Cornelius de Groot writes, April 2014:
'A’dam’s Razor (The Amsterdam Razor) is a remarkable book. It connects Eastern philosophical thought with Western philosophical thinking.
It highlights the historical thinking about the concept of reality. Fischer stresses the importance of the fact that our knowledge of reality is the result of brain activity and that the senses are intermediary only. Nature can be observed by the senses and most intensively by the senses of vision, but the outcome of all that is coming in by way of the senses and is a construct of the brain. So the experience of nature is a product made by the brain. Therefore the world we live in and the world we talk and think about is the world that we have formed in our brain and is thus a personal one. That we for a great deal can understand each other is the result of the fact that the constructions formed by the human brain do not differ greatly from each other. That is the reason why we can make intellectual contact. The realization of this process, which is, according to Fischer, undervalued in philosophical discourse is symbolized by him as A’dam’s Razor after Ockham’s Razor.
A consequence of this thinking is that all cultural and religious ideas must have been developed by the human brain. The construct of these ideas can be greatly influenced by sensory stimuli but can never be looked upon as coming straight from an outer source. They are the result of the personalization of particular experiences and the translation of these for communication with others.
Looked upon in this way, every religious or cultural dogma is the outcome of someone’s personal perception which is communicated to others with the intention to define it as absolute truth, or in other words, as originating from a source other than the one who expresses them.
Also remarkable in his book is that Fischer approaches philosophical thinking as a process, which is gradually expanding, starting at birth, and where the increase of memory is the most important factor.
Fischer is arguing that Western philosophy in many ways has come to a standstill due to the persistence of different cultural and religious dogmas. With the realization that these dogmas are the result of the expression of a personal construct of an experience, he hopes that it will boost a further step in the process of Enlightenment.'
Henk Barendregt refers to Fischer as a teacher in his book Being and non-being1:
'Then there was Fred Fischer, a brilliant mathematics teacher. 'So √2 is only in approximation 1.41212. As I just showed you, no matter how many decimals we provide, it remains an approximation. So you may wonder why we say that √2 exists at all. Well, it exists because we WANT it to exist.' That gave me goose bumps.—…—He did not undertake schoolwide events. But he would invite pupils with an interest in 20th century classical music to his home. There we listened to Schönberg’s second string quartet with the added soprano singing ‘Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten ‘ (‘I feel the air of another planet’); we listened to his wind quintet, about which Fischer commented 'Dry as dust, but just listen.'; and to Bartok’s violin concerto.—…—If I asked a philosophical question, like 'Why are axioms in mathematics necessary?', he would discuss it at length, provide background material and advice. Through these discussions we also came to talk about Zen and Buddhism in general. He advised me to go to an exhibit by the unconventional Japanese monk artist Sengai in The Hague. Seeing ‘The Plum Blossoms’ I was struck by the
effectiveness of the brush strokes portraying a branch of a fragrant plum tree in twilight under the moon (there was also a poem on the scroll, which helped to appreciate the fragrance element).'
1. Being and non-being. Exercises in style by Henk Barendregt. Amsterdam, 2013. See pages 8 and 9: http://thedhammaquest.wordpress.com/book
Ewout Cornelissen describes Fred Fischer as a teacher in his book Living in School2:
‘Fred Fischer was the only really good inspiring teacher at the Montessori Lyceum.’ And ‘Why did I like him so well?’ Cornelissen continues ‘His lessons were clear and structured, he always referred to the last lesson and put his lessons in a wider context. He could explain very well. There was a balance between classical education and working independent in the class. He loved his profession, but was not obsessed with it. There was room for current and adjacent topics. Despite his cultural baggage and large engagement in society, he did not impose his own preferences and judgments onto us. Examination requirements were not ignored, but put into perspective. The emphasis was on understanding, not reproduction, and thus he built up your confidence in yourself. He trusted that you would be able to solve the problems at the exam. Students had equal value. For everyone there was room to ask everything. He could teach in an interactive way. The atmosphere in the classroom was quiet, serious and productive. There were no problems with discipline. We got almost no homework. You might say that this was a fairly ideal teacher and learning environment, yet I knew from home that this teacher was very controversial—...—Fischer experienced the current teaching method as dogmatic, speculative and suffocating. He saw the lyceum rather as a modern teaching experiment, in which he departed from a not specified master-pupil model.’
2. Wonen in School by Ewout Cornelissen. Publisher: Evert-Jan Scharff/Ewout Cornelissen, Amsterdam, 2007.
ISBN 978-90-811017-1-4. See pages 152, 154, 155.