Jakob Friedrich of Abel

Johann Wölffle - Jakob Friedrich von Abel , contemporary lithography

Jakob Friedrich von Abel , also Jacob Friedrich von Abel , (born May 9, 1751 in Vaihingen an der Enz , † July 7, 1829 in Schorndorf ) was a German philosopher . He is best known for his influence on the young Friedrich Schiller .

Life

Youth and Studies

Jakob Friedrich von Abel was the son of Oberamtmann Konrad Ludwig Abel and Eva Regina, a daughter of Oberamtmann Jakob Gottlieb Bojons, the predecessor of her husband. Jakob Friedrich Abel came from a respected family of civil servants in Württemberg.

After Abel had attended Latin school in Vaihingen , he passed the state exam and entered the Protestant monastery school in Denkendorf in 1764, when he was not yet 14 years old ; In 1766 he and his schoolmates ("Kompromotionalen") moved to the Protestant monastery school in Maulbronn . In 1768 he passed the final exam as the third-best student in his class and then moved into the Tübingen monastery . He studied theology , philology and philosophy with the aim of becoming a pastor.

Schiller's teacher

Jakob Friedrich von Abel - contemporary inked silhouette

The Württemberg sovereign Carl Eugen founded a military nursery on the Solitude in 1770 and personally looked for professors in Tübingen in 1772 for his re-establishment. When he was told that Abel was not on the list of candidates because he was too short, the Duke declared that he did not measure the suitability of his professors by yardstick and insisted on Abel's candidacy. In 1772, when he was 21, Abel became a professor of philosophy. In 1786 Abel became prorector -  the duke himself was the rector - who moved to Stuttgart in 1775 and - only after Schiller's studies! - In 1781 the institute was renamed Hohe Karlsschule . He was a very popular teacher because he taught in the sense of Maeutics : The enlightener involved his students in controversial issues in order to promote freedom and self-determination through their own thinking and decision-making .

Abel was the most influential teacher of Friedrich Schiller , who was only eight years his junior and with whom he had a lifelong friendship. He was the first to draw the attention of his pupil to the works of William Shakespeare and to the importance of genius and passion:

Without passion, nothing great, nothing glorious, never thought a great thought or performed an act worthy of humanity. [...] But the genius! Countless sensations surge through his soul, thoughts flow upon thoughts.

Abel also emphasized to his pupil the importance of free will for humans:

this ability makes him capable of virtue and vice [...], and thus puts happiness and unhappiness in his own power.

The idea of ​​human freedom and self-determination reappeared repeatedly in Schiller's work. Abel's view that virtue is the progressive development of all human powers to perfection has also become Schiller's own lifelong conviction.

Abel, who, unlike most enlightened contemporaries, advocated a broad education for girls and women, moved to the University of Tübingen as a full professor of logic , metaphysics , rhetoric and poetics in 1790 . In 1793 he also became head of the Württemberg grammar schools and schools and tried in vain to bring Schiller , who had meanwhile lived in Weimar , to Tübingen as a professor.

Member and temporarily superior of the Stuttgart Illuminati ; also brother of a Freemason

Under the name Pythagoras Abderitis , Abel was a member of the Illuminati Order founded in 1776 by Professor Johann Adam Weishaupt from Ingolstadt . From autumn 1784 until the abolition of the Stuttgart Illuminati group in 1787, he was their "superior". Member of the initially independent group probably since 1781 and Abel's predecessor as "superior" of the Stuttgart Illuminati was from 1783 at the latest until the end of his term in Stuttgart on March 31, 1784, the Stuttgart aristocratic government councilor and Tübingen court judge Eberhard Christoph Ritter and Edler von Oetinger (1743-1805). Since this nephew of the prelate Friedrich Christoph Oetinger was appointed Reich Chamber Court Assessor (judging judge) in Wetzlar on March 3, 1784 and held this office until his death on April 21, 1805, his predecessor was now, according to Abel's own report, as "Oberer "(from spring to autumn 1784) Professor Friedrich August Clemens Werthes (1748–1817), who was appointed Professor of Fine Sciences in Pest on October 13, 1784 . Jakob Friedrich Abel's brother Ludwig Heinrich Abel (1752-1818), lawyer law firm in Vaihingen and afterwards (1809-1818) Bailiff in Münsingen (Württemberg) , belonged to the existing 1774-1784 Masonic Lodge "The three cedars" in Stuttgart .

Church offices

Abel's house where he lived and died in Schorndorf

In 1811 Abel gave up his university activities and took over church offices: He became head of the Schöntal seminary and prelate and superintendent of Öhringen . In 1812 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Royal Württemberg Civil Merit Order, with which the personal nobility was associated. Since 1815 he was a member of the Württemberg Chamber of Deputies . In 1823, at the age of 72, he became General Superintendent of Urach , and in 1823, after the structure of offices had been changed, General Superintendent of Reutlingen , both of whom lived in Stuttgart.

Abel died at the age of 78, working to the end, on a trip in the house of one of his daughters in Schorndorf. In his hometown not only the older of the two high schools, but also a street is named after him. One of the picture windows in the town hall shows the philosopher.

plant

philosophy

As a philosopher, Abel tried to find a balance between the ideas of the Enlightenment and empirical psychology . The basic idea of ​​empirical psychology, that all forces of the soul and all ideas and kinds of ideas depend on the body , shaped his work On the Sources of Human Concepts , which continued central aspects of his main work Introduction to the Doctrine of the Soul ; In this and his follow-up writings, Abel endeavored to prove the simplicity of the soul and its immortality.

literature

In 1778 Abel anonymously published the novel Entries to the History of Love from a collection of letters , a Sturm und Drang novel in the footsteps of Werther . The second volume of the collection and explanation of strange phenomena from human life contains the story of Friedrich Schwahn , the model for Schiller's criminal from lost honor . As Vaihinger bailiff, Abel's father had arrested Schwahn himself and led the process against him.

Abel also wrote poems in the style of Sturm und Drang , such as Curse of a Jealousy and An Fanny , which were published anonymously in the anthology published by Schiller for the year 1782 .

Quote

Schiller to Abel, April 3, 1795: I must not first assure you that I honor your and your friends' loving efforts for me with the most grateful heart and will forever honor them. Once again accept my heartfelt thanks for that.

Trivia

In his hometown Vaihingen an der Enz the local high school was named after him.

Works

Jakob Friedrich von Abel - Speech about genius . Title page of the printed report (1776)

• Talk about the genius. Are great spirits born or raised, and what are their characteristics? Speech in the Ducal Military Academy, Stuttgart 1776
• Contributions to the story of love from a collection of letters . Novel. 1778
• Collection and explanation of strange phenomena from human life. 3 volumes. Stuttgart 1784-90
• Introduction to the doctrine of the soul. Stuttgart 1786
• About the sources of human ideas. Mezler, Stuttgart, 1786
• Plan of a systematic metaphysics. Stuttgart 1787
• Attempt on the nature of speculative reason, to test the Kantian system. Frankfurt a. M. / Leipzig 1787
• Explanations of important objects from the philosophical and Christian morality, especially the aesthetics through observations from the doctrine of the soul. Heerbrandt, Tübingen 1790
• Philosophical inquiry into the connection of humans with higher spirits. Stuttgart 1791
• Full account of the evidence of God's existence. Heilbronn 1817
• Try on fortitude. Heerbrandt, Tübingen 1804
• Philosophical inquiries into the ultimate reasons for belief in God. 2nd edition Stuttgart, 1820
• Full account of the reason we believe in immortality. Frankfurt a. M. 1826

Individual evidence

1. ↑ see personal entry according to Reinhard Buchwald:  Abel, Jacob Friedrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 11 ( digitized version ).
2. ↑ http://web.abelgym.de/node/16
3. ↑ ^{a b} krapp-gutknecht.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)  
4. ↑ ^{a b} olms.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Walter Hinderer: From the idea of ​​people: about Friedrich Schiller , Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1998, ISBN 3-8260-1550-9 , p. 159, preview in the Google book search
6. ↑ hausarbeiten.de
7. ↑ literaturkritik.de
8. ↑ Alexandra Birkert: Learned? Revolutionary? Insane? Hegel's extraordinary sister , literaturblatt.de, September / October 2008, accessed on May 15, 2013
9. ↑ ^{a b} Wissen-im-netz.info ( Memento of the original from December 18, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ see The Abderites
11. ↑ Cf. Reinhard Breymayer : Prelate Oetinger's nephew Eberhard Christoph v. Oetinger, in Stuttgart Freemason and Superior of the Illuminati, in Wetzlar a judge at the Imperial Court of Justice [...]. 2nd, improved edition Heck, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-924249-49-6 , p. 17 f. and notes 9 - 21 on p. 65. The terms of office of the Superiores v. Oetinger - Werthes - Abel are to be corrected as above according to Abel's own statements cited ibid, p. 18, lines 25 - 27.
12. ↑ Cf. Reinhard Breymayer : Freemasons at the gates of the Tübingen monastery : Masonic influence on Hölderlin ? In: Sönke Lorenz and Volker [Karl] Schäfer in connection with the Institute for Historical Regional Studies and Historical Auxiliary Sciences at the University of Tübingen (ed.): Tubingensia: Impulse for City and University History . Festschrift for Wilfried Setzler on his 65th birthday . ( Tübingen building blocks for regional history , 10.) Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2008, ISBN 978-3-7995-5510-4 , pp. 355–395, here p. 361 f.
13. ↑ Walther Killy (ed.): German poetry from the beginnings to the present , Volume 6. dtv, Munich 2001.
14. ^ To Fanny on Wikisource

literature

• Karl Friedrich Ludwig Goedeke:  Abel, Jacob Friedr. v. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 12 f.
• Reinhard Buchwald :  Abel, Jacob Friedrich von. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 11 ( digitized version ).
• Fritz Aders: Jacob Friedrich Abel as a philosopher. Berlin, 1893
• Wolfgang Riedel (Ed.): Jacob Friedrich Abel. A source edition for philosophy lessons at the Karlsschule in Stuttgart (1773–1782). Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg 1995, ISBN 3-88479-962-2
• Jakob Friedrich Abel: Thesium Inauguralium Pars Metaphysica ( Der Inauguralthesen metaphysischer Teil , German translation Michael Franz ) with explanations of his metaphysics lecture at the University of Tübingen (1791–1792) by Temilo van Zantwijk. In: Michael Franz (Ed.): “… Cavalieremente in the realm of knowledge”? Hölderlin, Hegel and Schelling's philosophy studies at the University of Tübingen. Ed. Isele, Eggingen 2005, ISBN 3-86142-381-2 , p. 72 ff. (Materials on the educational history background of Hölderlin, Hegel and Schelling; Vol. 2 / Writings of the Hölderlin Society ; Vol. 23,2)
• Frank Raberg : Biographical handbook of the Württemberg state parliament members 1815-1933 . On behalf of the Commission for Historical Regional Studies in Baden-Württemberg. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-17-016604-2 , p. 2 .

Web links

Commons : Jacob Friedrich Abel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Jakob Friedrich von Abel  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Jakob Friedrich von Abel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Abel's biography on the website of the high school named after him