Hugo Albert Emil Hermann Dingler (July 7, 1881,

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

– June 29, 1954, Munich) was a German

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

and

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Life

Hugo Dingler studied

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

, and

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

with

Felix Klein Felix Christian Klein (; ; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and Mathematics education, mathematics educator, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the associations betwe ...

Hermann Minkowski Hermann Minkowski (22 June 1864 – 12 January 1909) was a mathematician and professor at the University of Königsberg, the University of Zürich, and the University of Göttingen, described variously as German, Polish, Lithuanian-German, o ...

David Hilbert David Hilbert (; ; 23 January 1862 – 14 February 1943) was a German mathematician and philosopher of mathematics and one of the most influential mathematicians of his time. Hilbert discovered and developed a broad range of fundamental idea ...

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

Woldemar Voigt Woldemar Voigt (; 2 September 1850 – 13 December 1919) was a German mathematician and physicist. Biography Voigt was born in Leipzig, and died in Göttingen. He was a student of Franz Ernst Neumann. Voigt taught at the Georg August Universi ...

, and Wilhem Roentgen at the universities of

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

and

. He graduated from the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

with a thesis under

Aurel Voss Aurel Voss (7 December 1845 – 19 April 1931) was a German mathematician, best known today for his contributions to geometry and mechanics. He served as president of the German Mathematical Society for the 1898 term. He was a professor at the Uni ...

. Dingler earned his Ph.D. in mathematics, physics and astronomy in 1906. His doctoral advisor was

Ferdinand von Lindemann Carl Louis Ferdinand von Lindemann (12 April 1852 – 6 March 1939) was a German mathematician, noted for his proof, published in 1882, that (pi) is a transcendental number, meaning it is not a root of any polynomial with rational coefficien ...

. In 1910 Dingler's first attempt to earn a

Habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

failed. His second try in 1912 was successful. Dingler then taught as a

Privatdozent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

and hold lectures on mathematics, philosophy and the history of science. He became a professor at the University of Munich in 1920. Dingler got a position as Professor ordinarius in Darmstadt in 1932. In 1934, one year after the Nazis took power Dingler was dismissed from his teaching position for still unclear reasons. Dingler himself told several interviewers that this was because of his favorable writings concerning

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

s. In fact both philo-semitic as well as anti-semitic statements by Dingler had been noted. From 1934 to 1936 he again held a teaching position. In 1940 Dingler joined the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

Party and was again given a teaching position. Of Dingler's 1944 book ''Aufbau der exakten Fundamentalwissenschaft'' only thirty copies survived wartime bombing.

Thought

Dingler's position is usually characterized as "

conventionalist Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Unspoken rules play a key role in the philosophy's structure ...

" by

Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian–British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...

and others. Sometimes he is called a "radical conventionalist" (also referred to as " critical voluntarism" in the secondary literature), as by the early

Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism. ...

. Dingler himself initially characterized it as "critical conventionalism", to contrast it with the "naïve conventionalism" of other philosophers such as

Poincaré Poincaré is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philos ...

, but he himself later ceased to call his position conventionalist. Dingler agrees with the conventionalists that the fundamental assumptions of

geometry Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

and physics are not extracted empirically and cannot be given a transcendental deduction. However, Dingler disagrees with conventionalists such as Henri Poincaré in that he does not believe there is freedom to choose alternative assumptions. Dingler believes that one can give a foundation to mathematics and physics by means of operations as building stones. Dingler claims that this

operational An operational definition specifies concrete, replicable procedures designed to represent a construct. In the words of American psychologist S.S. Stevens (1935), "An operation is the performance which we execute in order to make known a concept." F ...

analysis leads one to

Euclidean geometry Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematics, Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, ''Euclid's Elements, Elements''. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set ...

and

Newtonian mechanics Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws, which provide the basis for Newtonian mechanics, can be paraphrased as follows: # A body r ...

, which are the only possible results. Dingler opposed

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...

relativity theory The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated physics theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phe ...

and was therefore opposed and snubbed by most of the leaders of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

physics and mathematics community. This opposition, at least to the theory of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

, remains in the work of his follower Paul Lorenzen.

Influence

Paul Lorenzen, noted for his work on constructive foundations of mathematics was a follower of Dingler, at least with respect to the foundations of geometry and physics. The so-called Erlangen School of followers and allies of Lorenzen, including

Kuno Lorenz Kuno Lorenz (born September 17, 1932 in Vachdorf, Thüringen) is a German philosopher. He developed a philosophy of dialogue, in connection with the pragmatic theory of action of the Erlangen constructivist school. Lorenz is married to the lit ...

, Wilhelm Kamlah, and Peter Janich, and more indirectly,

Jürgen Mittelstraß Jürgen Mittelstraß (born 11 October 1936 in Düsseldorf) is a German philosopher especially interested in the philosophy of science. Career Mittelstraß studied philosophy, history and protestant theology at the universities of Bonn, Erlangen, ...

, is thus in large part pursuing a modernized version of Dingler's program which claims to incorporate relativity, quantum theory and

quantum logic In the mathematical study of logic and the physical analysis of quantum foundations, quantum logic is a set of rules for manipulation of propositions inspired by the structure of quantum theory. The formal system takes as its starting p ...

Works

*''Beiträge zur Kenntnis der infinitesimalen Deformation einer Fläche'' (thesis directed by Aurel Voss), Amorbach, 1907. *''Grundlinien einer Kritik und exakten Theorie der Wissenschaften'', 1907. *''Grenzen und Ziele der Wissenschaft'', 1910. *''Die Grundlagen der angewandten Geometrie'', Leipzig, 1911 / ''Die Grundlagen der Geometrie'', Stuttgart, 1933. *''Die Grundlagen der Naturphilosophie'', 1913 *''Die Kultur der Juden – Eine Versöhnung zwischen Religion und Wissenschaft'', Leipzig 1919. *''Die Grundlagen der Physik – Synthetische Prinzipien der mathematischen Naturphilosophie'', Berlin/Leipzig 1919. *''Physik und Hypothese – Versuch einer induktiven Wissenschaftslehre nebst einer kritischen Analyse der Fundamente der Relativitätstheorie'', Berlin/Leipzig 1921. *''Kritische Bemerkungen zu den Grundlagen der Relativitätstheorie'', ''Physikalische Zeitschrift'', vol 21 (1920), 668-675. Reissued as pamphlet in Leipzig, 1921. *''Der Zusammenbruch der Wissenschaft und der Primat der Philosophie'', Munich, 1926. *''Das Experiment – Sein Wesen und seine Geschichte'', Munich, 1928 *''Metaphysik und Wissenschaft vom Letzten,'', Munich, 1929 *''Das System – Das philosophisch-rationale Grundsystem und die exakte Methode der Philosophie'', Munich, 1930. *''Philosophie der Logik und Arithmetik'', Munich, 1931. *''Geschichte der Naturphilosophie'', Berlin, 1932. *''Das Handeln im Sinne des höchsten Zieles'', Munich, 1935. *''Die Methode der Physik'', Munich, 1938. *''Max Planck und die Begründung der sogenannten modernen theoretischen Physik'', Munich, 1939. *''Vom Tierseele zur Menschenseele'', Leipzig, 1941. *''Lehrbuch der Exakten Naturwissenschaften'', Berlin, 1944. Edited posthumously by Paul Lorenzen as ''Aufbau der Fundamentalwissenschaften'', Munich, 1964. *''Grundriss der methodischen Philosophie'', Fuessen, 1949 *''Ergreifung des Wirklichen'', Munich 1955. Reprinted (with intro. by Kuno Lorenz and Jürgen Mittelstrass), Frankfurt, 1969.

References

External links