Karl Heinrich Heydenreich

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (engraving by Gottschick. Portrait copper from poems by Karl Heinrich Heydenreich , Aachen: Forstmann, 1815 (case library of the German classics; 15).)

Karl Heinrich Heydenreich , born as Carl Heinrich Heydenreich , (born February 19, 1764 in Stolpen , † April 26, 1801 in Burgwerben ) was a German writer and philosopher .

Life

The son of a pastor received the first educational impulses in his parents' house. At the age of 14 he went to Leipzig to the Thomas School and in 1782 he moved to the university there , where he received his doctorate in 1785. In 1789 he received a professorship in philosophy there and until 1797 taught primarily the religion of reason , natural and public law , ethics , aesthetics , logic and psychology . Since 1790 he belonged to the Leipzig Freemason Lodge Minerva to the three palm trees . Being out of debt, and alcohol abuseHis private life, which was marked by drug use , brought him to prison in 1797/98 after a failed move. In 1798 he gave up his academic career and retired to Burgwerben , where the pastors looked after him until his death.

His career as a writer began with poems in the style of Sturm und Drang and translations of French texts of various styles, from Pascal's Pensées to Baltasar Gracian's Oraculo manual and the aesthetic dictionary of the fine arts by Watelet and Levesque to the classic French early materialism by Boureau- Deslandes , the miscellanea about famous men and women who died in a happy mood , accompanied by novels, plays and poems by numerous other authors. His philosophical work was primarily created in the decade that he spent at Leipzig University and can be seen as a direct result of his professorial work. His numerous activities and the compulsion to make a living with a pen made him a slave to the publishers. Numerous opponents arose from his lifestyle as well as from his writings, but in AW Schlegel and Hölderlin he also found prominent defenders.

Originally turned towards Spinoza's thinking, he approached Kantianism during his studies ; According to his first biographer, reading the Critique of Pure Reason in 1785 played a decisive role. Kant's work remained decisive for his further philosophical development, which is particularly clear in his considerations on the philosophy of natural religion (1790–1791). His attempt to approximate pure reason and sensitivity, as well as his position within the religious philosophy of Goethe's time and the role he played in the Spinoza dispute, have not yet been fully appreciated. He was one of the most widely read authors of the late 18th and early 19th centuries: Johann Samuelersch's Repertorium der Allgemeine Literatur lists 160 reviews of his works for the period 1785 to 1801. As he himself indicates in a letter to Reinhold from 1789, he attributed his success to his efforts to write clearly and clearly even when describing complex facts ( Karl Leonhard Reinhold's life and literary work , edited by Ernst Reinhold , Jena 1825, pp. 343-346). He translated a work by the Italian philosopher Appiano Buonafede from Italian.

Title page of Heydenreich's 'Encyclopedic Introduction to the Study of Philosophy' (1793)

Works (selection)

• The art of living . Leipzig 1786.
• Nature and God according to Spinoza . Leipzig 1789; Reprinted in Brussels 1973.
• System of aesthetics . Leipzig 1790; Reprint Hildesheim 1978.
• Reflections on the Philosophy of Natural Religion . 2 volumes, Leipzig 1790–1791; 2nd edition 1805; Reprinted in Brussels 1968 and Jena 2006.
• Poems . Leipzig 1792. New editions 1794, 1802, 1815, 1817, 1827, 1830, 1841, around 1850.
• Encyclopedic Introduction to the Study of Philosophy According to the Needs of Our Age . Leipzig 1793.
• Original ideas about the most interesting subjects of philosophy. Along with a critical scoreboard of the most important philosophical writings . 3 volumes, Leipzig 1793–96; Reprinted in Brussels 1970–1973 and Jena 2006.
• Aesthetic dictionary on the fine arts according to Watelet and Levesque. Critically edited with necessary abbreviations and additions to missing articles by KH Heydenreich, public professor of philosophy in Leipzig . 4 volumes. Leipzig 1793–1795.
• Fragment about the neutrality of peoples in the war of one people against another, which completely changes its form of government . In: An attempt on the sanctity of the state and the morality of the revolutions . Leipzig 1794.
• Principles of natural law and its application . Leipzig 1795; Reprint Goldbach no year (natural law and legal philosophy in modern times; 15).
• Letters about atheism . Leipzig 1796; Reprinted in Brussels 1970.
• Philosophical paperback for thinking worshipers . Leipzig 1796–1799.
• Contributions to the criticism of taste . Leipzig 1797.
• About the superstitious deceptions caused by the illegal action of the external senses. To announce his lectures to be held in the winter of 1797 . Leipzig 1797.
• About death, greatness of soul in death, and suicide . In: Miscellanees about famous men and women who died in a happy mood [by André-François Boureau-Deslandes], Leipzig 1797.
• Psychological development of superstition and the enthusiasm connected with it . Leipzig 1798.
• Man and woman. A contribution to philosophy about the sexes . Leipzig 1798.
• Philosophy about the sufferings of mankind. A reading book for the happy and unhappy, speculative and popular content . Leipzig 1799; Reprint Jena 2006.
• System of natural law according to critical principles . 2 volumes Leipzig 1794–1795; 2nd edition 1801.
• Poems . Leipzig 1794; extended edition in 2 volumes 1803.
• Vesta. Small writings on the philosophy of life . 5 volumes, Leipzig 1798–1801.
• The private educator in families as he should be. 2 volumes, Leipzig 1800/01.
• Maxim for social life and dealing with people. A paperback for young people who seek honor, utility and pleasure in society . Leipzig 1801; 3. through Edition Reutlingen 1804.
• Victims of cosmopolitanism and patriotism at the beginning of the nineteenth century ...: Dedicated by the residents of the city of Weißenfels; together with a memorandum on a ... man who had an accident on this occasion; A brief description of the ... state of the city follows as an appendix . Weißenfels [1801].
• Reflections on the dignity of man in the spirit of the Kantian moral and religious doctrine . ed. by JG Gruber , Leipzig 1802.
• Philosophical thoughts on suicide freely examined by one of his friends . Weissenfels 1804.
• Fragments for the field of practical philosophy of life. From the correspondence of trusted and soulful friends with the late Professor Karl Heinrich Heydenreich . Leipzig 1805 and 1806.

literature

• Ingo Bach: Professor caught Kant's attention. Karl Heinrich Heydenreich - personality of history . In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . Volume 12, 2001, No. 97-99 (April 26-28), pp. 14, 12 and 11.
• Armin Erlinghagen: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich (1764-1801) as a philosophical writer. Notes on the publication of a bibliography of his writings . In: Kant studies. Vol. 105 (2014), pp. 125-144.
• Armin Erlinghagen: Bibliography Karl Heinrich Heydenreich. 1764-1801. A contribution to the constellation of literature at the end of the 18th century, especially the philosophical, in Leipzig. In: Kant Studies 105 (2014), no. 2, pp. 261–295.
• Jakob Franck :  Heydenreich, Karl Heinrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 12, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1880, p. 355 f.
• Therese Pöhler: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich and the problem of female education . Paderborn 1925.
• Karl Heinrich Schelle: Heydenreich's characteristics as people and writers . Leipzig 1802; Reprinted in Brussels 1973.
• Paul Schlueter: Carl Heinrich Heydenreich's system of aesthetics . Bleicherode 1939.
• Hans-Ulrich Seifert: JB Mercier's translation of “On Solitude” and KH Heydenreich's reverse translation . In: Johann Georg Zimmermann - royal British personal physician . Wiesbaden 1998, pp. 211-220.
• Johann Georg Wohlfarth: The last years of Karl Heinrich Heydenreich's life. An important contribution to Schelle's script . Altenburg 1802.

Web links

Wikisource: Karl Heinrich Heydenreich  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Karl Heinrich Heydenreich in the catalog of the German National Library