Summary
The desire to establish the fundamental rights of religious belief whilst fully admitting the claims of natural science found an undaunted champion in Hermann Lotze, even though today his once solid-seeming achievement is largely forgotten. Born at Bautzen in Saxony in 1817, he studied both medicine and philosophy at Leipzig, where in 1839 he was appointed professor extraordinarius in the latter subject. In 1842 he was given the chair of philosophy at Göttingen which he held until his nomination, only a short while before his death in 1881, to the corresponding post at Berlin. As a thinker he may be classified as a teleological idealist, but his views represent a considerable modification of Hegelianism. His influence on subsequent German philosophy was not marked, but liberal theologians, especially Albrecht Ritschl, owed him much. His attempt to give ultimacy to personal values in an age of science had its repercussions in this country in the form of the ‘personal idealist’ movement at the turn of the century. The works by which he is best known are his Metaphysik, first published in 1841 but substantially revised and enlarged in 1879—an English translation by Bernard Bosanquet appeared in 1884; a Logik (1843; revised 1874), and the Mikrokosmus (1854—6), a comprehensive and in intention popularizing exposition of his ideas and in particular of his conception of the development of human culture (Eng. trans, by Hamilton and Jones, 1885). These were to be brought together in a general System der Philosophie, along with a detailed treatment of ethical, aesthetic and religious questions, but the ambitious scheme was never completed.
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- Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Century , pp. 125 - 137Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1966