Gotthard Günther Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Gotthard Günther (in the USA as well: Gotthard Gunther, in Austria: Guenther), June 15 1900 - November 29 1984, has been a German philosopher.
His work based upon Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Martin Heidegger and Oswald Spengler. He developed a trans-Aristotelian logical approach (omitting the tertium non datur). Günther's transclassical logic was the attempt to combine improved results of modern dialectic with formal logic. His focus on the philosophical problem of the "Du" ("You"{/"Thou"}) was trailblazing. He contributed as well to the fields of cybernetics and to both natural and social sciences, especially to sociology.
1921-1933, Günther studied Sinology and Philosophy at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin, and got his doctorate (“Dr. phil.”) 1933 under the guidance of Eduard Spranger on Hegel. 1935-37, he worked at the institute of Arnold Gehlen at Leipzig University, publishing (together with Helmut Schelsky) “Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal des modernen Bewusstseins” (“Christian metaphysics and the fate of modern consciousness”, 1937). In the same year, following his wife, the Jewish psychologist Marie Günther, he emigrated from Germany first to Italy, afterwards to Stellenbosch University in South Africa and, 1940, into the United States. There he completed his system of many-valued logics. His great study “Die philosophische Idee einer nicht-Aristotelischen Logik” (“The philosophical concept of a non-Aristotelian logic”) went to print in 1957 (Hamburg, Meiner). As a Research Professor, he joined (1960-1972) the Department of Electrical Engineering at Urbana University, working together with Warren Sturgis McCulloch, Heinz von Foerster, Humberto Maturana et al. 1962, he published Cybernetic ontology and transjunctional operations. Later he lectured at Hamburg University, until he died, 1984.
His œuvre, in German and English, is quite substantial. An overview can be gathered from his three volumes, contributing to the foundation to make dialectics operationable (see below). He was of influence in the resp. areas of philosophy, cybernetics, mathematics, and sociology. The Gotthard Günther Research Center (“Gotthard-Günther-Arbeitsstelle”) is working now (2004) at Klagenfurt University in Austria.Work and Vita