Karl Otto Apel
From Geography
Kral-Otto Apel (Düsseldorf, 15 march 1922) is a German philosopher and professor[1]. He is most wellknown for his language Philosophy and ethics[2]. His area of specialisation is Ethics, Philosophy of Language and Human Science. In 1950 he became a Doctor of Philosophy at the university of Bonn. After having worked there for eleven years he became a lecturer at the university of Mainz. Between 1962 and 1969 he was a Full Professor at the university of Kiel. After seven years he switched to the university of Saarbrucken and was a Full Professor from 1969 untill 1972. between 1972 and 1990 he was a Full Professor at the university of Frankfurt am Main. Since 1990 he is a professor emeritus. Professor Apel has published many articles and writings over the yaers of which most are written in German. Karl Otto Apel has been awarded with many honours, awards and memberships including honour citizin of ' Mar del Plata' in Argentina. (www.Karl-Otto-Apel.de, 2007).
Influence on geography
An example of his influence on social geography is given by W. Zierhofer(2002):
'As geographers, we deal with a sphere that is composed of both meaning and matter, as Martin Gren(1994) has put it, and so action theory has to incorporate both ordinary acts and speech acts. Note, however, that, although every communication depends on physical mediators, communication provides the potential to organize or structure physical conditions, but not vice versa. Precisely because language is an instrument that allows us to represent everything (which is not saying that meaning is based on representation!), argumentation has the potential to explain, criticize, plan or regulate all related and relevant activities. It is for this reason that Karl-Otto Apel (1990, p. 36) calls argumentation the "meta-institution" of all social institutions. Accordingly, we may regard language as a meta-level (or a reflexive sphere) of social reality, and we may take speech acts as the key to the structuration of society'.
The main work of Apel is called Transformation der Philosophie. This work, published in 1973 is a collection of essays stemming from a pragmatic and hermeneutic re-interpretation of the though of Ludwig Wittgenstein towards a foundation of philosophy that is able to escape the absurdity that comes from the lack of Fundamentals.
References
Dr. Karl-Otto Apel. Retrieved 2010 Oktober 20 http://www.karl-otto-apel.de/index.htm
Unknow. Retrieved 2010 Oktober 20 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Otto_Apel
Zierhofer, W. (2002). Speech Acts and Spaces. Manuscript. In: Environment and Planning A. Vol. 34, No. 8, pp. 1362
Karl-Otto-Apel.de. (2007). Curriculum Vitae. Vinddatum 25 september 2012, op http://www.karl-otto-apel.de/eng_cv.htm.
--StefanBehlen 13:45, 25 October 2011 (CEST)
Edited by Bert Hegger on September 25th 2012
