Max Bense (7 February 1910 in Strasbourg – 29 April 1990 in Stuttgart) was a German philosopher, writer, and publicist, known for his work in philosophy of science, logic, aesthetics, and semiotics. His thoughts combine natural sciences, art, and philosophy under a collective perspective and follow a definition of reality, which – under the term existential rationalism – is able to remove the separation between humanities and natural sciences.
Life
Max Bense spent his early childhood in his birthplace Strasbourg and in 1918 his family was deported from Alsace-Lorraine as a consequence of World War I. Starting in 1920, he attended grammar school in Cologne and after 1930 he studied physics, chemistry, mathematics, geology, and philosophy at the University of Bonn. During his studies, his interest in literature is revealed by several contributions to newspapers, journals, and broadcast, for which he wrote several radio dramas. In 1937 he received his doctor's degree (Dr. phil. nat.) with his dissertation "Quantenmechanik und Daseinsrelativität" (Quantum Mechanics and Relativity of Dasein). He used the term Relativity of Dasein, which he adopted from Max Scheler, for explaining that novel theories do not have to contradict classical science. Bense – declared opponent of national socialism – knowingly opposed the Deutsche Physik of the Nazi regime (cf. Johannes Juilfs), which rejected the theory of relativity due to Einstein'sJewish origin. Therefore, he did not receive his postdoctoral qualification.
In 1938, Bense initially worked as a physicist at the Bayer AG in Leverkusen. After the outbreak of World War II he was a soldier, firstly as a meteorologist, then as a medical technician in Berlin and Georgenthal, where he was mayor for a short time after the end of the war. In 1945 the University of Jena appointed him to curator (Chancellor of the University) and offered him the possibility of postdoctoral work (habilitation), which was likely to be cumulative, at the Social-Pedagogic Faculty, which was followed by an appointment to Professor extraordinarius of philosophical and scientific propaedeutics.
In 1948, Bense fled from the political development of the Soviet occupation zone to Boppard; and he was appointed as a guest professor in philosophy and theory of science by the University of Stuttgart in 1949, and as senior lecturer (associate professor) there in 1950. In 1955, Bense raised a controversy concerning mythologizing tendencies of German postwar culture. Thereupon he became the target of public polemics, resulting in a postponement of his appointment to full professor until 1963.
In addition, he worked at the adult education center in Ulm and at the Ulm School of Design from 1953 to 1958.
"Raum und Ich" ("Space and Ego"), Bense's first publication (Berlin 1934)
Mathematics in art and language
Already in his first publication, "Raum und Ich" ("Space and Ego"; 1934), Bense combined theoretical philosophy with mathematics, semiotics, and aesthetics; this remained his thematic emphasis. For the first time, he phrased a rational aesthetics, which defines the components of language – words, syllables, phonemes – as a statistical language repertoire, and which opposes literature that is based upon meaning. Conversely, Bense studied the concept of style, which he applied to mathematics – following Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz' Mathesis Universalis –, designing a universal markup language. "Die Mathematik in der Kunst" ("Mathematics in Art"; 1949) was his starting point for investigating mathematical principles of form in the history of art. From this, Bense developed a perspective to see the mathematical spirit in works of literary art, especially in metrics and rhythm. Bense's thoughts assumed the correlation of a mathematical and linguistic consciousness, which have a common origin and have grown into complementary modes of thought. He considered the atomistic structures of the linguistic modes to be equivalent. By using non-interpretable basic elements (characters) and rules or operators, these forms give meaning, impart information and make stylistically formed language possible. He considered the aesthetic and the semantic information to be generally separated and not to be defined until they are used. This was the first German integration of Ludwig Wittgenstein's work into the field of aesthetics.
Some of Bense's knowledge is based on the investigations of the American mathematician George David Birkhoff. Thus some termini like "redundancy" and "entropy" have to be equated with "Ordnungsmaß" and "Materialverbrauch" (consumption of material) from Birkhoff's aesthetics research.
Technology and ethics
Bense considered the destruction of the social and intellectual middle-class world since the beginning of the 20th century a parallel to the destruction of the concept of being in philosophy. He saw the natural world replaced by an artificial one. As a forerunner of the computer age, Bense thought about the technical counterparts of human existence; unlike many of his contemporaries he considered machines as pure products of human intelligence, having algorithms as a basis, but soon he posed ethical questions, which were not discussed in ethics of technology until decades later. His pragmatic views of technology, influenced by Walter Benjamin, which lacked either belief in progress or its rejection, brought him the criticism of Theodor W. Adorno – and again put him in the role of the opposition.
In his work with literature and literary language, Bense was not content with only theoretical considerations; he had close contact to authors like Alfred Andersch and Arno Schmidt. His constructions of analogy to visual arts made major contributions to the understanding of cubism and dadaism.
Understanding of science
As a theoretician of science, Bense represented the synthetic intellectual concept, where classical humanism and modern technology constructively complement one another. From this concept of science, he hoped for progressive knowledge, which must always be ethically scrutinized, and at the same time, for the prevention of regression. Because of that, Bense argued for enlightenment and put himself into that tradition.
After 1984 Max Bense applied his theories of visual art to screen media. Because of that, early thoughts of media studies concerning the internet, especially the concept of digital poetry, may be traced back to Bense.
Publications
All publications are in German.
Raum und Ich. Eine Philosophie über den Raum. Luken & Luken, Berlin 1934
Aufstand des Geistes. Eine Verteidigung der Erkenntnis. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1935
Anti-Klages oder Von der Würde des Menschen. Widerstands-Verlag (Anna Niekisch), Berlin 1937
Kierkegaard-Brevier. Insel, Leipzig 1937
Quantenmechanik und Daseinsrelativität. Eine Untersuchung über die Prinzipien der Quantenmechanik und ihre Beziehung zu Schelers Lehre von der Daseinsrelativität der Gegenstandsarten. Welzel, Cologne 1938
Vom Wesen deutscher Denker oder Zwischen Kritik und Imperativ. Oldenbourg, Munich/Berlin 1938
Die abendländische Leidenschaft oder Zur Kritik der Existenz. Oldenbourg, Munich/Berlin 1938
Geist der Mathematik. Abschnitte aus der Philosophie der Arithmetik und Geometrie. Oldenbourg, Munich/Berlin 1939
Aus der Philosophie der Gegenwart. Staufen, Cologne 1940
Einleitung in die Philosophie. Eine Einübung des Geistes. Oldenbourg, Munich 1941
Sören Kierkegaard. Leben im Geist. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1942
Physikalische Welträtsel. Ein Buch von Atomen, Kernen, Strahlen und Zellen. Staufen, Cologne 1942
Briefe großer Naturforscher und Mathematiker. Staufen, Cologne 1943
Das Leben der Mathematiker. Bilder aus der Geistesgeschichte der Mathematik. Staufen, Cologne 1944
Über Leibniz. Leibniz und seine Ideologie. Der geistige Mensch und die Technik. Rauch, Jena 1946
Konturen einer Geistesgeschichte der Mathematik. Die Mathematik und die Wissenschaften. (2 volumes) Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg 1946-1949
Philosophie als Forschung. Staufen, Cologne 1947
Umgang mit Philosophen. Essays. Staufen, Cologne 1947
Hegel und Kierkegaard. Eine prinzipielle Untersuchung. Staufen, Cologne 1948
Von der Verborgenheit des Geistes. Habel, Berlin 1948
Was ist Existenzphilosophie? Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1949
Moderne Naturphilosophie. Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1949
Technische Existenz. Essays. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1949
Geschichte der Wissenschaften in Tabellen. Butzon&Bercker, Kevelaer 1949
Literaturmetaphysik. Der Schriftsteller in der technischen Welt. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1950
Ptolemäer und Mauretanier oder Die theologische Emigration der deutschen Literatur. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne/Berlin 1950
Was ist Elektrizität? Butzon & Bercker, Kevelaer 1950
Die Philosophie. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1951
Plakatwelt. Vier Essays. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1952
Die Theorie Kafkas. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne/Berlin 1952
Der Begriff der Naturphilosophie. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1953
Aesthetica (I). Metaphysische Beobachtungen am Schönen. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1954
Descartes und die Folgen (I). Ein aktueller Traktat. Agis, Krefeld/Baden-Baden 1955
Poetische Abstraktionen. Gedichte und Aphorismen. Manus Presse, Stuttgart 1990
Der Mann, an den ich denke. Ein Fragment. (from his unpublished works, ed. by Elisabeth Walther) edition rot, Stuttgart 1991
Die Eigenrealität der Zeichen. (from his unpublished works, ed. by Elisabeth Walther) Agis, Baden-Baden 1992
Secondary literature
All references are in German.
Eckardt, Michael: "...sich in die wissenschaftliche Welt allerbestens einführen können." Max Bense, Walter Wolf und Georg Klaus zwischen Kooperation und Konflikt an der Universität Jena in den Jahren 1945–1949; in: HOSSFELD, U./KAISER, T./MESTRUP, H. (Ed.)(2007): Hochschule im Sozialismus. Studien zur Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (1945-1990). Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2007, 1929-1970.
Eckardt, Michael: "Benses Kierkegaard in Jena", Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31 January 2006, p. 8.
Ernst, Christoph: "Max Bense: Der Essay zwischen Poesie und Prosa", in: ders., Essayistische Medienreflexion. Bielefeld, Transcript 2005, 135–144, ISBN3-89942-376-3
Thomé, Horst: "Einheit des Wissens im Zeichen „technischer Existenz“ – Max Bense", in: Becker, Norbert und Quarthal, Franz (Ed.) (2004), Die Universität Stuttgart nach 1945: Geschichte – Entwicklungen – Persönlichkeiten, Ostfildern, Thorbecke 2004, 345–348, ISBN3-7995-0145-2
Eckardt, Michael: "Bemerkungen zum Brief von Georg Klaus an Max Bense", in: Fuchs-Kittowski, Klaus und Piotrowski, Siegfried (Ed.), Kybernetik und Interdisziplinarität in den Wissenschaften. Berlin: Trafo-Verlag 2004, 391–392.
Büscher, Barbara; Herrmann, Hans-Christian von; Hoffmann, Christoph (Ed.): Ästhetik als Programm: Max Bense. Daten und Streuungen. Berlin, Vice Versa 2004, 307 pp., with illustrations, ISBN3-00-014180-4
Eckardt, Michael: "Angewandte Wissenschaftsrevison – Überschneidungen und Parallelen im Schaffen von Max Bense und Georg Klaus", in: Grundlagenstudien aus Kybernetik und Geisteswissenschaft / Humankybernetik, 43 (2002) 4, 143–152.
Eckardt, Michael: "Philosophie und Philosophen in Jena: Max Bense und Georg Klaus", in: Weißbecker, M. (Ed.), Gewalten, Gestalten, Erinnerungen. Beiträge zur Geschichte der FSU Jena in den ersten Jahren nach 1945. Jena, Thüringer Forum für Bildung und Wissenschaft 2002, pp. 51–69, ISBN3-935850-12-3
Michael Eckardt und Engell, Lorenz (Ed.): Das Programm des Schönen. Ausgewählte Beiträge der Stuttgarter Schule zur Semiotik der Künste und der Medien. Weimar, VDG Verlag und Datenbank für Geisteswissenschaften 2002, 334 pp., ill., graph. depict., ISBN3-89739-315-8
Elisabeth Walther: "Max Bense und die Kybernetik", in: Computer Art Faszination, 1999, p. 360
Harry Walter: Max Bense in Stuttgart, 1994. 16 pages, 11 pictures. Stapled. Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach ISBN3-929146-25-8
Reference s
^Clausberg, Karl; Schreiber, Martin; Stoller, Diethelm; Warnke, Martin, eds. (1993). Interface II. Kulturbehörde Hamburg. p. 60.
Herbert W. Franke: "Das sogenannte Schöne. Max Bense, Informationsästhetik und naturwissenschaftliche Erklärung der Kunst", Telepolis, 9 April 1998
Tilman Baumgärtel: "Die präzisen Vergnügen." "Kreativität mit Großrechenanlagen: Zur Wiederentdeckung der 'Stuttgarter Schule' um Max Bense." Telepolis, 20 March 2005
