Adolf Meyer-Abich

Adolf Meyer-Abich (born November 14, 1893 in Emden , † March 3, 1971 in Hamburg ) was a German philosopher , historian of the natural sciences , librarian and university professor . He was one of the founders and main representatives of holism .

Life

Adolf Meyer-Abich was the son of Friedrich Meyer and his wife Alma, geb. Abich. He attended grammar school in Emden and then studied philosophy and natural science (especially biology) in Göttingen and Jena from 1913 to 1917. In 1916 he received his doctorate in philosophy on Otto Liebmann . In 1917 he became a volunteer at the University Library in Göttingen , where he became an assistant in 1919 and assistant librarian in 1920. In 1921 he went to the University Library in Kiel , in the same year he moved to the State and University Library of Hamburg as a library councilor . In 1938 he left the library service. From 1929 to 1932 he was Professor of Philosophy and Theoretical Biology in Chile, from 1930 also Professor at the University of Hamburg. In 1932 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina . He retired in 1958, but continued to give lectures in Hamburg, the USA and Latin America.

He is the father of the naval officer and geologist Helmut Meyer-Abich and the physicist, natural philosopher and politician Klaus Michael Meyer-Abich .

In connection with biological holism, he became the leading exponent of a natural philosophy that is methodologically holistic in Germany. His field of work included natural philosophy, history of natural sciences (especially biology), theoretical biology and medicine. 1935–1943 he was one of the directors of the “Prof. Jan van der Hoevenstichting voor theoretical biology van dier en Mensch ”at the University of Leiden . He was a contributor to Acta Biotheoretica , a journal published by this foundation . In November 1933 he signed the German professors' confession of Adolf Hitler .

Publications (selection)

• About Liebmann's epistemology and its relationship to Kantian philosophy: a contribution to the criticism of modern intellectualism , Borna-Leipzig: Noske 1916 (Jena, Univ., Phil. Diss., 1916).
• Logic of morphology within the framework of a logic of the entire biology, Berlin: Springer 1926 (Zugl .: Hamburg, Univ., Habil.-Schr., 1926).
• Ideas and ideals of biological knowledge. Contributions to the theory and history of biological ideologies, Leipzig 1934 (Bios; 1).
• Main ideas of holism. In: Acta Biotheoretica, Vol. 5 (1940), H. 2, pp. 86-116.
• Natural philosophy on new paths , Stuttgart: Hippocrates 1948.
• Contributions to the theory of the evolution of organisms, Vol. 2: Type synthesis through holobiosis , Leiden: Brill 1950.
• Spiritual historical foundations of biology , Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer Verlag 1963.
• Atlantic existence. In: Paths to the History of Science. Life memories , Wiesbaden: Steiner 1969 (contributions to the history of science and technology; 10), pp. 39–73.
• The completion of the morphology of Goethe by Alexander von Humboldt. A contribution to the natural science of Goethe's time , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1970 (publication by the Joachim-Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften; 14), ISBN 3-525-85536-2 .
• Alexander von Humboldt. With personal testimonials and photo documents , Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt 1967 (most recently 2006).

literature

• Alexandra Habermann et al: Lexicon of German Scientific Librarians 1925–1980 , Frankfurt a. M .: Klostermann 1985, ISBN 3-465-01664-5 , p. 216.
• Ryan Dahn: Big science, Nazified? Pascual Jordan, Adolf Meyer-Abich, and the abortive scientific journal Physis . In: Isis. Journal of the History of Science Society , Vol. 110 (2019), No. 1, pp. 68-90.

Web links

• Literature by and about Adolf Meyer-Abich in the catalog of the German National Library