Lorenz Bruno Puntel

Lorenz (Lorencino) Bruno Puntel (/ˈpʊntəl/; German: [ˈpʊntəl];^[1] Brazilian Portuguese: [pũˈtɛw]; 22 September 1935 – 16 July 2024) was a Brazilian-born German philosopher who established the school of structural-systematic philosophy.^[2][3] Professor emeritus at the University of Munich, Puntel was named as one of the great contemporary philosophers, articulating his ideas from the most varied traditions.^[4][5][6][7]

Lorenz B. Puntel
Puntel in 2018
Born	Lorenz Bruno Puntel (1935-09-22)22 September 1935 Sobradinho, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
Died	16 July 2024(2024-07-16) (aged 88) Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
Education
Education	University of Munich (Ph.D., 1968) University of Innsbruck (Dr. Theol., 1969)
Philosophical work
Era	20th-/21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy (early) Analytic philosophy (later) Structural-systematic philosophy
Institutions	University of Munich
Main interests	Philosophy of science Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	Structural-systematic philosophy Philosophical theory of everything

Background

Puntel studied philosophy, theology, philology and psychology in Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna, Paris, and Rome. He earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Munich (1968) and in Catholic theology (1969) from the University of Innsbruck. He became a professor at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Munich in 1975. He was a student of Karl Rahner and studied with Martin Heidegger, whose philosophy concerned him throughout his life.^[8]

Puntel died in Augsburg, Bavaria on 16 July 2024, at the age of 88.^[9]

Philosophical work

Puntel's thought tries to reconstruct the systematics of philosophy from a very unique viewpoint, which involves the elaboration of a theoretical language, abandoning the idea of a language of predicates. Puntel drew on sources ranging from G. W. Leibniz, German idealism, Heidegger's phenomenology, and even analytic philosophy.^[10]

Awards

From 1983, Puntel was a visiting professor at Pittsburgh, Harvard and Princeton. Retired in 2001, in 2016, he received an honorary doctorate from the Munich School of Philosophy.^[11]

He also received the Findlay Book Prize in 2011.^[12]

Bibliography

• Analogy and Historicity: Philosophical-Historical-Critical Attempt at the Basic Problem of Metaphysics. Herder Verlag, Freiburg, 1969.
• Presentation, Method and Structure: Investigations in the Unity of Systematic Philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. Bouvier Verlag, Bonn, 1973.
• Theories of Truth in Modern Philosophy: A Critical and Systematic Presentation. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1978, ISBN 3534072588. 3rd edition, 1993.
• (ed., introduction) The Concept of Truth: New Attempts at Explanation. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt, 1987, ISBN 3-534-02134-7.
• Basics of a Theory of Truth. W. de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, 1990, ISBN 3-11-012079-8.
• Structure and Being: A Theoretical Framework for a Systematic Philosophy. Mohr Siebeck Verlag, Tübingen, 2006, ISBN 3-16-148963-2.
• Being and God: A Systematic Approach in Dealing with M. Heidegger, E. Levinas and J.-L. Marion. Mohr Siebeck Verlag, Tübingen, 2010, ISBN 978-3-16-150146-3.
• (with Emmanuel Tourpe) Philosophy as a Systematic Discourse: Dialogues About the Basics of a Theory of Beings. Karl Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2014.
• Being and Nothing: The Primordial Question of Philosophy, London, Bloomsbury Aacademic, 2925.