In 1968 the philosopher Hans Albert published his Traktat über kritische Vernunft, Treatise on Critical Reason. In it he argued that every attempt to justify a claim with final certainty ends in one of three ways. The justification goes on without end, or it runs in a circle, or it simply stops at some point. He called this the Münchhausen trilemma, after the baron who claimed he had pulled himself out of a swamp by his own hair. Breaking off the chain of justification, Albert argued, amounts to an appeal to a dogma. German Wikipedia sums up its purpose: um den Behauptungen das Risiko des Scheiterns an möglichen Einwänden zu nehmen, to protect claims from the risk of failing in the face of possible objections. Since reason can err, theories must be exposed to criticism again and again. Albert was a leading voice of critical rationalism in Germany. In Germany, its best-known declared follower in politics was former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
philosophy
Kant’s Touchstone
In December 1784 Immanuel Kant published his essay Was ist Aufklärung?, What Is Enlightenment? In it he asks whether a church assembly could bind itself and all later generations to fixed doctrines. He says it has no such right, and he gives a test for every law: Der Probierstein alles dessen, was über ein Volk als Gesetz beschlossen werden kann, liegt in der Frage: ob ein Volk sich selbst wohl ein solches Gesetz auferlegen könnte? (The touchstone of everything that can be decided as law for a people lies in the question: could a people impose such a law on itself?)
The Age of Criticism
In 1781 Immanuel Kant published the Critique of Pure Reason. In a footnote to its preface he wrote: Unser Zeitalter ist das eigentliche Zeitalter der Kritik, der sich alles unterwerfen muß. (Our age is the true age of criticism, and everything must submit to it.) Religion, through its holiness, and lawmaking, through its majesty, usually try to escape it. But then, Kant wrote, they arouse justified suspicion. They cannot claim the sincere respect die die Vernunft nur demjenigen bewilligt, was ihre freie und öffentliche Prüfung hat aushalten können, which reason grants only to what has been able to withstand its free and public examination.
Friction
In Vom Kriege, On War, Carl von Clausewitz has a chapter on friction. He writes: Es ist alles im Kriege sehr einfach, aber das Einfachste ist schwierig. (Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.) Friction, he says, is the only concept that corresponds fairly generally to what distinguishes real war from war on paper. Action in war is movement in a resistant medium. Knowing this friction is a main part of the much-praised experience of war.
Articulated, Not Heaped
In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant has a chapter on the architectonic of pure reason. There he writes: Ich verstehe unter einer Architektonik die Kunst der Systeme. (By an architectonic I understand the art of systems.) Kant describes a whole built from an idea: Das Ganze ist also gegliedert (articulatio) und nicht gehäuft (coacervatio). (The whole is therefore articulated and not heaped up.) And he adds: Die Idee bedarf zur Ausführung ein Schema, the idea needs a schema for its execution.
Kant on the False Promise
In his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten of 1785, Immanuel Kant tests his moral law on a few cases. In the second case, a man sieht sich durch Not gedrungen, Geld zu borgen. He finds himself forced by need to borrow money. He knows he cannot pay it back, and he is tempted to promise it anyway. Kant asks what would happen if this were a general law. Anyone in need could promise whatever came to mind, mit dem Vorsatz, es nicht zu halten, with the intention of not keeping it. Such a law würde das Versprechen und den Zweck, den man damit haben mag, selbst unmöglich machen. It would make the promise itself impossible, and also the purpose one may have with it. No one would believe that anything had been promised to him. People would laugh at all such statements als eitles Vorgeben, as empty pretense.
Socially Necessary Labor Time
In the first volume of Das Kapital, published in 1867, Karl Marx asks what sets the value of a commodity. His answer is a quantity of time. Es ist also nur das Quantum gesellschaftlich notwendiger Arbeit oder die zur Herstellung eines Gebrauchswertes gesellschaftlich notwendige Arbeitszeit, welche seine Wertgröße bestimmt. It is only the amount of socially necessary labor, or the labor time socially necessary to produce a useful thing, that determines the size of its value. Marx defines this time precisely. It is the time needed to make a thing under the normal conditions of production, with the average skill and intensity of the society. A slow or clumsy worker does not make his product more valuable.
Communicative and Strategic Action
In 1981 the philosopher Jürgen Habermas published Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, The Theory of Communicative Action. The book separates two kinds of social action. In strategisches Handeln, strategic action, each person is oriented only toward his own success. In kommunikatives Handeln, communicative action, people try to reach Verständigung, a shared understanding. Habermas wrote: Im kommunikativen Handeln sind die Beteiligten nicht primär am eigenen Erfolg orientiert. In communicative action, the participants are not primarily oriented toward their own success. They still pursue their own goals. But they do so on the condition that they can align their plans with each other.
A Peace With a Secret Reservation
In 1795 Immanuel Kant published Zum ewigen Frieden, Toward Perpetual Peace, in Königsberg. The first article reads: Es soll kein Friedensschluß für einen solchen gelten, der mit dem geheimen Vorbehalt des Stoffs zu einem künftigen Kriege gemacht worden. No treaty of peace shall count as one if it was made with the secret reservation of material for a future war. Kant explained that such a treaty would be ein bloßer Waffenstillstand, Aufschub der Feindseligkeiten, nicht Friede. It would be a mere ceasefire, a postponement of hostilities, not peace. Peace means the end of all hostilities. For that reason, Kant wrote, adding the word perpetual to it is already a suspicious repetition.
Without Anger or Bias
On 28 January 1919, Max Weber gave his lecture Politik als Beruf, Politics as a Vocation, in Munich. In it he described the true civil servant. The official should not engage in politics. He should administer, and above all he should be impartial. Sine ira et studio, „ohne Zorn und Eingenommenheit“ soll er seines Amtes walten. He should carry out his office without anger and without bias. The Latin phrase comes from the opening of the Annals of Tacitus. Weber then named what belongs to the politician instead: Parteinahme, Kampf, Leidenschaft. Taking sides, struggle, passion.