Abstract

The book "Wer hat das Wissen in der Wissenschaft versteckt?" [Who had hidden knowledge in science?] is about the organisational character of science - "science" as understood in continental Europa as social & natural sciences. The reason for this interest is that, as it is the case with other things, human beings undertake scientific enquiries because they, as individuals, have certain interests related to the content of their activities, they want to know certain things. Then, when an activity is organised, the organisation (or organisational structure) itself develops own interests and imposes them on the individuals. Soon, the individuals do not follow anymore (so much) their own interests but the interests of the organisation. This phenomenon is exemplarified by an analysis of the foreword of Wilhelm Schmid's book: "Philosophie der Lebenskunst" (1998) [Philosophy of the art of living], his habilitation at the University of Erfurt: The analysis shows how Schmid in this foreword is trying hard to present the art of living (which is first and foremost useful for the individual human person) as something which is useful for society because this is what science, represented by the academic environment in which we are socialized requires. In total, the book comprises 12 individual studies of which the analysis of the foreword of Schmid's "Philosophie der Lebenskunst" is one. The other 11 studies analyse texts by: Jeanne Marie Gagnebin, Sandra Beaufays, andreas Hütig, Carl Djerassi, Monika Wogrolly, Friedericke Hassauer, Michel Foucault, John Stuart Mill, Erich Visotschnig & Siegfried Schrotta, Gordon A. Frutschnigg, and Oliver Sacks. One important aspect of the book is the relationship between philosophy and science, analysed e.g. with the help of Gordon A. Frutschnigg's diploma theses on the diploma theses completed at the Institute of Philosophy of the University of Vienna between 2005 and 2007: Can philosophy, which primarily serves for the orientation of the individual in life be scientific in the sense of the organisational character of science (which tries to exclude individual interests as best as it can for they are deemed to bring subjectivity into science striving for objective truth). The choice of the books/texts which are analyzed in this study was partly (admittedly) random; however, they bear a common characteristic which is: these are texts which show/make visible the organisational character of science. The character of the studies in this book is phenomenological because they provide a close look at 12 texts/books and their use of language, supported by extensive quotes.