Integrative biophilosophy

Project management: Dr. Carsten Kries

Project description:

According to Helmuth Plessner, research into the organic - as opposed to a physically oriented approach to life - points to a "plus of that mysterious quality of life". In connection with this insight, scientific research and natural philosophy have developed a number of complex approaches to make this plus of the organic scientifically tangible, or to get it into view as the living in the first place. In the natural philosophy and biophilosophy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we find isolated approaches and indications of an attempt to make music-oriented thinking / music-theoretical concepts usable for researching and understanding the living. Metaphysical systems, such as that of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) in particular, but also considerations based on specific biological research, such as those of Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876) and Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944), provide preliminary approaches. Such reflections also play a role in specific philosophical disciplines, such as philosophical anthropology, in particular the work of Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985). However, it is by no means possible to speak of a predominantly closed research program or a current of natural philosophical reflection on the organic with the help of "musical thinking" or even the establishment of a set of instruments borrowed from music for the study of organic nature.

Against this outlined background, the task of my current research project is to examine in particular natural philosophy (with a focus on the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century) with regard to the above-mentioned research approaches and concepts of reflection oriented towards music; i.e. to collect, analyze and classify such attempts and thus to provide a comprehensive picture of this highly interesting approach for a field of research that is undoubtedly still largely unexplored but fruitful.