Werner Beierwaltes

Werner Beierwaltes (born May 8, 1931 in Klingenberg am Main ; † February 22, 2019 in Würzburg ) was a German philosopher . His thematic focus was on the authors of Neo-Platonism and German idealism .

Life

Born in Klingenberg am Main, Beierwaltes attended the upper secondary school for boys from 1941 and the humanistic grammar school in Miltenberg from 1947 until he graduated from high school in the summer of 1950. Among others, Bishop Anton Schlembach , Rudolf Hasenstab , Lothar Katzenberger , publisher Klaus Hattemer and the entrepreneur Bernhard Oswald . Music, Greek literature and philosophy already became decisive elements of life for him as a pupil: Berthold Bührer , cantor and organist at the former abbey church in Amorbach , brought him close to Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Pachelbel , especially Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music on the Stumm organ ; Impressive impulses from his teachers Franz Wamser and Karl Pfändtner achieved that philosophy and classical philology became the focus of his studies, which he began in the winter semester of 1950 at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich with Romano Guardini , Alois Dempf , Henry Deku and Friedrich Klingner and in 1957 with the doctorate to Dr. phil. completed.

After a two-year legal traineeship for teaching at secondary schools at the Max-Gymnasium in Munich and at the Hans-Carossa-Gymnasium Landshut , Beierwaltes accepted Rudolph Berlinger's offer for an assistant position at the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg. After his habilitation on Proklos in 1963, in addition to his work as a private lecturer, he worked on a detailed commentary on Plotinus Enneade III 7 , which combines philological methodology and philosophical interpretation into a precise analysis of Neoplatonic thought structures. In 1969 Beierwaltes followed a call to the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, 1974 to the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg and 1982 to the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich , where he was professor of philosophy until his retirement in 1996.

The focus of his research areas are ontology and metaphysics and their history. He was particularly concerned with Platonism ( Plato , Plotinus , Proclus ) and its history of influence in the Middle Ages, German idealism (Schelling, Hegel) and in the present. Beierwaltes was a corresponding member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts (since 1974), a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (since 1986), member of the Academy of Non-Profit Sciences in Erfurt (since 1996), chairman of the Cusanus Commission at Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and since 1986 member of the Royal Irish Academy (Dublin).

Monographs

Proclus. Basics of his metaphysics , Frankfurt 1965, 3rd edition 2014, ISBN 978-3-465-04205-1 .
Plotinus. About Eternity and Time (Enneade III 7) , translated, introduced and commented by Werner Beierwaltes, Frankfurt 1967, 5th, amended edition 2010, ISBN 978-3-465-04105-4 .
Platonism and Idealism , Frankfurt 1972, 2nd, revised and expanded edition 2004, ISBN 978-3-465-03359-2 .
Identity and Difference , Frankfurt 1980, ISBN 978-3-465-01346-4 .
Thinking of the one. Studies on Neoplatonic philosophy and its history of impact , Frankfurt 1985, 2nd edition 2016, ISBN 978-3-465-03956-3 .
Self-knowledge and experience of oneness. Plotins Enneade V 3. Text, translation, interpretation, explanation , Frankfurt 1991, ISBN 978-3-465-02519-1 .
Eriugena. Basics of his thinking , Frankfurt 1994, ISBN 978-3-465-02653-2 .
Heidegger's return to the Greeks , Munich 1995, ISBN 3-7696-1578-6 .
The hidden god. Cusanus and Dionysius , Trier 1997, ISBN 3-7902-1473-6 .
Platonism in Christianity , Frankfurt 1998, 3rd, exp. Edition 2014, ISBN 978-3-465-03812-2 .
The real self. Studies on Plotin's Concept of Spirit and One , Frankfurt 2001, ISBN 978-3-465-03122-2 .
Procliana. Late antique thinking and its traces , Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-465-03513-8 .
Footnotes to Plato, Frankfurt 2011, ISBN 978-3-465-03713-2 .
Catena Aurea. Plotinus Augustinus Eriugena Thomas Cusanus , Frankfurt 2017, ISBN 978-3-465-04338-6 .

Editorships

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling: Texts on the philosophy of art. Reclam, Stuttgart 1982.

Bernhard Oswald (ed.): Paths of life. Miltenberg high school graduates 1950. Miltenberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-00-020445-6 .
Jens Halfwassen : Werner Beierwaltes †. In: Gnomon Vol. 91 (2019), pp. 571-574.
Jens Halfwassen: Werner Beierwaltes (May 8, 1931– February 22, 2019). In: Yearbook of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences for the year 2019. Heidelberg 2020, pp. 207–211 ( online ).