Josef Mitterer


Josef Mitterer is an Austrian philosopher, and a professor emeritus at the University of Klagenfurt Institute for Philosophy.
Mitterer studied psychology and sociology in Innsbruck and Linz and philosophy in Graz. His studies also took him to the London School of Economics, to Heidelberg University, IUC Dubrovnik and in 1976 to Berkeley where he studied with Paul Feyerabend. Mitterer received his doctorate at the University of Graz in 1978. He then worked as a Tour Director in Europe and Asia and as a Management Consultant for the Travel Industry in the USA. Since 1990 Mitterer has been teaching philosophy at the University of Klagenfurt; he held guest lectureships at the universities of Innsbruck, Linz, Ljubljana and Siegen.
In his book Das Jenseits der Philosophie, based on his dissertation, he developed a Non-dualizing Philosophy of Change, which foregoes the categorical distinction between language and language-distinct reality. In Die Flucht aus der Beliebigkeit he critically examines the epistemological goal of truth. His critically acclaimed books have been translated into Polish and the A&HCI-Journal Constructivist Foundations has published two special issues on Mitterer's philosophy, The Non-dualizing Philosophy of Josef Mitterer and Non-dualism: A Conceptual Revision?.
Josef Mitterer is a member of the scientific advisory board of the European Forum Alpbach, of the board of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society, of the advisory board of the Karl Popper Foundation and is one of the literary executors of Ernst von Glasersfeld. He was co-organizer of the 38th International Wittgenstein Symposium "Realism - Relativism - Constructivism".
In 2018 Mitterer delivered the Heinz von Foerster Lecture at the University of Vienna.

Non-dualizing Philosophy of Change

The Non-dualizing Philosophy of Change develops an alternative to three common features of reasoning which, according to Josef Mitterer, can be found in all major philosophical traditions. These three fundamental agreements are:
According to Mitterer these three commonalities are not only prevalent in realistic philosophies; they can also be found at least as residuals or minimal ontologies in postructuralist, relativist or constructivist theories of knowledge. He sums up the various philosophical traditions in a simple statement:
Either: There are distinctions and therefore we make them or: We make distinctions and therefore they are.
In Das Jenseits der Philosophie Josef Mitterer developed an alternative way of thinking which foregoes the dichotomy between language and reality. A description of an object does not refer to the object, but rather starts from the object. The object of a description relates to the description of the object like a description so far to a description from now on. A new description of the object changes the object into a new object of further description.
Mitterer does not want to deny or overcome the distinctions between language and reality, word and object, between what we talk and what we talk about. He is rather interested in when, how and why these distinctions are introduced into our discourse.

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