Derivation Archives - understand-culture

The Ideal Type

In 1904 Max Weber published an essay on objectivity in the social sciences. In it he defined the Idealtypus, the ideal type. It is formed by stressing one or a few points of view one-sidedly. Many scattered single phenomena that fit these points of view are joined zu einem in sich einheitlichen Gedankenbilde, into one unified mental picture.

Weber added that in its conceptual purity this picture cannot be found anywhere in reality. Es ist eine Utopie. It is a utopia. For historical work, he wrote, the task is to establish in each single case how near to or far from this ideal picture reality stands.

One First Principle

In 1794 Johann Gottlieb Fichte began to publish Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, the foundation of the entire doctrine of science. Its first paragraph, § 1, is headed Erster, schlechthin unbedingter Grundsatz, first, absolutely unconditioned principle.

In another text of the same year, Fichte described what such a first principle does. Er begleitet alles Wissen, ist in allem Wissen enthalten, und alles Wissen setzt ihn voraus. It accompanies all knowledge, it is contained in all knowledge, and all knowledge presupposes it.

National Education Standards

On 4 December 2003 the conference of the education ministers of the German states adopted the first national education standards. They covered German, mathematics and the first foreign language, English or French, for the intermediate school certificate. The standards name the competences and the knowledge that pupils are to have. They became binding from the school year 2004/2005.

The Bavarian ministry gave the reason. The standards were a reaction to the modest results of German pupils in PISA 2000.

The Citizen in Uniform

The central regulation of the Bundeswehr on Innere Führung, its concept of leadership and civic education, starts from an ideal. Ihr Leitbild ist der „Staatsbürger in Uniform“. Its guiding image is the citizen in uniform. In this guiding image, the regulation says, the demands on the soldier are set out idealtypisch, as an ideal type.

The regulation ties the ideal to the constitution. Grundlage der Menschenführung in der Bundeswehr ist die Werteordnung des Grundgesetzes. The basis for leading people in the Bundeswehr is the order of values of the Basic Law. The principles and aims of Innere Führung, it says, form das feste Koordinatensystem, the fixed coordinate system, for service in the Bundeswehr.

In the Heaven of Legal Concepts

In 1884 the jurist Rudolf von Jhering published Scherz und Ernst in der Jurisprudenz, jest and earnest in jurisprudence. Its third part is called Im juristischen Begriffshimmel, in the heaven of legal concepts. Hier leben die Begriffe sich selber. Here the concepts live for themselves. One line reads: Das Leben, an welches Du denkst, ist gleichbedeutend mit dem Tod der wahren Wissenschaft. The life you are thinking of means the death of true science.

Jhering coined the word Begriffsjurisprudenz, jurisprudence of concepts, for law derived from concepts. A 2009 edition of the book says it marks the step von der Begriffsjurisprudenz zur heute herrschenden Wertungsjurisprudenz, from the jurisprudence of concepts to the jurisprudence of values that prevails today.

The same edition calls the jurisprudence of concepts die ständige Versuchung auch des modernen Juristen, the constant temptation of the modern jurist as well.

A Moral Proposition First

In 1730 Johann Christoph Gottsched first published Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen, an attempt at a critical art of poetry for the Germans. For tragedy he set the starting point.

Der Poet wählet sich einen moralischen Lehrsatz, den er seinen Zuschauern auf eine sinnliche Art einprägen will. The poet chooses a moral proposition that he wants to impress on his audience through the senses. For this the poet invents a fable that makes the truth of the proposition clear.

Composition From the Overtone Series

In 1937 the publisher Schott in Mainz brought out the theoretical part of Paul Hindemith’s Unterweisung im Tonsatz, instruction in composition. Hindemith based his theory on one acoustic fact, the overtone series. From it he derived an order of the tones and an order of the intervals by their tension.

Tonic, Subdominant, Dominant

In 1893 Hugo Riemann published his Vereinfachte Harmonielehre, simplified harmony. He traced the chords of a key back to three functions: Tonika, Dominante and Subdominante, written T, D and S. Each chord is read as a form of one of the three.

Riemann’s function theory is still used to teach harmony in German-speaking countries. A sample exam in music theory, published by the University of Music and Theatre in Rostock for applicants to music teacher training, asks for voice leading such as D7 – T, and for an extended cadence with secondary functions.

The Particular Under the General

In 1790 Immanuel Kant published the Critique of Judgment. In its introduction he defines judgment: Urteilskraft überhaupt ist das Vermögen, das Besondere als enthalten unter dem Allgemeinen zu denken. Judgment in general is the faculty of thinking the particular as contained under the general.

Kant then names two directions. If the general is given, die Regel, das Prinzip, das Gesetz, the rule, the principle, the law, the judgment that places the particular under it is bestimmend, determining. If only the particular is given, and the general has to be found, the judgment is bloß reflektierend, merely reflecting.

Principle Theories

On 28 November 1919 Albert Einstein explained his theory to the readers of The Times in London. In the German text, Was ist Relativitäts-Theorie?, he divided physical theories into two kinds. Most are constructive theories. The second kind he called Prinzip-Theorien, principle theories.

Their starting point, Einstein wrote, is general properties of natural processes, principles, aus denen dann mathematisch formulierte Kriterien folgen, denen die einzelnen Vorgänge … zu genügen haben, from which follow mathematically formulated criteria that the single processes must satisfy. Die Relativitätstheorie gehört zu den Prinzip-Theorien. The theory of relativity belongs to the principle theories.

He also wrote that these general principles are themselves empirisch gefunden, found by experience.