Lorenz Bruno Puntel

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	University of Munich
Era	20th-/21st-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy Analytic philosophy Structural-systematic philosophy
Main interests	Philosophy of science Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	Structural-systematic philosophy Philosophical theory of everything

Lorenz (Lorencino) Bruno Puntel (/pʊnˈtɛl/; German: [pʊnˈtɛl]; 22 September 1935 – 16 July 2024) was a German philosopher of Brazilian descent, who established the school of structural-systematic philosophy.^[1][2] 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.^[3][4][5][6]

Puntel studied philosophy, theology, philology and psychology in Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna, Paris, and Rome. He studied philosophy in Munich (1968) and in Catholic theology (1969) in 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.^[7]

Puntel died in Augsburg, Bavaria on 16 July 2024, at the age of 88.^[8]

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.^[9]

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.^[10]

He also received the Findlay Book Prize in 2011.^[11]

• 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.
• (Editor, Introduction) The concept of truth. New attempts at explanation. Scientific Book Society, 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.

• Homepage at the LMU