Kuno Fischer


Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer was a German philosopher, a historian of philosophy and a critic.

Biography

After studying philosophy at Leipzig and Halle,
he became a privatdocent at Heidelberg in 1850. The Baden government in 1853 laid an embargo on his teaching owing to his liberal ideas, but the effect of this was to rouse considerable sympathy for his views, and in 1856 he obtained a professorship at Jena, where he soon acquired great influence by the dignity of his personal character. In 1872, on Eduard Zeller's move to Berlin, Fischer succeeded him as professor of philosophy and the history of modern German literature at Heidelberg.
He was a brilliant lecturer and possessed a remarkable gift for clear exposition. His fame rests primarily on his work as a historian and commentator of philosophy. As far as his philosophical views were concerned, he was, generally speaking, a follower of the Hegelian school. His writings in this direction, especially his interpretation of Kant, involved him in a quarrel with F. A. Trendelenburg, professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin, and his followers. In 1860, Fischer's Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre lent the first real impulse to the so-called "return to Kant".
In honor of his 80th birthday, celebrated in 1904, Otto Liebmann, Wilhelm Wundt, Theodor Lipps and others published Die Philosophie im Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift für Kuno Fischer.

Philosophy

One of Fischer's most significant and lasting contributions to philosophy was the use of the empiricism/rationalism distinction in categorising philosophers, particularly those of the 17th and 18th centuries. These include John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume in the empiricist category and René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza and G.W. Leibniz in the rationalist category. Empiricism, it is said, claims that human knowledge is derived from sensation, i.e. experience, while rationalism claims that certain knowledge can be acquired before experience through pure principles. Although influential, in more recent times this distinction has been questioned as anachronistic in its failure to represent precisely the exact claims and methodologies of the philosophers it categorises.

Reception

Kuno Fischer's History of Modern Philosophy had a strong impact on Friedrich Nietzsche and his view on modern philosophy, particularly regarding Spinoza. Frege and W. Somerset Maugham were amongst his students.
Hermann Weyl, writing about pre-WWII academic life in Germany, told the following anecdote about Fischer:

Works

  • Moderne Sophisten
  • De Parmenide Platonico. Stuttgart.
  • Diotima. Die Idee des Schönen
  • System der Logik und Metaphysik oder Wissenschaftslehre
  • Das Interdict meiner Vorlesungen
  • 1854: Die Apologie meiner Lehre nebst Replik auf die „Abfertigung“ des Herrn Schenkel
  • Geschichte der neuern Philosophie This is considered by some to be his greatest work. It is written in the form of monographs on Descartes, Kant, Fichte, Schelling and other great philosophers down to Schopenhauer:
  • * erster Band: Descartes und seine Schule
  • * zweiter Band: Leibniz und seine Schule
  • * dritter Band: Immanuel Kant und seine Lehre
  • * vierter Band: Kant's System der reinen Vernunft
  • * fünfter Band: Fichte und seine Vorgänger
  • * achter Band: Hegels Leben, Werke und Lehre ], Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre
  • Franz Baco von [Verona">Arthur Schopenhauer">Schopenhauers Leben, Werke und Lehre
  • Franz Baco von [Verona
  • Schiller als Philosoph
  • Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre
  • Akademische Reden: J. G. Fichte; Die beiden Kantischen Schulen in Jena
  • Lessings “Nathan der Weise”
  • Baruch Spinozas Leben und Charakter
  • System der reinen Vernunft auf Grund der Vernunftkritik
  • Shakespeares Charakterentwickelung Richards III
  • Über die Entstehung und die Entwickelungsformen des Witzes
  • Schellings Leben, Werke und Lehre
  • Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie
  • Goethe-Schriften
  • Kleine Schriften
  • Schiller-Schriften
  • Philosophische Schriften
  • Hegels Leben und Werke
Other translations of his works are:
  • A Commentary of Kant's "Critic of Pure Reason"
  • ''Descartes and his School''