, sprachphilosophischen, rationalitäts- und wissenschaftstheoretischen Versuche einer Transformation der Philosophie, der Karl-Otto Apels Lebenswerk gilt, bezeichnet Apel deshalb als »Transzendentalpragmatik«, weil sie ihren Einheitssinn in dem Gedanken finden, daß nichts außer der menschlichen Praxis des Argumentierens die kontexttranszendierende Gültigkeit unserer Meinungen über Tatsachen und Normen ermöglicht. Die einzelnen Beiträge beleuchten Konsequenzen und Probleme des transzendentalpragmatischen Programms in einem breiten Spektrum gegenwärtiger philosophischer Diskussionen, das von theoretischen Fragen der Bedeutungstheorie bis zu praktischen Fragen eines modernitätskritischen Dialogs zwischen »Erster« und »Dritter« Welt reicht.

To call a piece of music sad or joyous need not imply reference to a subjective state. Speaking in this vein, we do not have to attribute sad or joyous feelings to the composer or to the performer. Nor do we predict that listeners will become sad or joyful when they will listen to a performance of that composition. Musical expression is not a mode of consciousness in those who produce it and it is not an effect of music either. Rather, it is a feature of the music itself. Once we have discarded the psychological reduction of expression, the way may be clear to explore the intricate relation between expression and subjectivity. Friedrich von Hausegger’s Music as Expression (1885/87) stands out among the guides to be recommended for a journey along that path.

In design theory, moral categories have traditionally been used in favour of objectivity and soberness to oppose designers' aesthetic narcissism. This use of moral concepts is directed at the individual design object. The situation gets more complicated, however, as soon as the totality (or a large number) of objects of a certain type raises problems which could not have been predicted from features of the individual object as such. The essay attempts to clarify how ethical concepts could be relevant to dealing with such complications.

In his social theory, Max Weber (1864 – 1920) attempts to identify patterns that have distinguished Western rationality. Music, he argues, is one of the domains that exhibit such structures. As a specific instance, Weber cites counterpoint as developed in 15th century Europe and – so he claims – culminating in Bach’s music. “No other epoch and culture possesses it”, Weber asserts. Counterpoint’s rationality is meant to manifest itself in rules; yet Weber’s approach lacks an analysis of such rules. Remarkably, 18th century music theory brought the social meaning of counterpoint to the fore more sharply than did Weber’s sociology of music.

Arnold Gehlen's attempt to give anthropological grounds for morality stems from Kant's idea that being freed from the compulsion of instinct left human beings in need of compensation for the loss of the practical guidance which instinct had hitherto provided. Whereas Kant thought this compensation was to found only in reasoned morality, Gehlen would argue that morality provides recompense by becoming a quasi-instinct that functions without reflection and that needs to be bred into human beings. The author maintains that in comparing animals and human beings. Gehlen posits will as a deficient instinct as deficient will; because each side is characterized as the negative of the other, Gehlen's starting point fails to meet the conditions for a valid comparison.

In his writings, Richard Wagner imagines art as something natural. This paradox was only befitting for Wagner’s contradictory historical stance: that of an eminently modern artist loathing the modern world. For him, nature served as a yardstick apt to find the modern world deficient on all counts. But how can something ahistorical, nature, be used to judge a historical phenomenon, modernity? To arrive at the verdict Wagner was keen on, he had to fill his concept of nature with historical content attributed to myth.

We judge actions to be rational if means are adequate to ends. In modern societies, innumerable actions are interconnected into complex systems. Does rationality, then, become a feature of systems? If so, it will not do to view means in the light of ends, Niklas Luhmann maintained. In ‘The Concept of Purpose and Systems Rationality’ (‘Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität’) (1968), he defined the rationality of systems as their capacity to reduce complexity (“Reduktion von Komplexität”); in his later work, Luhmann elaborated and partly transformed that account. Dorschel and Kettner put his views under scrutiny.

Within the European history of ideas, at least three conceptions of metamorphosis can be distinguished. First, as celebrated in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, there is the vision of an open-ended flux of shapes in all directions, potentially with the ambiguous result of wavering identity. Secondly, at the centre of the synoptic gospels Jesus’s transfiguration is presented as a luminous elevation, rendering his true nature unambiguous. Thirdly, alchemy conceives of metamorphosis as contingent upon a meeting of polarities. The distinction is fit to disclose crucial aspects of works of art, particularly of musical compositions.

Intentionality is a key feature of emotions; we understand them as directed towards objects. Intentional objects need not be real objects. Furthermore, objects of emotions can be distinguished from their causes. At the same time, objects and causes may be related, and, for some emotions, have to be related if the emotions are to count as warranted. Psychoanalysis and comparable cures tend to ignore these relationships. That does not necessarily preclude therapeutic success. Yet being based on said ignorance renders such accounts less than reasonable.

Order has been ascribed both to nature and to society. There is a long tradition of claiming that the social order and the natural order are closely linked. Radical enlightenment challenged that tradition. According to Spinoza (Ethica, pars 1, appendix) to call something orderly simply means that we can easily imagine and remember it; ascribing order thus betrays merely something about us, not about things. This challenging idea never became Enlightenment mainstream. In fact, ties between an objective natural order and our own human order were widely popularized in the 18th century. Yet one strand of thinking, set out to undermine traditional views of order, turned up trumps. The British Enlightenment succeeded in undoing the time-honoured equation of order and hierarchy.

In his Eighth Symphony Gustav Mahler envisions modern artistic production to steer clear of an alternative emerging at the time: that between popular music on the one hand and esoteric avantgarde music on the other; Mahler’s music is meant to reach the masses, but without descending to audiences’ lowest common denominator. One query through which Mahler’s paradoxical aesthetic vision of an ‘individualism for the masses’ can be explored has been hinted at by the composer himself: Does his integral symphonic work of art (‘Gesamtkunstwerk’) include or rather exclude chamber music?