Karl Steffensen

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Photograph by Friedrich Hartmann, ca.1875

Karl Christian Friedrich Steffensen (born April 25, 1816 in Flensburg , † December 11, 1888 in Basel ) was a German philosopher . From 1854 to 1879 he was a professor at the University of Basel and in 1859 accepted Basel citizenship.

biography

Karl Steffensen was born in Flensburg in the Duchy of Schleswig in 1816 . His father was the pedagogue Asmus Steffensen (1783–1850), his older brother the theologian Jürgen Heinrich Steffensen (1814–1854).

In the fall of 1834, Steffensen began studying law and history in Kiel . From 1835 he spent a year in Berlin, where Leopold von Ranke and Friedrich Carl von Savigny were among his teachers. In the summer of 1838, a heart disease initially prevented him from writing a dissertation on the legal philosophy of the Middle Ages. After a long spa stay in southern France and Italy, he finally received his doctorate in philosophy on October 30, 1841 in Kiel . Activities as a private tutor followed, including in Paris . Duke Christian August of Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg appointed him in 1845 to be the tutor of his two sons Friedrich and Christian . After the insurrection of Schleswig-Holstein on March 24, 1848, Steffensen worked as a secretary and diplomatic agent for the Duke in London , Frankfurt am Main and Berlin. He defended the Duke's policy in an anonymously published letter to the genuine nobility of the German nation (Leipzig 1850).

In 1852 Steffensen completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in Kiel. Steffensen's first philosophical manuscript - the essay Religion, Politics and Philosophy in the Near Future - was published by the Swiss historian Johann Heinrich Gelzer in his Protestant monthly papers . Steffensen met Gelzer in Rome in 1840, and it was thanks to Gelzer's mediation that Steffensen was appointed full professor of philosophy in Basel on June 10, 1854. He succeeded Friedrich Fischer, who had died the year before . In the years 1862 and 1864 Steffensen was rector of the university; in September 1873 the theological faculty awarded him an honorary doctorate. An appointment to Leipzig in 1860 taught Steffensen from. In 1867 a second chair for philosophy was established in Basel, to which Wilhelm Dilthey was appointed. In April 1879, Steffensen retired.

Steffensen dedicated the last years of his life to church maintenance. He was a member of the Basel church council from 1874 to 1884 and remained a member of the synod until his death . On December 12, 1888, Steffensen died of pneumonia .

Karl Steffensen had been married to Maria Margaretha Burckhardt (1831–1908) from Basel since July 14, 1859, the daughter of councilor and lawyer Christoph Burckhardt-Heß (1805–1835). The marriage remained childless.

Act

Steffensen's interest was in the philosophy of history and religion . In lectures and monographs he dealt with Socrates and Meister Eckhart ; Schleiermacher and Schelling particularly influenced him among the contemporary philosophers .

Steffensen's literary work is small. Steffensen was valued as a lecturer in Basel; his lectures were also attended by theologians. During his lectureship in Kiel, Steffensen also attracted a large audience. In a letter from Karl Wilhelm Nitzsch to Droysen it says: "Steffensen is physically well beyond expectation, he reads logic for twenty and history of philosophy for twelve, while Thaulow barely and Harms never read."

The Basel legal historian Eduard His judged Karl Steffensen's scientific style in 1941: "Steffensen was above all [...] an educator for philosophy students. That was his main strength. [...] In his writings and lectures published in print a certain clumsiness of thinking, a profound, sometimes brooding research and struggle for the right knowledge, which did not make reading easy. His whole philosophy was built eclectically on the basis of religion and historical knowledge, while he stayed away from scientific problems. " Steffensen brought the disdain for natural science mentioned by His in January 1861 in two lectures on Socrates given to the Basel Historical Society . Expressed with relation to some time issues . Johann Jakob Bachofen then compared him to the scandal-ridden theologian David Friedrich Strauss and commented: "In a lecture on Socrates, which was attended by a large number of Basel Xanthippen , our state philosopher put the naturalists behind the stove, if not in front of the door where they actually belong. Now there is great excitement ... counter lectures ... "

The Philosophen-Lexikon (Berlin 1912) published by Rudolf Eisler sums up Steffensen's philosophical position in one sentence: "In history, what matters is the individual and ideal powers as manifestations of God." The Basel philosopher Heinrich Barth summed up in 1960: "At the center of Steffensen's philosophical thinking was the problem of history. He was deeply penetrated by the unfathomable mystery of historical events, which defy all worldly and spiritual doctrine. The resistance of the hostile powers against all higher ones Order was vividly before his eyes. The work of the spirit in history has become an even greater miracle for him. "

Steffensen's estate is in the Basel University Library .

Works

  • The extreme right and Schleswig-Holstein. A letter to the genuine nobility of the German nation. Leipzig 1850. ( digitized version )
  • (Posthumously :) Collected essays. With a foreword by Rudolf Eucken . Basel 1890.
  • (Posthumous :) On the philosophy of history. Excerpts from his handwritten estate. With a foreword by Rudolf Eucken. Basel 1894.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl Steffensen: Religion, politics and philosophy in the near future. In: Johann Heinrich Gelzer (Hrsg.): Protestant monthly sheets for inner contemporary history (= Protestant monthly sheets for inner contemporary history. Volume 1). Perthes, Gotha December 1852 to June 1853, pp. 103–123. ( Full text in google book search)
  2. ^ List of the rectors of the University of Basel . University website. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  3. ↑ cf. Eduard His: Basel scholars of the 19th century. Basel 1941. p. 179.
  4. ↑ Quoted from: Peter Hirschfeld: Karl Steffensen 1816–1888. A Flensburg man as a philosopher at the University of Basel. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 76. Basel 1976. P. 53.
  5. ^ Eduard His: Basel scholars of the 19th century. Basel 1941. p. 181.
  6. ↑ Quoted from: Peter Hirschfeld: Karl Steffensen 1816–1888. A Flensburg man as a philosopher at the University of Basel. In: Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 76. Basel 1976. P. 63.
  7. ^ Rudolf Eisler: Philosopher Lexicon. Berlin 1912. p. 710. Full text: [1] .
  8. ^ Heinrich Barth: Karl Steffensen (1816-1888). In: Andreas Staehelin (ed.): Professors from the University of Basel from five centuries. Basel 1960. p. 146.
personal data
SURNAME Steffensen, Karl
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Steffensen, Karl Christian Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Flensburg
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1888
Place of death Basel