Author

Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff

Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, Germany

5 articles in our journals

Articles where this person is an author, newest first. People are matched by their name as printed (no ORCID iD is recorded for them), not by name alone; search the name as text to find namesakes too.

Research ArticleOpen accessReduction of Violence in the Course of Recent History Civilization Theory and Theory of Situational Logic in ComparisonGeorg W. OesterdiekhoffTen years ago, Steven Pinker demonstrated on a broad empirical basis that in the course of the history of the last centuries violence has massively decreased in purely quantitative terms. He bases his explanation of this phenomenon on Norbert Elias' theory of civilization, which claims that humankind has developed an ever decreasing willingness to use violence due to psychogenetic development. … …Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 18, Issue 1 · 26 Jan 2022 · 6,664 accessesView PDF Cite

Research ArticleOpen accessAncient Roman Civilization and Modern, Industrial Society a Contribution to the Sociological Theory of Long-Term Social ChangeGeorg W. Oesterdiekhoff, Stefan BreuerAncient Roman civilization had many technological, economical and institutional prerequisites to develop the modern, industrial society. However, it did not do so but collapsed instead. For centuries researchers try to find the explanations to the rise of modern, industrial society, to the collapse of the ancient civilization and to the differences between ancient and modern societies. Piagetian psychology can help … …Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 17, Issue 1 · 13 Apr 2021 · 7,827 accessesView PDF Cite

Research ArticleOpen accessThe Growth of Awareness and Introspection in History. Mystical Interpretations of Mental Activities and of Social or Physical IncidentsGeorg W. Oesterdiekhoff, Jörn Rüsen, Helmut SpinnerHistorians, philologists and scholars of antiquity have described how people in pre-modern societies tend to see their own thought processes, decisions and actions as being influenced and made by external forces. It was recognized early on that this mystical interpretation of actions could be an indication of a different structuring of the archaic psyche. It was claimed that this psyche … …Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 16, Issue 1 · 5 Aug 2020 · 6,811 accessesView PDF Cite

Research ArticleOpen accessThe Rise of the Physical Sciences in “Stricto Sensu” The Developmental Approach and the History of SciencesGeorg W. OesterdiekhoffJ. Piaget dedicated several books and articles on the psychogenetic reconstruction of the history of sciences. A couple of disciples followed Piaget´s ideas and reconstructed the history of single disciplines or of some scientific developments in terms of developmental psychology. They found a striking similarity between childish psychological stages and the sciences in their premodern period. Correspondingly, they also found … …Physics International, Vol. 8, Issue 1 · 31 Oct 2017 · 8,636 accessesView PDF Cite

Research ArticleOpen accessThe Role of Developmental Psychology to Understanding History, Culture and Social ChangeGeorg W. OesterdiekhoffDevelopmental psychology of the past generations has evidenced that the whole pre-modern humankind stood on pre-operational or concrete-operational stages. Only the modern humankind has also developed the fourth stage of human development, the adolescent stage of formal operations. Lew Vygotski was 1933 one of the first to earmark convincingly the connection of socialisation (school education) and cognitive development as a … …Journal of Social Sciences, Vol. 10, Issue 4 · 29 Jan 2015 · 12,911 accessesView PDF Cite