Friedrich August Carus

Friedrich August Carus (born April 26, 1770 in Budissin , Markgraftum Oberlausitz , † February 6, 1807 in Leipzig ) was a German psychologist, philosopher and historian of philosophy .

origin

His parents were the businessman Friedrich August Carus (* May 21, 1742; † September 1, 1792) and his wife Johanna Eleonore Lange (* April 7, 1737; † July 3, 1814).

Live and act

After attending grammar school in Bautzen, Carus first studied theology in Leipzig , especially with Karl Christoph Nestler , and received his master's degree in 1791 with the thesis "Historia antiquior sententiarum ecclesiae Graecae de accomodatione Christo inprimis et apostolis tributa" . After that he moved to Göttingen to the classical philologist Christian Gottlob Heyne . He received his habilitation in 1793 again in Leipzig, where he initially worked as a private lecturer. In 1795 he acquired a baccalaureate in theology and became an early preacher at the Leipzig University Church . In 1796 Carus received a position as an associate professor for philosophy in Leipzig and finally became a full professor in 1805. He was particularly influenced by Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi .

Carus is an important exponent of empirical psychology in the late 18th century. Psychology, as the natural science of the soul, which is connected with the body, separated from pneumatology and became a fundamental discipline of anthropology or the general "science of man". Carus had founded a "Psychological Institute" which was converted from 1802 into the "Anthropological Society". The "History of Psychology" (1808), published after his untimely death, is the first of its kind.

As a development theorist, Carus identified as one of the first 4 phases of life: childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age.

In 1805 he took over the tutorial post of president in the Wendische Prediger-Gesellschaft zu Leipzig , founded in 1716 , which he transferred in 1806 to a Lusatian Preacher Society (later Sorabia) and thus opened to Germans - even if only from Lusatia.

family

Friedrich August Carus came from the middle-class Carus family from Dippoldiswalde in Saxony , who was first mentioned with Jacob I. Carus from Dippoldiswalde , who later came to Luckau as a town mason and was also the administrator of the Heydenreich Foundation there. While part of the family initially became a master mason and cloth maker, several later descendants chose the medical profession , such as Carl Gustav Carus .

Friedrich August Carus was born as the eldest son of his father of the same name, Friedrich August Carus, d. Ä. (1742–1792) and his wife Johanna Eleonore Lange. His father was a merchant and merchant in his hometown of Bautzen. Friedrich August had another brother, Carl Erdmann (1775–1842), who later became head of a chemical factory in Zwickau .

Friedrich August Carus married Johanna Caroline Hornemann from Pförten on September 26, 1796 († January 4, 1821 in Leipzig), the daughter of the Syndic Hornemann. The couple had two children:

• Ernst August (born July 10, 1797 in Leipzig, † May 26, 1854 in Berlin ), later doctor of medicine , practicing physician and professor of wound medicine at the University of Leipzig
• Julius (born August 30, 1800 in Leipzig, † June 14, 1880 in Leipzig), mentally ill and single

Fonts

After his death, Carus's writings were edited from the estate of his student Ferdinand Gotthelf Hand in seven volumes ( Barth and Kummer , Leipzig 1808–1810).

• Ideas on the history of philosophy
• History of psychology
• Hebrew Psychology ( digitized version )
• Ideas about the history of mankind
• Psychology (2 volumes)
• Moral Philosophy and Religious Philosophy

His dissertation Historia antiquior sententiarum ecclesiae graecae de accomodatione Christo inprimis et Apostolis tributa (German translation: "Older history of the views of the Greek Church on which primarily Christ and the apostles were ascribed to Accommodation ") and in 1797 his treatise Anaxagoreae Cosmo-theologiae indagantur Fontes by Leipzig publisher Tauchnitz .

literature

• Henricus Augustus Schott (Ed.): Recitatio de Friederici Augusti Cari, olim philosophiae professoris ordinarii novae fundationis in Academia Lipsiensi . Lipsiae 1808.
• Arthur Richter:  Carus, Friedrich August . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, p. 37.
• Lutz Geldsetzer : The philosophy of the history of philosophy in the 19th century: on the philosophy of science of the history of philosophy and its consideration . A. Hain, Meisenheim 1968, 59-68
• Genealogical handbook of civil families (German gender book). Volume 17, ed. v. Bernhard Koerner , Verlag CA Starke, Görlitz 1910.

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich August Carus in the catalog of the German National Library
• Friedrich August Carus in the professorial catalog of the University of Leipzig

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Genealogical Handbook of Bourgeois Families, Volume 17, Dr. Bernhard Koerner, Verlag CA Starke, Görlitz, 1910, p.75
2. ↑ http://gedbas.genealogy.net/person/show/1193092983