Verlag.Buchhandel.Service. - Österreichische Gesellschaft für ...

Alexander Gebharter ◆ Crossing the border between metaphysics and empirical science
Ever since Hume passed his striking criticism on metaphysics, there seems to be an unbridgeable
gap between metaphysical concepts and empirical testability. From that time on more and more
philosophers began to eye metaphysics with suspicion, what finally culminated in what can only be
described as a call for banishment of metaphysics from the field of scientific research for the sake of
progress in empirical science and philosophy. As a consequence, philosophers of science avoided
reference to metaphysical concepts and tried to get as far as possible without employing them. But
in recent years, however, the received opinion has become much more metaphysics-friendly and as
the extensive debate on Hempel‘s deductive-nomological and inductive-statistical models has shown,
there are phenomena in our world that cannot be explained without knowledge of their underlying
causal structure. Thus Hume‘s initial question arises again: Can we discover causal relations and,
if the answer is an affirmative one, how can we detect them? Fortunately, there have been recent
approaches (causal graph theory) to connect empirically accessible concepts with concepts that allow
an intuitive representation of causal structures, which are intended to bridge the gap between
metaphysics and empirical science. In my talk I will do three things: (1) I will present a frequently
discussed philosophical problem – the flagpole problem. By dint of this problem I will demonstrate
why reference to causation is needed in scientific explanations of a certain kind. (2) I will explain the
fundamental terms and principles of causal graph theory that are needed for the last part of my talk.
(3) I will solve the flagpole problem using an algorithm developed by Spirtes et al. In doing so, I will
give an exemplary case of how empirical data can be used to determine causal structures in the world –
I will show how it is possible to cross the border between empirical science and metaphysics. ◆
Gabriele Geml ◆ Theodor A. Meyer? Eine Rückfrage an Adorno
In ebenso nachdrücklichen wie knappen Worten hat Theodor W. Adorno auf den „vergessenen
deutschen Ästhetiker“ Theodor A. Meyer hingewiesen, dessen 1901 veröffentlichte und weitestgehend
ignorierte Schrift Das Stilgesetz der Poesie Adorno als seine „kleine trouvaille, auf die ich mir
so viel einbilde“ bezeichnete. Gegen die Ästhetik der Hegelschule und insbesondere gegen Friedrich
Theodor Vischer vertritt Meyer darin die Auffassung, dass die sprachliche Vorstellungsbildung
wesentlich anders als anschaulich verfasst sei, dass Sprache in unserer Phantasie keine quasi-optischen
Bilder entstehen lasse, sondern vielmehr durch „Entanschaulichung“ eine „wunderbare Abbreviatur
der Wirklichkeit“ erzeuge. Ausgehend von einer Rekapitulation der Sprachtheorie Meyers, dessen
Vergessenheit sich auch gegen Adornos Wiederentdeckung als resistent erwies, stellt der Vortrag
die Frage nach Adornos Interesse an Meyers Schrift. Den Blickpunkt für eine Annäherung an die
Beantwortung dieser Frage bildet Adornos Verständnis des „Bildcharakters“ des Kunstwerks in der
Ästhetischen Theorie. ◆
45
G