Dingler, Hugo Albert Emil Hermann

(b. Munich, Germany, 7 July 1881; d. Munich, 29 June 1954)

philosophy.

Dingler’s mother was Maria Erlenmeyer, daughter of the famous chemist Emil Erlenmeyer; his father, Hermann Dingler, was a professor of botany at the University of Würzburg and a noted scholar. His first wife was Maria Stach von Golzheim, by whom he had one daughter; his second wife was Martha Schmitt.

Dingler passed his Matura (school-leaving examination) at the Humanistische Gymnasium in Aschaffenburg and then studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy at Erlangen, Göttingen, and Munich. Among his teachers were David Hilbert, Felix Klein, Edmund Husserl, Hermann Minkowski, Wilhelm Roentgen, and Woldemar Voigt. Dingler received his doctor’s degree in mathematics and qualified as lecturer in 1912 at the Technische Hochschule in Munich. In 1920 he became an assistant professor at the University of Munich and remained there until 1932, when he accepted a position at the Technische Hochschule in Darmstadt; two years later he was dismissed from the latter on ideological grounds. Dingler could, however, continue his scientific work and have it published; and in 1935 he participated in a scientific conference at Lund in Sweden, where he gave well-attended lectures and seminars. Difficulties during the Third Reich and privations and adversity after its collapse permanently weakened his health, and in 1954 he succumbed to a heart ailment.

While still a student Dingler, stimulated by John Stuart Mill’s Logic, had encountered the problem of the validity of axioms, which was to concern him throughout his life. Dingler was an independent, self-willed thinker, one who cannot be classified among those who followed any of the contemporary tendencies, although some influences, especially of Husserl and Henri Poincare, can be ascertained. He designated himself an antiempiricist and considered himself as holding a position much like Kant’s. In more than twenty books and numerous articles written from 1907, he treated the Kantian problem: How is pure science possible? In other words, how is exact research as strict, certain, unambiguous knowledge logically and methodologically possible? Dingler’s fundamental investigations were concerned exclusively with the logical and methodological aspect of exact research. He called for a reconstruction of the foundations and the elimination of every presupposition in order to be able really to give an ultimate foundation even to the axioms themselves.

The starting point is the “situation” (Nullpunkt Situation), later also called the “untouched” (Unberührte):

That, therefore, which is present in the world at the zero point of all conscious knowledge and tradition, that must be the real world, which enters as a partner into the original relationship between the self and the world. It enters there, so to speak, in an “untouched” condition, that is to say, in a condition untouched by all conscious knowledge and tradition [Grundriss der methodischen Philosophie, p. 20].

In the untouched state, that which exists (das Seiende) is not yet split into subject and object; there are no concepts, no connection of perceptions. The distinction does not appear until the philosopher gives up his passive attitude and decides to will a first principle (Dezernismus): “At the beginning of an ordered structuring of knowledge the philosopher must give up his contemplative attitude and decide on the ultimate principles of a meaningful philosophy” (Der Zusammenbruch, 2nd ed., ch. 2, sec. 5). This decision progresses from the will to methodical procedure, to unambiguousness, and to system. The will, which is pure and free of strivings, perceives the way to the goal of knowledge. Dingler’s voluntarism is a methodical one, as opposed to Schopenhauer’s metaphysical voluntarism or to a completely psychological one.

Starting from the presuppositionless zero-situation, Dingler constructed his “system of pure synthesis.” We will the existence of concepts and connections; the concepts must be constant and each new thing that is established must have a sufficient basis. In the construction of the system “pragmatic ordering” (the principle of ordered system-thinking) is determinative, since manual and mental steps cannot occur in just any sequence. The construction takes place according to the principle of simplicity. That is, from among the possible logical forms and steps the simplest are chosen, a principle that also has more or less consciously prevailed in the course of history. Dingler gives a historical survey in order to show that what has come about in consequence of a long period of development may also be assimilated with his “system of pure synthesis.”

Dingler followed new paths, building on the ideas of Pierre Duhem, in the concept of the experiment. He wished to refute the belief, which had brought about the dominance of experiment, that one could arrive at general laws of nature through induction. For Dingler an experiment is a willed, intentional action. The geometrical forms, which enter into the measuring apparatus and the measurements required in experiment, are produced according to a priori ideas, their properties being determined from within by the definition of the structure. Dingler speaks of “productive or definitional a priori,” which relates to the primary, real world; this differs from Kant’s a priori, which refers only to appearances. In experiment the appearances of reality are to be reconstructed by means of suitable, invariable “building stones” (elementary forms and modes of action). At the same time it makes these appearances both dependent upon us and subjected to our will, thus creating mental patterns with which the experimental procedure can be planned and made intellectually manageable.

In numerous publications Dingler presented this foundation for the exact sciences, as he had done for geometry and mechanics in Das Experiment. He also derived their axioms and completed them. In the posthumous Aufbau der exakten Fundamentalwissenschaften (1964) he brought the foundation of arithmetic and geometry from the preaxiomatic, original basis to the fully established science. In addition, he was convinced that his method was applicable in all other fields, including biology (especially evolution), the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and ethics.

Dingler’s attitude toward non-Euclidean geometry, the theory of relativity, and quantum physics has frequently been misunderstood. In his view only a single, completely determined geometry was demonstrable and demonstrated as a fully defined fundamental science: Euclidean geometry. Nevertheless, non-Euclidean geometries were of great importance in terms of method. In one respect Dingler completely opposed the theory of relativity and quantum physics: the theory of relativity operates in the field of number tables, which are furnished by experiment and within the framework of which any intellectual considerations are permissible. The results of experimental measurements (Zahlenwolke) are the domain of theoretical physics, which is obliged further to combine formulas, suggest new experiments, and predict new results. Quantum physics (Feingebiet) is therefore open to any theoretical train of thought, but cannot yet be made accessible through measurement and experiment. Thus, physicists should renounce ontological explanations of their mathematical results.

In biology Dingler concerned himself especially with problems of evolution and firmly opposed the vitalistic theses that frequently appeared in philosophical circles. In 1943 he wrote an introduction to a collection edited by Gerhard Heberer, Die Evolution der Organismen, which was praised as an original accomplishment by Max Hartmann and also appeared in the second edition of the work (1959). In this work Dingler introduced, completely within his system of pure synthesis, a demonstration of the fact of evolution. What he deduced logically, biological research has confirmed experimentally: i.e., the formation of organic substances that have the property of duplicating themselves, reproduction series representing causal chains of evolutionary theory. Dingler saw in the genes, which he named the “restoration apparatus,” the chemical basis for the reproduction of inheritable characteristics. In 1932 he outlined a theory of the factors of evolution that later was supported experimentally.

Relative to the extent of his total work, Dingler paid little attention to logic and rejected the claim that classical logic could be demonstrated by mathematical logic.

The political upheavals in Germany hindered the continuous development of Dingler’s work and weakened its influence. Dingler, whose thinking was close to the operationalism of P. W. Bridgman, founded no school but nevertheless had a group of followers scattered far beyond Germany. He did not wish to erect a total system, although he occasionally took a position on ethical and religious problems. His concern, as he states in the foreword to his most famous work, Der Zusammenbruch, was to help to achieve the “old, great Greek idea of the unity of the mind.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Among Dingler’s writings are Beiträge zur Kenntnis der infinitesimalen Deformation einer Fläche (Amorbach, 1907), his dissertation; Über wohlgeordnete Mengen und zerstreute Mengen im allgemeinen (Munich, 1912), his Habilitationsschrift; Die Grundlagen der Naturphilosophie (Leipzig, 1913); Das Prinzip der logischen Unabhängigkeit in der Mathematik zugleich als Einführung in die Axiomatik (Munich, 1915); Die Grundlagen der Physik. Synthetische Prinzipien der mathematischen Naturphilosophie (Berlin-Leipzig, 1919; 2nd ed., 1923); Die Kultur der Juden. Eine Versöhnung zwischen Religion und Wissenchafi (Leipzig, 1919); Physik und Hypothese. Versuch einer induktiven Wissenschaftslehrenebst einer kritischen Analyse der Fundamente der Relativitätstheorie (Berlin-Leipzig, 1921); Der Zusammenbruch der Wissenschaft und der Primat der Philosophie (Munich, 1926; 2nd ed., 1931); Das Experiment. Sein Wesen und seine Geschichte (Munich, 1928); Philosophie der Logik und Arithmetik (Munich 1931); Geschichte der Naturphilosophie (Berlin, 1932); Die Methode der Physik (Munich, 1938); “1st die Entwicklung der Lebewesen eine Idee oder eine Tatsache?,” in Biologe, 9 (1940), 222–232; Von der Tierseele zur Menschenseele (Leipzig, 1941–1943); “Die philosophische Begründung der Deszendenztheorie,” in Gerhard Heberer, ed., Die Evolution der Organismen (Jena, 1943;Stuttgart, 1959); Grundriss der methodischen Philosophie(Füssen, 1949); and Aufbau der exakten Fundamentalwissenschaften, P. Lorenzen, ed. (Munich, 1964).

II. Secondary Literature. On Dingler or his work, see A. Hubscher, Denker unserer Zeit (Munich, 1956). 286–290; W. Krampf, ed., Hugo Dingler. Gedenkbuch zum 75. Geburtstag (Munich, 1956), with bibliography; “Über die Philosophie H. Dinglers,” in Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung, 10 (1956), 287–299; and Die Philosophie Hugo Dinglers (Munich, 1955); and H. C. Sanborn, Dingler’s; Methodical Philosophy (Nashville, Tenn., 1950), also in Methodos, 4 (1952), 191–220.

E. Selow