Johann Jakob Feinhals

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johann Jakob Feinhals is a fictional German theologian , botanist and philosopher who appears as a nihil article in the encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science , edited by Jürgen Mittelstraß .

Feinhals worked as a missionary in Java after studying and teaching . After suffering from severe malaria , he returned to Germany and became a professor of natural philosophy in Cologne .

Feinhals is considered to be the main representative of the so-called Harz Mission , which has set itself the task of bringing the Wild God . According to his teaching, nature is animated by evil goblins , similar to the monads discussed by Leibniz .

In addition, according to the same encyclopedia, he published the work Javanese grammar based on his own knowledge in 1729 , which contained the first orthodidactic experiments ( see the entry orthodidactics in the encyclopedia mentioned).

Entry in the encyclopedia philosophy and philosophy of science

»Feinhals, Johann Jakob, * Osterode April 1, 1702, + Wolfenbüttel June 14, 1769, German theologian, botanist and philosopher. From 1720 study of theology and philosophy at the universities of Dorpat, Helmstedt and Wittenberg, ordination in 1723, then activity as a missionary in Java, where F. fell ill with malaria, 1728 return to Germany and teaching as professor of natural philosophy at the University of Cologne. From 1730 he published his botanical studies, which he had begun in Java, from 1753 sub-librarian at the Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, where he looked after the botanical inventory in particular, died of an attack of malaria. F. is regarded as the main representative of the Harz Mission, which set itself the task of ›bringing the Wild God‹ (On the Possibility of Mission I, Goslar (636) 1729, 14). His turning away from theology from 1730 onwards is evident in the fact that writings on the philosophy of nature come to the fore (From the soul of strange plants and animals, I-IV, Herborn 1741–1753; treatise on the relationship between volcanic eruptions and lunar eclipse, Amsterdam 1755; 2 1757 [repr. Peine 1974] On a trip to Italy, F. came to Constance in 1744, where he was involved in a tavern fight and was arrested as a spy by the French occupation troops at the time. His bad memories of this ›impertinent and provocative incident ‹(Letters II, 114) led to his advising the Konstanz municipal syndic J. Speth against founding a university› with these barbarians ‹, Letters II 115f.). The original of this letter was lost in the Konstanz city archives during the unrest of the 1990s. - According to F. nature is animated by evil cosmic goblins, whose description is reminiscent of Leibniz's monads. It is the task of humans to balance the power of the evil goblins by developing a personal kindness. The authorship of ›Principia rerum naturalium sive novum tentamen phaenomena mundi elementaris philosophice explicandi‹ (Zug 1735, 1738 in the Index librorum prohibitorum), which F. is assumed by some interpreters, seems doubtful, but it is certain that F. is not the author of › Corpus scriptorum eroticorum graecorum I: Parthenii erotica ‹(Fulda 1755) is. Further works: Javanese grammar based on personal knowledge, Amsterdam 1729; The orchids of evil, or about the devil's all-presence, Cologne 1731; Common system of exotic plants, I-III, Cologne 1742; Letters, I-III, ed. F. v. Grummelsberg, Magdeburg 1914–1918. Literature: B. Aschenkuchen, Die Harzer Mission, Göttingen 1928, 14–33; F. v. Grummelsberg, JJF as botanist and philosopher, Diss. Helmstedt 1903; L. Lafarce, F., un représentant de son temps, Brussels 1948 (Ger. F., a representative of his time, Detmold 1951). PB «(Vol. 1, 635f.)

literature

  • Jürgen Mittelstraß (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1995, Volume 1: HO. ISBN 3-476-01351-0 , p. 635 f. (with further literature)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Zankl: Insane things from science. From light rabbits to dark pears. Wiley-VCH, Weinheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-527-32114-8 .
  2. ↑ Monika Schmitz-Emans: Encyclopedias of the imaginary. actalitterarum.de, accessed on April 28, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Quoted according to Real and Possible Worlds. Blurred borders on actalitterarum.de