Abstract
The philosophy of Hedwig Conrad-Martius represents a very important intersection point between phenomenological research and the natural sciences in the twentieth century. She tried to open a common pattern from the ontology of the physical being up to anthropology, passing from the biological sciences. An intersection point that, for the particular features of her thought, is rather a perspective point from which to observe, in an interesting and original way, both natural sciences and phenomenology. The 1923 essay entitled Real Ontology (Conrad-Martius 1923) is the starting point for her reflections about science, but it is also the point that marks a separation from Husserl (for a detailed discussion, see: Ales Bello 2003, pp. 184–195), even if not from phenomenology. A fundamental question is faced: “why something instead of nothing?” or: “what is the reality?,” shifting the focus from essence to existence. Whichever the answer, a deeply realistic position must be assumed, based on the assumption of a clear distinction between the subject and the world, and the possibility of knowledge, intended as adaequatio of the subject’s intellectus to the external reality.
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Notes
Plato, Timaeus, 56.
Bergson (2007).
Driesch (2006).
Ales Bello (2003, p. 215).
Conrad-Martius (1961).
Lovelock (1995).
Plato, cit., 30.
Plotinus, Enneades, V 1, 2.
Bohr (1958).
Planck constant is usually indicated by h; its value is: 6,626 · 10−34 Js.
Galleni and Forti (1999).
Rosen (2000).
Rosen (1991).
Categories theory deals with a further abstraction level after the basic one from sets to numbers (from three flowers, three stones…to number three), and the second one from numbers and geometrical objects to algebraic structures (groups, rings, etc.).
Kauffman (1993, Chap. 1).
Conrad-Martius (1965).
Kauffman (1995).
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The author is very grateful to Elena Maria Pellini for her careful reading of the manuscript and helpful suggestions.
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Cordelli, A. Hedwig Conrad-Martius’ Phenomenological Approach to Life Sciences and the Question of Vitalism. Axiomathes 18, 503–514 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-008-9043-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-008-9043-2