Ernst Wolfgang Orth, professor emeritus of philosophy at College of Trier, has died.
The next obituary was written by Ralf Becker, Christian Bermes und Karl-Heinz Lembeck, and despatched in by Simon Schüz.
Ernst Wolfgang Orth (1936-2024)
An Obituary
Ernst Wolfgang Orth was born on August 9th, 1936. He died on March 1st of this 12 months in his hometown of Trier on the age of 87.
Orth studied German, historical past, philosophy, and psychology on the universities of Mainz and Freiburg within the late Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties. He obtained his doctorate in Mainz in 1965 with a thesis on the philosophy of language in Husserl and Hönigswald (printed in 1967). From 1962 to 1970 he was an assistant to Gerhard Funke in Mainz. In 1970, he was appointed to the newly based College of Trier, the place he labored as Professor of Philosophy till his retirement as emeritus in 2001. Throughout his lively profession, he held a number of visiting professorships at universities overseas (1983 Penn State, 1985 Ottawa, 1989 Milan, 1995 Graz, 1998 Kyoto). He was Vice President of the German Society for Phenomenological Analysis (DGPF) from 1978-1983 and President from 1983-1987 and President of the Max Scheler Society from 2007-2009. Lastly, Mr. Orth was additionally Managing Director of the Common Society for Philosophy in Germany from 1981-1988.
When it comes to the historical past of philosophy, his analysis targeted on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Specifically, he targeted on the phenomenology of the early twentieth century and the assorted strands of neo-Kantianism and Lebensphilosophie of the late nineteenth century. If one sought a problem- historic heading for Orth’s studying of the philosophy of this era, you may quote the title of considered one of his books: From Epistemology to the Philosophy of Tradition (Von der Erkenntnistheorie zur Kulturphilosophie [1996]). This arch expresses the genesis of a philosophical query that offsets the lack of final certainties of information towards the achieve that the perception into the concrete circumstances of human understanding of the world guarantees to provide—even and particularly when these circumstances show to be solely provisionally steady as a result of they’re traditionally and culturally open.
Orth has drawn consideration to the factors of this improvement in lots of publications. Many of the positions he offers with could be understood as mediating fashions of transcendental and cultural philosophy. Orth traces such fashions—for example, Husserl’s or Cassirer’s—again to an authentic twin motivation of transcendental philosophy. On the one hand, it has as its prerequisite the thematization of the human being, or extra exactly: of human subjectivity. It depends on the truth that all information of the world is information in human consciousness and that this consciousness, for its half, is the one occasion of which people can authentically guarantee themselves. Alternatively, nonetheless, this human being as an basically contingent variable is exactly what should be abstracted from in a quest for first rules. With Husserl, that is expressed within the thought of a ‘discount’ to supposedly pure constructions of consciousness; with Cassirer, it’s exhibited within the uncovering of common capabilities of purpose. The human being due to this fact appears to be thematized as the place to begin for transcendental reflection solely to be instantly pushed apart once more.
This ambivalence can clearly solely be overcome if anthropology, inside the framework of transcendental epistemology, doesn’t current itself as an impediment, however as a mandatory perspective. And exactly this, as Ernst Wolfgang Orth makes an attempt to exhibit on many events, is an perception that not solely Husserl and Cassirer every gained in their very own approach, however which was roughly clearly explicated by a big a part of the philosophy of the epochs in query. The authoritative supply of expertise to which the transcendental query relating to the circumstances of the opportunity of information has to resort is a minimum of the total, the entire human being. The anthropological philosophy of the twentieth century, so the thesis goes, has its elementary foundation within the epistemology of the nineteenth century. This isn’t a reductive view, as a result of anthropology just isn’t understood right here as a person science, and since its findings should not solely meant to function selective help for philosophical arguments—however as a result of anthropology slips into the function of a primary philosophy, which understands the human being each as the premise and the vanishing level of each attainable orientation in regards to the world, and in addition of each orientation about such an orientation, i.e. as the premise and vanishing level of philosophy itself.
The truth that such insights owe their existence to a really peculiar improvement of thought is confirmed by the truth that the aforementioned argument for a sort of ‘humanization of the transcendental topic’ was nonetheless decisively rejected in Orth’s early publications which warned towards an overvaluation of anthropological claims in philosophy. Later, in 1990, nonetheless, what was as soon as forbidden beneath penalty of legislation was even allowed to shine because the outstanding title of considered one of his most vital essays: Anthropology as First Philosophy (Anthropologie als erste Philosophie). Such difficult theses additionally led to Orth as soon as being described as a thinker of the ‘penultimate issues’. This was definitely by no means meant disrespectfully, however was formulated within the mild of his perception that transcendental questions in regards to the circumstances of our information of the world don’t result in final rules, however slightly to the occasional circumstances of our considering, i.e. to the popularity of the historicity and culturality of human consciousness—totally within the custom of Dilthey, Husserl, or Cassirer. And these circumstances are at all times solely penultimate, as a result of they will change, could be deserted, could be joined by new ones. The normativity of orientation within the life-world then proves to be eminently fleeting. Philosophy, nonetheless, insofar because it has to supply orientation about such orientation on Orth’s conception, ought to solely describe such norms and doesn’t merely wish to partake in them. With a purpose to modify Husserl’s aperçu of a philosophy of finitude within the consciousness of infinity, Ernst Wolfgang Orth’s philosophy can due to this fact maybe be described as a ‘philosophy of penultimate issues’, however within the consciousness of the likelihood and necessity of final issues as properly.
Ralf Becker, Christian Bermes und Karl-Heinz Lembeck
German language version of the obituary
PhilPapers page for Ernst Wolfgang Orth
Wikipedia page for Ernst Wolfgang Orth
