Otto Liebmann


Otto Liebmann was a German neo-Kantian philosopher.

Biography

He was born at Löwenberg, Silesia, into a Jewish family, and educated at Leipzig and Halle. He was made professor at Strassburg and went to Jena in 1882. He died at Jena. The mathematician Heinrich Liebmann was his son and the physician Otto Liebmann is his eponymous great-grandson.

Philosophical work

A forerunner of neo-Kantianism, in his best-known book, Kant und die Epigonen, he deals with the philosophy after Kant, discussing Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Fries, Herbart and Schopenhauer. Having credited Kant's philosophy, he focuses on what he sees as the shortcomings in the approaches of Kants successors. He frequently ends a section with the statement that one should return to Kant.
Liebmann's work also influenced his Jena colleague Gottlob Frege.

Works

  • Kant und die Epigonen, a critique of the followers of Kant urging a return to their master
  • Ueber die Freiheit des Willens
  • Ueber den objektiven Anblick
  • Vier Monate vor Paris, a journal published anonymously
  • Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit
  • Die Klimax der Theorien
  • Geist der Transcendentalphilosophie
  • Grundriss der kritischen Metaphysik
  • Gedanken und Tatsachen, 2 Bände