Jakob Moleschott

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Jakob Moleschott

Jakob Moleschott , also Jacob Moleschott (born August 9, 1822 in 's-Hertogenbosch , Netherlands , † May 20, 1893 in Rome ) was a Dutch doctor and physiologist .

Along with Carl Vogt and Ludwig Buchner , he represented the materialism dispute the position of scientific materialism . Like Adolf Fick , Carl Ludwig and Emil du Bois-Reymond , he represented a physically and mathematically founded, experimental direction in physiology.

Life

Jakob Moleschott studied medicine in Heidelberg . From 1845 to 1847 he worked as a doctor in Utrecht , from 1847 he taught physiology as a private lecturer in Heidelberg. Due to the materialistic and atheistic character of his book The Cycle of Life (1852), the rector of Heidelberg University threatened him in 1854 with the revocation of his teaching license . Moleschott then wrote to the Baden Minister of Culture and wrote not to teach because he no longer saw freedom of teaching as guaranteed. Initially, Moleschott headed a private laboratory in Heidelberg before accepting a call to Zurich in 1856 . From 1861 he taught in Turin and in 1876 became senator of the Kingdom of Italy . From 1879 Moleschott was a professor of physiology in Rome. He was one of the most famous Dutch physiologists of the 19th century.

Services and work

Moleschott's research is critically examined and evaluated on the cultural and physiological background. In addition to his popular scientific publications in the field of metabolism and dietetics , he makes important contributions to pulmonary histology and blood physiology. During his teaching in Heidelberg, he was relieved of his office due to his atheism .

In his famous book Der Kreis des Lebens (1852, 5th edition 1876), he interprets the idea of ​​maintaining power in the cycle of nature in a purely material sense. When the miner pulls phosphoric acid lime out of the earth in the sweat of his face, and the farmer uses it to fertilize his wheat, he does not think that he is not only nourishing the body, but ultimately also the human brain. "No thought without phosphorus!" Life is connected with matter, thinking with life, and with thinking the will to make life better and happier. If, therefore, we are able to supply our brain with the best substances, then thinking and willing will also reach their highest development and the social question will find its solution. The human being is the sum of parents and wet nurses, place and time, air and weather, sound and light, food and clothing, in short, entirely conditioned by external influences. Natural research is therefore the Prometheus of our time, chemistry the highest science . By the way, towards the end of his life, Moleschott emphasized that, since the subject can never be thought without power (spirit), he actually teaches an "indivisible two-unity", ie monism and not materialism. As a representative of the mechanical materialism of the 50s, he was influenced by Ludwig Feuerbach .

His attitudes as a representative of scientific materialism:

  1. All knowledge is based on experience and on a thinking summary of the senses .
  2. An object is only through its relation to other objects. If we have recognized all the properties of things that can make an impression on the developed senses, then we have also grasped the essence of things.
  3. All Natural happen is to move the raw materials. The immutability of the stock of material is the reason for the eternity of the cycle. The ability to move is one of the most common properties of the fabric. The properties of the substance are the same everywhere, so there is no special life force .
  4. The organisms emerged from the inorganic and only form more complicated matter . The psychological processes are also bound to the material. Thinking is a brain movement.
  5. Everything in the world is strictly regulated by law. So does the will .

Moleschott was accepted into the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in 1884 .

Fonts

  • The physiology of food. A dietary manual , Darmstadt 1850
  • Physiology of the metabolism in plants and animals , Erlangen 1851
  • The cycle of life , Mainz 1852
  • Georg Forster , the natural scientist of the people , Frankfurt am Main 1854
  • Physiological sketchbook , Giessen 1861
  • A look inside nature , Giessen 1882
  • Karl Robert Darwin , Giessen 1883
  • Small writings (2 volumes), Giessen 1880–1887
  • Franciscus Cornelius Donders , Giessen 1888
  • Foreword to Jacob Moleschott, Josef Schrattenholz (Ed.): Antisemiten-Hammer. An anthology from world literature , Lintz, Düsseldorf 1894
  • For my friends. Memoirs , Giessen 1895

literature

in order of appearance

  • Julius Frauenstädt : The materialism. A reply to Ludwig Büchner's “Kraft und Stoff”. 1856.
  • Paul Janet : The materialism of our time in Germany. Examination of the Büchner system . 1866.
  • Paul von Grützner :  Moleschott, Jacob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 52, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1906, pp. 435-438.
  • Dieter Wittich : On the history and interpretation of materialism by Vogt, Moleschott and Ludwig Büchner . In: Scientific journal of the Humboldt University Berlin. Social and Linguistic Series , Vol. 12 (1963), pp. 389-402.
  • Writings on petty-bourgeois materialism in Germany. Vogt. Moleschott. Büchner . (Philosophical study texts) Edited and introduced by Dieter Wittich. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1971; to Moleschott: Vol. 1.
  • Fredrick Gregory: Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany . Springer, Berlin a. a. 1977, ISBN 90-277-0760-X
  • Friedrich Albert Lange : History of materialism and criticism of its significance for the present. Edited by Alfred Schmidt, 1974, vol. 2, passim.
  • Stefan Büttner:  Moleschott, Jacob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , pp. 723-725 ( digitized version ).
  • Andreas W. Daum : Science popularization in the 19th century. Bourgeois Culture, Scientific Education, and the German Public, 1848-1914 . 2nd, supplementary edition, Oldenbourg, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-486-56551-5
  • Laura Meneghello: Jacob Moleschott. A Transnational Biography . Transcript, Bielefeld 2017, ISBN 978-3-8376-3970-4 .

Web links

Wikisource: Jacob Moleschott  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ralf Vollmuth : Fick, Adolf. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 396.
  2. ^ Member entry by Jacob Moleschott at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on February 15, 2015.


personal data
SURNAME Moleschott, Jakob
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch physiologist
DATE OF BIRTH August 9, 1822
PLACE OF BIRTH 's-Hertogenbosch , Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1893
Place of death Rome