Johann Erich Biester

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Johann Erich Biester (born November 17, 1749 in Lübeck , † February 20, 1816 in Berlin ) was a popular philosopher who, together with Friedrich Nicolai and Friedrich Gedike, formed the so-called triumvirate of the Berlin Late Enlightenment .

Johann Erich Biester, painting by Ferdinand Collmann , 1795, Gleimhaus Halberstadt

Life

From 1767 to 1771 Erich Biester studied law and English literature in Göttingen and then worked as a lawyer in Lübeck. From 1783 the Enlightenment was co-editor of the Berlinische monthly (with the pedagogue Gedike, who stepped down from the editorial office in 1791) as well as publisher of the Berlinische Blätter and the Neue Berlinische Monatsschrift until 1811. In the interests of the Enlightenment, Biester stood up against the spreading occultism and against irrational sentimentalism (Crush) a. He vehemently opposed the growing influence of Catholic and Jesuit proselytism .

Johann Erich Biester

He was a Freemason and a member of the Berlin Wednesday Society (alias: Axiomachus, i.e. the combative) and the Lawless Society in Berlin and was a student friend of Gottfried August Bürger at the University of Göttingen . 1773 he received a teaching position at the University Pädagogium in Bützow (Mecklenburg), which he gave up after a short time and received his doctorate in 1773 at the University of Bützow Dr. jur. From 1777 he was State Secretary of the Prussian Minister of Education, Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz . From 1784 he worked as a librarian at the Royal Library in Berlin (handover was carried out by King Friedrich II of Prussia personally) and later headed the same. He was a civil servant and, until his death, the ' grand speaker' of the Great State Lodge of the Freemasons of Germany in Berlin ( Zinnendorf system ). (Since 1777 member, 1789–1816 master of the chair of the local lodge 'To the golden plow'.) He was a friend of the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), whom he visited in 1791 in Königsberg.

Johann Erich Biester died in Berlin in 1816 at the age of 66. He was buried in the cemetery of the Dorotheenstädtische and Friedrichswerder parishes on Chausseestrasse . The grave has not been preserved.

Johann Erich Biester in the philosophical discourse of his time

Kant's Article What Is Enlightenment? appeared in the Berlin monthly magazine in 1784 and opened the debate after Biester's essay "Proposal to stop the clergy from engaging in the execution of marriages" caused a sensation. Biester later defended Kant in Berlin by submitting a direct petition (immediate petition) to King Friedrich Wilhelm II in order to obtain the right - and to oppose the increased censorship , because he was forbidden to print Kant's essays. However, the request was refused by Zedlitz 'successor Johann Christoph von Wöllner (1732–1800). He strove to banish the “apostles of unbelief” Gedike and Biester to the Spandau Citadel . - Biester was a friend of the brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt . He worked closely with the latter towards the end of his life at the Prussian Academy of Sciences , Berlin, whose member of the philological class he did not become a member of the philological class until 1798 due to the Prussian censorship.

In the dispute between the enlightener Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and the conservative Edmund Burke (1729-1797) - represented in Germany by Friedrich von Gentz (1764-1832) - Biester sided with Paines. As a librarian, he was particularly interested in young philologists such as Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824) and Philipp Buttmann (1764–1829), as well as the writers Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777–1843) and Karl August Varnhagen von Ense (1785–1858) ) and Karl Friedrich Klöden (1786–1856).

His argument with Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) attracted a lot of attention. Biester rejected Fichte's philosophy rigorously - on this point he thought similarly to the later Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), who wrote: “Fichte's idealism is one of the most colossal errors that a human mind can ever make hatched ". Biester's rejection was directed not only against Fichte's undisguised anti-Semitism - Biester sympathized with the Protestant tendency of the Socinians and the deism of the Unitarians - but primarily against Fichte's contentiousness and arrogant righteousness. Nicolai and Biester spoke out against Fichte's appointment as a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences in the philosophical class, thus preventing Fichte from being accepted.

Individual evidence

  1. See the entry of Johann Erich Biester's doctorate in the Rostock matriculation portal
  2. H. Schüttler, "The Members of the Illuminati Order"
  3. ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 94.

literature

  • Alken Bruns: Johann Erich Biester , in: Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck, Volume 12 Neumünster 2006, p. 34 ff. ISBN 3-529-02560-7
  • Karl H. Salzmann:  Biester, Johann Erich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 234 ( digitized version ).
  • Alfred Hass (1880 -?): Johann Erich Biester. His life and work. A contribution to the history of the Enlightenment period in Prussia. Inaugural dissertation to obtain a doctorate from the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Frankfurt a. M., 1925.
  • Alfred Hass in: The German School . Monthly. On behalf of the German Teachers' Association, 30th year. 1926, Johann Erich Biester's importance for the intellectual and educational life of Prussia during the Enlightenment period . Pp. 602-611, 667-676, 730-740.
  • Ernst KelchnerBiester, Johann Erich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 632 f.
  • Bernd Horlemann, Hans-Jürgen Mende (eds.): Berlin 1994. Pocket calendar , Edition Luisenstadt Berlin, No. 01280; Pages between January 16 and 17: Nicolai's closest friend

Web links

Commons : Johann Erich Biester  - Collection of images, videos and audio files