Hans Lenk

Hans Lenk (23 March 1935 – 30 July 2024) was a German rower who competed for the United Team of Germany in the 1960 Summer Olympics, and an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy.

In 1960, he was a crew member of the West German boat which won the gold medal in the eights event.

Visiting and honorary professorships in Argentina; Austria; Brazil, Chile, Hungary, India, Japan, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, Venezuela and the United States, incl.

Lenk started out with the philosophy of science and the foundation of logics (notably his habilitation thesis on the Critique of Logical Constants, 1968) and later on, since 1978, included epistemology and pragmatic methodology of the social and natural sciences, technology+ economics, neuroscience and the philosophy of language in several books on Interpretative Constructs (1993) and Schema Games (1995).

Since 1978 he developed his basic epistemological methodology of what he calls “methodological (scheme-)interpretationism” focused on a pragmatic and constructive realism a bit similar to Putnam's internal realism and much earlier and more general than the according recent perspectivism in US philosophy of science.

In applied philosophy he published rather many studies and books on performance and achievement (not only in sport), social responsibility (see, e.g., Mitcham's Encyclopedia on Science, Technology and Ethics (2005, 2015 2nd ed.

Lenk's autobiographical memorial recollections on Ratzeburger Goldwasser (Ratzeburg’s Golden Waters) 2013 and Golden Day at Lago Albano 2015 present a lively overview of his athletic and academic career stages (except the three US visiting professorships).

Lenk's academic specializations comprise amongst others: epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science, incl.