Kuno Lorenz (born September 17, 1932 in

Vachdorf Vachdorf is a municipality in the district Schmalkalden-Meiningen, in Thuringia, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after R ...

Thüringen Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

) is a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

. He developed a philosophy of dialogue, in connection with the pragmatic theory of action of the

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

constructivist school. Lorenz is married to the literary scholar Karin Lorenz-Lindemann.

Career

After studying mathematics and physics in

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in thr ...

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

and

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, Lorenz earned his Ph.D. in 1961 under

Paul Lorenzen Paul Lorenzen (March 24, 1915 – October 1, 1994) was a German philosopher and mathematician, founder of the Erlangen School (with Wilhelm Kamlah) and inventor of game semantics (with Kuno Lorenz). Biography Lorenzen studied at the University ...

Kiel Kiel () is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 246,243 (2021). Kiel lies approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the southeast of the J ...

with a thesis about ''Arithmetic and Logic as Games''. In 1969 he received his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

degree in

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

also under Lorenzen but this time in

. In 1970 he was offered the chair of philosophy at the University of Hamburg to succeed

Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Germany during the Second World War, under ...

. From 1974 till his retirement in 1997 he taught at the

University of Saarland Saarland University (german: Universität des Saarlandes, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in s ...

in Saarbrücken. Among his former students is Arno Ros.

Dialogue and predication

Lorenz developed (along with

) an approach to arithmetic and logic as dialogue games. In dialogical logic (

game semantics Game semantics (german: dialogische Logik, translated as ''dialogical logic'') is an approach to Formal semantics (logic), formal semantics that grounds the concepts of truth or Validity (logic), validity on game theory, game-theoretic concepts, su ...

), tree calculations (generally, of

Gentzen Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen (24 November 1909 – 4 August 1945) was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died o ...

-type calculus) are written upside down, so that the initial assertion of a proponent stays above and is defended against an opponent as in a game. This is a linguistically more congenial approach to logic, which is more suitable as a model for argumentation than the formal derivation in a calculus or

truth table A truth table is a mathematical table used in logic—specifically in connection with Boolean algebra, boolean functions, and propositional calculus—which sets out the functional values of logical expressions on each of their functional argumen ...

s. Lorenz presented for the first time a simple demonstration of

Gentzen's consistency proof Gentzen's consistency proof is a result of proof theory in mathematical logic, published by Gerhard Gentzen in 1936. It shows that the Peano axioms of first-order arithmetic do not contain a contradiction (i.e. are "consistent"), as long as a cer ...

on this game-theoretic basis. If one regards logic and mathematics in this way as a game, an

intuitionist In the philosophy of mathematics, intuitionism, or neointuitionism (opposed to preintuitionism), is an approach where mathematics is considered to be purely the result of the constructive mental activity of humans rather than the discovery of fu ...

approach becomes a more plausible option.

Dialogical constructivism

Not only logic, but the whole of philosophy is given a dialogical treatment by Lorenz. Only in the mirror of a relative Other is it possible to reflect upon oneself. Lorenz developed a dialogical constructivism from the focus on the dialogical principle (Martin Buber) and the process of language games of the later

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

. In addition, the pragmatism of

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...

and the historicism of

Wilhelm Dilthey Wilhelm Dilthey (; ; 19 November 1833 – 1 October 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, and hermeneutic philosopher, who held G. W. F. Hegel's Chair in Philosophy at the University of Berlin. As a polymathic philosopher, w ...

are complementary juxtaposed.

Publications

*1969 with

Jürgen Mittelstraß Jürgen Mittelstraß (born 11 October 1936 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher especially interested in the philosophy of science. Career Mittelstraß studied philosophy, history and protestant theology at the universities of Bonn, Erlangen, ...

: ''Die methodische Philosophie Hugo Dinglers'' Einleitung zum Nachdruck von: Hugo Dingler ''Die Ergreifung des Wirklichen'' Kapitel I-IV. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt (Reihe ''Theorie 1'') S. 7-55 *1970 ''Elemente der Sprachkritik'' Eine Alternative zum Dogmatismus und Skeptizismus in der Analytischen Philosophie Suhrkamp, Frankfurt (Reihe ''Theorie'') *1977 ''Einführung'' zu: Richard Gätschenberger ''Zeichen, die Fundamente des Wissens'' Zweite, unveränd. Aufl., vermehrt um eine Einführung von Kuno Lorenz. (Nachdr. v. 1932) frommann-holzboog, Stuttgart (''problemata; 59'') *1978 with

: ''Dialogische Logik'' WBG, Darmstadt *1978 (Hrsg.): ''Konstruktionen versus Positionen'' Beiträge zur Diskussion um die konstruktive Wissenschaftstheorie.

zum 60. Geburtstag. de Gruyter, Berlin, New York *1980 ''

Sprachphilosophie In analytic philosophy, philosophy of language investigates the nature of language and the relations between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning, intentionality, reference, the ...

'' in: Althaus u.a. (Hrsg.): ''Lexikon der germanistischen Linguistik'' Niemeyer, Tübingen *1982 (Hrsg.): ''Identität und Individuation'' (2 Bde.) frommann-holzboog, Stuttgart *1986 ''Dialogischer Konstruktivismus'' In: K. Salamun (Hrsg.): ''Was ist Philosophie?'' Mohr, Tübingen *1990 ''Einführung in die philosophische Anthropologie'' WBG, Darmstadt ²1992 * 1992/6 with M. Dascal, D. Gerhardus und G. Meggle) (Hrsg.): ''Sprachphilosophie'' Ein internationales Handbuch zeitgenössischer Forschung (2 Halbbde.) Berlin/New York *1998 ''Indische Denker'' Beck, München
(Rezension
*2009 ''Dialogischer Konstruktivismus'' de Gruyter, Berlin, New York

External links

Literature of and about Kuno Lorenz
in the catalog of the German National Library (record Kuno Lorenz • PICA-Record) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lorenz, Kuno Philosophers of language 20th-century German philosophers 21st-century German philosophers Game theorists German logicians Modal logicians Philosophers of mathematics 1932 births Living people German male writers

Career

Dialogue and predication

Dialogical constructivism

Publications

Further reading

External links