Noetics

Abstract: Abstract The basic assumption of the article is that “ideas”, embedded in cultural contexts, shape and determine human actions. Noetics contains and represents the spiritual realm of ideas as portrayed by meaning (logos). Noetics represents the intentional dimension of life as connected to philosophical frameworks and determined by significant “ideas”. It structures fundamentally the qualitative dimension and rational conceptualization of praxis. In order to attain “praxis change” or to “heal life”, inappropriate categories, constructs, paradigms should be transformed. In this regard a practical theological hermeneutics should probe into the philosophical realm of paradigms, i. e. rational patterns of thinking and ideographic conceptualization. It is hypothesized that noetics as hermeneutical praxis reflection functions within the dynamics of cross- or interculturality. With reference to the “rationality” implied within the intentionality of praxis-thinking, the notion of ubuntu-thinking as represented in African noetics, will be analyzed in order to indicate how an intercultural debate can enrich the philosophical scope of practical theological paradigms in theory formation. In the light of this discussion a systemic and relational understanding of praxis will be proposed. Zusammenfassung Menschliches Handeln wird durch “Gedanken” geformt und bestimmt, die in kulturellen Kontexten verwurzelt sind, so lautet die Hauptthese dieses Beitrags. Er beschäftigt sich dazu intensiv mit der Disziplin der Noetik, die den spirituellen Bereich von Gedanken beinhaltet und repräsentiert, der durch den Begriff des “Sinns” (logos) klassischerweise erfasst wird. Noetik konzentriert sich damit auf die intentionale Dimension des Lebens in Verbundenheit zu den philosophischen Rahmenbedingungen und ihrer Bestimmung durch prägende „Gedanken“. Sie strukturiert somit grundlegend die qualitative Dimension und vernünftige Konzeptualisierung von Praxis. Um eine Änderung von Praxis oder eine „Heilung des Lebens“ zu erreichen, sollten deshalb unangemessene Kategorien, Konstrukte und Paradigmata transformiert werden. In dieser Hinsicht sollte, so das Anliegen des Autors, eine praktisch-theologische Hermeneutik die philosophischen Grundlagen von Paradigmata untersuchen, beispielsweise die rationalen Muster des Denkens und ideographische Konzeptionen. Dabei wird angenommen, dass Noetik als hermeneutische Praxisreflexion innerhalb der Dynamik von Cross- oder Interkulturalität hilfreich ist. In Bezug auf diejenige „Rationalität“, die der Intentionalität von Praxis- Denken innewohnt, wird hier dann das Konzept des „Ubuntu”, das in der afrikanischen Noetik eine wichtige Rolle spielt, analysiert, um aufzuzeigen, wie ein interkultureller Dialog auch die philosophischen Grundlagen praktisch-theologischer Paradigmata in der Theoriebildung bereichern kann. Im Zusammenhang dieser Diskurse wird ein systematisches und relationales Verständnis von Praxis vorgeschlagen.

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Abstract: "Noetics" is Lawrence Krader's magnum opus, which he began while still an undergraduate philosophy major at the City College of New York in the 1930s. By examining the architectonics of some of the greatest thinkers in history - Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, and Husserl among others - as works of art combining myth, speculation and empirical science, Krader tackles one of the central problems of the philosophy of science: what is science and how does it relate to human thinking and knowing more generally. Building on his theories concerning the different orders of nature adumbrated in his "Labor and Value" (2003), he follows not only the lines of development of the three fields of science corresponding to three orders of nature (material, quantum, and human) but also examines the development of all three as human processes and products. Krader takes up the relations of thinking and knowing in conjunction with emotions, feelings and judgment and examines the processes of abstraction as one of the key and unique features of human being and knowing. He proposes noetics as a science of thinking and knowing and establishes its relation to the natural sciences, the human sciences, and the arts. The breadth and depth of Krader's scholarship is stunning and evokes Spinoza's thought that all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

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