Johannes Bering (philosopher)

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Johannes Bering , very often Johann Bering (* December 17, 1748 in Hofgeismar ; † July 3, 1825 in Marburg ) was a German philosopher and one of the first followers of Immanuel Kant's philosophy .

Career

After graduating from university in 1773, Bering became the "informator" of the later Vice Chancellor of the University of Marburg Georg Robert . In 1774 he was awarded a major. In 1779 he was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Marburg. After obtaining the degree of Dr. phil. In 1785 he received the professorship in logic and metaphysics. He also worked as a librarian, held the office of Dean of the Philosophical Faculty in 1786, 1795, 1804 and 1817 and was Vice Rector in 1789.

Bering was in correspondence with Immanuel Kant and would have preferred to visit him himself in East Prussia, as he wrote to Kant on May 10, 1786: “ Perhaps in a nutshell our aeronauts will succeed in making their shipping less precious and dangerous, and then, of course, a journey of 140 miles [to Konigsberg] is a trifle ”. When in 1786 - as the first ever - he announced a lecture on Kant's Metaphysical Beginnings and the manual by the Jena Kantian Carl Christian Erhard Schmid , the government of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Kassel intervened. At the beginning of September 1786 a cabinet order was issued which forbade lectures on Kantian textbooks and at the same time demanded an expert opinion from the philosophical faculty "whether Kant's writings do not undermine all certainty of human knowledge."

After a while, Bering managed to integrate the content into his teaching - without explicitly mentioning the name Kant in the course catalogs; he became a pioneer of the Enlightenment at the German universities. Friedrich Gedike , however, assessed Professor Bering's lecture as “a bit dry and without life”. He shared this assessment with the Swiss student Melchior Kirchhofer, a pupil of Jung-Stilling : “ This is how I was referred to Professor Bering, who received me so unfriendly and coldly that the chill ran through all my limbs, and long afterwards he felt uncomfortable Feelings stirred in my soul when I thought back to the dry Kantian philosopher with the white, multicolored Camisol and the green leather cap on his head. "

Johannes Bering had been a member of the Marburg Freemason Lodge Zum krönten Löwen from 1774 until it was banned in 1793 and then the Marc Aurel lodge zum flammenden Stern , newly founded in the Kingdom of Westphalia in 1812 ; However, he left this in 1816 when she joined a decidedly Christian direction of Freemasonry in the resurrected Electorate of Hesse with the Grand Lodge of Electorate Hesse .

The Bering Well in Marburg

Honors

  • Bering received the title Hofrat in 1815 ,
  • he was a knight of the Hessian House Order of the Golden Lion ,
  • his daughter Wilhelmine donated the Bering Fountain in his honor in 1839 on Marburger Strasse Am Plan .

Fonts

  • Examining the evidence of the existence of God from the concepts of a most perfect and necessary being . Marburg 1780.
  • De regressu succesivo . Diss. Marburg 1785.

swell

  • Catalogus Professorum Academiae Marburgensis , arr. v. Franz Gundlach. Elwert, Marburg 1927 p. 285.
  • Karl Vorländer: Immanuel Kant. The man and the work. 3rd edition. Meixner, Hamburg 1992. (on Bering pp. 419f.).
  • Stefan Redies: Freemasons, Knights Templar and Rosicrucians. On the history of the secret societies in Marburg in the 18th century. Tectum, Marburg 1998. (on Bering p. 73ff.)
  • New necrology of the Germans. 3rd year 1825. Ilmenau 1827, pp. 607f.
  • Johannes Bering. A trailblazer for Kant's philosophy . In: Oberhessische Presse of June 4, 2005 [To Bering as a Freemason]

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Vorländer 1992, p. 419 f.
  2. ^ Richard Fester: "The University Tourer" Friedrich Gedike and his report to Friedrich Wilhelm II. [1789] . (= 1st supplement to the Archives for Cultural History ), Berlin, 1905, pp. 40–41
  3. ^ Ingeborg Schnack (ed.): A Swiss student in Marburg 1794/95. Melchior Kirchhofer's diary from Schaffhausen . Marburg, 1988, p. 25
  4. ↑ To the Bering Well
personal data
SURNAME Bering, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bering, Johann (short name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Hofgeismar
DATE OF DEATH July 3, 1825
Place of death Marburg