Nils Röller: Medientheorie im epistemischen Übergang: Hermann Weyls Philosophie der Mathematik und Naturwissenschaft und Ernst Cassirers Philosophie der symbolischen Formen im Wechselverhältnis (2000) [German]

Ein “Medium des freien Werdens” – so nennt der Mathematiker Hermann Weyl (1885–1955) im Jahre 1921 das Kontinuum. Diese Bezeichnung ist bildet den Anlaß, die medientheoretische Bedeutung der philosophischen Schriften Hermann Weyls zu untersuchen. Die vorliegende Publikation erarbeitet dabei die Differenzen zwischen den Diskursen Weyls und des Philosophen Ernst Cassirer. Laut Weyl ist das konstruktive Kontinuum, in dem seiner Meinung nach die Physik präparierte Ereignisse ansiedelt, scharf von der anschaulichen Wirklichkeit zu trennen. Er sieht dieses als Produkt des menschlichen Bewußtseins. In seiner “Philosophie der symbolischen Formen” macht Ernst Cassirer deutlich, dass aus seiner Sicht und entgegen Weyls Theorie das konstruktive Kontinuum zusammen mit dem mathematischen Symbolismus eine Brücke zwischen Bewußtsein und Wirklichkeit bildet. Das Wechselverhältnis zwischen dem Mathematiker Weyl und dem Philosophen Cassirer zeigt beispielhafte Formen der Vermittlung zwischen Philosophie und moderner Naturwissenschaft. Weyls Schriften werden vor dem Hintergrund der Rezeptionsgeschichte in der “experimentellen Epistemologieö und der “nomadischen Mathematik” als paradigmatisch für die Medientheorie gedeutet.

Doctoral Thesis
Fakultät Medien, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Advisor: Joseph Vogl
220 pages

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Hans Gumbrecht: Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Convey (2004)

“Production of Presence is a comprehensive version of the thinking of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, one of the most consistently original literary scholars writing today. It offers a personalized account of some of the central theoretical movements in literary studies and in the humanities over the past thirty years, together with an equally personal view of a possible future. Based on this assessment of the past and the future of literary studies and the humanities, the book develops the provocative thesis that, through their exclusive dedication to interpretation, i.e. to the reconstruction and attribution of meaning, the humanities have become incapable of addressing a dimension in all cultural phenomena that is as important as the dimension of meaning. Interpretation alone cannot do justice to the dimension of “presence,” a dimension in which cultural phenomena and cultural events become tangible and have an impact on our senses and our bodies. Production of Presence is a passionate plea for a rethinking and a reshaping of the intellectual practice within the humanities.”

Publisher Stanford University Press, 2004
ISBN 0804749167, 9780804749169
200 pages

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Charles Bazerman: Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science (1988)

The immense force of scientific knowledge in our world has in recent years commanded the attention of a number of scholarly disciplines, ranging from the history of science to literary theory, from philosophy to the teaching of writing. Each foray into the language of science, however, has been motivated by the discipline and school of the researcher. Shaping Written Knowledge confronts scientific language more directly, by making its special character the real center of the inquiry. Original and extensive, this work will be of great interest to scholars concerned with the sociology and history of science, language theory, the history of literacy, the rhetoric of knowledge, technical writing, and the teaching of composition.

The emergence of the experimental article in science, Bazerman shows, is a response to the social and rhetorical situation of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural philosophy activated by the need to communicate findings and the exigencies of conflict that arise from communication. The appearance of the argumentative forms of scientific writing are coincident with the rise of the scientific community and the development of experimental procedures. All three interactively structure each other. Bazerman shows that later developments of the experimental article, in both the physical and social sciences of the twentieth century, have been made within the contexts of various disciplines. An understanding of what forces have shaped the experimental report, what functions the features were designed to serve, and the impact of rhetoric on the rest of scientific activity help to evaluate all statements of knowledge and increase our ability to make intelligent writing choices.

Edited for digital presentation by Patricia Klei
Publisher University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, 1988
ISBN 0299116905, 9780299116903
356 pages

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