Conflicting Aspects. Ferdinand Ebner’s „Thinking in References”

Abstract

There are substantial difficulties in assessing the place of Ferdinand Ebner in the intellectual, cultural, and religious life of his epoch. Some authors see in him merely – though unfairly – a hermit cut off from the world, immersed in „the darkness of the spirit“, obstinately repeating the same statements. Another unfair interpretation

would be to define him as a typical, educated man of science. What was specific for Ebner was his „thinking in references“. Setting a basic idea in the center of his thought, he went on to study professionally the most various and informative topics. Then, he referred the results to the basic idea, as well as he juxtaposed them with each other. The purpose was to find „the conflicting aspects“, mutual contradictions between the analyzed elements. Hence, Ebner can be called a leading representative of „critical modernism“ that was developing in Austria at that time. All the purist movements which contributed to that current focused on removing everything that was needless and secondary from the linguistic, artistic, architectonic, and musical processes. Thanks to that also social self-understanding was to become simplified. Any content to be presented or spoken out should be mediated by the simplest means. In this sense Ebner is both part of a „living form“ of his epoch, and a creator of the philosophy, culture, and religion proper to that period.