Leonard Nelson

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Leonard Nelson (born July 11, 1882 in Berlin , † October 29, 1927 in Göttingen ) was a pedagogically and politically committed German philosopher with a focus on logic and ethics .

Life

Leonard Nelson was the son of the lawyer Heinrich Nelson (born March 9, 1854 in Berlin, † April 25, 1929 in Walkemühle near Melsungen ) and the painter Elisabeth Nelson, born. Lejeune Dirichlet (February 27, 1860 in Klein-Bretschkehmen near Königsberg ; † 1920), a granddaughter of the mathematician Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and descendant of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn . In 1907 Leonard Nelson and Elisabeth Schemann (1884–1954) married in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. After the marriage, the couple moved into an apartment in Göttingen in Nikolausberger Weg, where Nelson lived until his death. The marriage of the son Gerhard Nelson (* May 7, 1909; † 1944 in World War II in Italy) was divorced on April 5, 1912. Elisabeth Nelson married the philosopher Paul Hensel in 1917 .

Leonard Nelson attended the French grammar school in Berlin , where he passed his Abitur in March 1901. He first studied at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg , where he began studying philosophy, science, law, and literature and gave lectures a. a. visited by the mathematician Leo Koenigsberger , the philosopher Kuno Fischer and the logician Paul Hensel. In the winter semester of 1901, he moved to the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin, where he stayed until the summer semester of 1903, when he went to Göttingen to go to the Georg August University . Here he received his doctorate in 1904 with the dissertation Jakob Friedrich Fries and his youngest critics by the philosopher Julius Baumann and encountered difficulties in his academic career.

Edmund Husserl , in particular , who had an extraordinary position in Göttingen , tried to hinder Nelson's academic career. After Nelson in 1908, however, along with Kurt Grelling the Grelling-Nelson paradox , a semantic paradox as a variant of Russell's paradox , formulated, he succeeded in 1909 with the support of the mathematician David Hilbert , the Habilitation . When Georg Misch became full professor of philosophy in 1919, Hilbert also campaigned for Nelson to be appointed associate professor .

Leonard Nelson was an eminently political thinker: he saw philosophy and practice as one. The transition from thoughtful reflection to an ethical way of life was required by the philosophical program. Nelson formulated the concept of an ethically founded socialism , as it had already been formulated in the Marburg Neo - Kantianism . However, he came into conflict with the SPD party line with the International Youth Association (IJB) he founded in 1917 . In 1925, the party executive passed a resolution on incompatibility , which has left its mark on the general reception to this day. After the exclusion, Nelson founded the International Socialist Fighting League (ISK), which had been active in the resistance against National Socialism since 1933 .

Grete Hermann , who had worked for Nelson as a private assistant since her dissertation in 1925 , was also involved in the Kampfbund . Together with Minna Specht , Grete Hermann edited the volume System of Philosophical Ethics and Pedagogy from the estate .

activities

As a young student, Nelson and friends founded the Neufriesische Schule in Berlin and Göttingen as a philosophical discussion group. His task was to maintain and develop the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant after Nelson had (re) discovered and recognized its importance through the philosopher Jakob Friedrich Fries . Members of the circle were:

In 1913 Nelson transferred the circle to a Jakob Friedrich Fries Society and appointed Arthur Kronfeld as deputy chairman and secretary. The society survived the First World War only weakened. Only in 1921 did she hold another conference on the theory of relativity and critical philosophy .

After the end of the First World War , Nelson founded a Philosophical-Political Academy based on the Platonic Academy of Antiquity . She became the sponsor of the Walkemühle Landerziehungsheim , which opened near Kassel in 1924, where Gustav Heckmann , Minna Specht and other teachers close to the ISK taught until it was banned by the National Socialists in 1933.

Other foundings of Nelson were the Society of Friends of the Philosophical-Political Academy and the International Youth Association .

Leonard Nelson's students and political companions in the International Socialist Combat League included:

After the Second World War , his former companions took part in the reconstruction of democratic institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany . Fritz Eberhard was a member of the Parliamentary Council .

Positions

Following Jakob Friedrich Fries, Leonard Nelson understood his philosophy as the theoretical and practical continuation of Immanuel Kant's criticalism, which was based on mathematical accuracy and stringency . Nelson demanded rigorous scientific and truthfulness from philosophical thinking, as well as the consistent implementation of insights gained into one's own and political practice.

In the book The Impossibility of Epistemology , Nelson took the view that scientific epistemology was not possible. Because the objective validity of knowledge cannot be established without already presupposing this validity itself.

In his most famous lecture, The Socratic Method, in 1922, Nelson recommended a modified Socratic teaching method for teaching philosophy as well as a method to revitalize philosophical research. His point of view is also called "neosocratic" (see also: Maeutics and Socratic Conversation ).

Nelson attributed to philosophical ethics an important role in changing social moral concepts. The concept of interests was central to his moral-philosophical considerations . According to Nelson's principle of personal dignity , every being who can feel pleasure and displeasure has a fundamental right to the respect of his interests. Therefore, for Nelson, animals were also among those living beings to whom direct duties arise. Nelson therefore called for animal rights and vegetarianism . In his work Law and State (1926) it says: “A worker who does not just want to be a 'prevented capitalist' and who is serious about the fight against all exploitation, does not bow to the contemptuous habit of exploiting harmless animals who does not take part in the murder of millions of people every day ”.

Nelson saw himself as an ethical, anti-clerical and non-Marxist socialist. From this position he particularly influenced the social democrat Willi Eichler , one of the main authors of the Godesberg program .

Leonard Nelson also represented a vegetarian way of life in public .

Works

Complete edition

  • Collected writings in nine volumes. Published by Paul Bernays et al. Meiner, Hamburg 1970–1977.
    • Volume I: The School of Critical Philosophy and its Method
    • Volume II: History and Critique of Epistemology
    • Volume III: The critical method and its significance for science
    • Volume IV: Critique of Practical Reason
    • Volume V: System of Philosophical Ethics and Pedagogy
    • Volume VI: System of Philosophical Legal Doctrine and Politics
    • Volume VII: Advances and setbacks in philosophy from Hume and Kant to Hegel and Fries
    • Volume VIII: Morality and Education
    • Volume IX: Law and State

Single fonts

  • Ethical methodology. by Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1915
  • Law without law. by Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1917.
  • The Socratic method. Lecture given on December 11, 1922 at the Pedagogical Society in Göttingen. In: Treatises of the Fries School. New episode. Edited by Otto Meyerhof , Franz Oppenheimer , Minna Specht . 5. Volume, H. 1. Public Life, Göttingen 1929, pp. 21-78.
  • Democracy and leadership. Public life, Berlin 1932.
  • Selected Writings. Study edition. Edited and introduced by Heinz-Joachim Heydorn . European Publishing House, Frankfurt 1974.
  • On the self-confidence of reason: writings on critical philosophy and its ethics. Edited by Grete Henry-Hermann ( Philosophical Library . Volume 288). Meiner, Hamburg 1975.

Estate publications

  • Critical natural philosophy. Notes from the estate. Edited by Kay Herrmann and Jörg Schroth ( Contributions to Philosophy , New Part 233). University Press Winter, Heidelberg 2004.
  • Typical mistakes in philosophy. Postscript of the lecture from the summer semester of 1921. With an introduction by Dieter Birnbacher. From the estate, ed. by Andreas Brandt and Jörg Schroth. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2011 (Philosophical Library, Vol. 623). ISBN 978-3-7873-2149-0

literature

  • Contributions to peace research in Leonard Nelson's work . Meiner, Hamburg 1974.
  • Armin Berger, Gisela Raupach-Strey, Jörg Schroth (eds.): Leonard Nelson - an early thinker of analytical philosophy? A symposium on the 80th anniversary of the death of the Göttingen philosopher ( PPA-Schriften , Vol. 2), Berlin-Münster-Vienna-Zurich-London, 2011 ISBN 978-3-643-11002-2
  • Andreas Brandt: Ethical Criticism. Investigations into Leonard Nelson's 'Critique of Practical Reason' and its philosophical contexts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002 ISBN 3-525-30517-6
  • Holger Franke: Leonard Nelson. A biographical contribution with special consideration of his legal and political philosophical work. Verlag an der Lottbek, Ammersbek near Hamburg 1991 ISBN 3-926987-61-8
  • Gustav Heckmann : The Socratic Conversation. Experience in philosophical university seminars. Schroedel, Hannover 1981 ISBN 3-507-39014-0 .
  • Grete Henry-Hermann : Overcoming chance. Critical considerations on Leonard Nelson's justification of ethics as science. Meiner, Hamburg 1985 ISBN 3-7873-0658-7 .
  • Ekkehard Hieronimus: Theodor Lessing - Otto Meyerhof - Leonard Nelson. Important Jews in Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony State Center for Political Education, Hanover 1964
  • Dragan Jakovljevic: Leonard Nelsons justification of metaphysical principles of theoretical real science. European university publications. Peter Lang Verlag 1989.
  • Detlef Horster:  Nelson, Leonard. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , pp. 60-62 ( digitized version ).
  • Rainer Loska: Teaching without instruction. Leonard Nelson's neosocratic method of conducting conversations. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1995, ISBN 3-7815-0790-4 .
  • Leonhard Nelson . In: Franz Osterroth : Biographical Lexicon of Socialism . Deceased personalities . Vol. 1. JHW Dietz Nachf., Hannover 1960, pp. 230-231.
  • Gisela Raupach-Strey: Socratic didactics: the didactic meaning of the Socratic method in the tradition of Leonard Nelson and Gustav Heckmann . Münster, Hamburg, London: Lit 2002 ( Socratic Philosophy, Vol. 10) ISBN 3-8258-6322-0 .
  • Minna Specht u. Willi Eichler (ed.): Leonard Nelson for memory. Public Life Publishing House, Frankfurt a. M. u. Göttingen 1953.
  • Udo Vorholt : Leonard Nelson's political theory. A case study on the relationship between philosophical-political theory and concrete-political practice. Nomos-Verlags-Gesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1998 ISBN 3-7890-5550-6 .
  • Jürgen Ziechmann: Theory and practice of education with Leonard Nelson and his association . Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1970.
  • Biographical Lexicon of Socialism Volume I Verlag JHW Dietz Nachf. GmbH Hanover pp. 230–231

Web links

Wikisource: Leonard Nelson  - Sources and full texts

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Holger Franke: Leonard Nelson. Verlag an der Lottbek, Ammersbek bei Hamburg 1991, p. 93.
  2. ↑ Georgi Schischkoff (Ed.): Philosophical dictionary. Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, Lemma Nelson.
  3. ↑ Detlef Horster : The Socratic Conversation in Theory and Practice. Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1994, p. 30.
  4. ^ Leonard Nelson: Lectures on the basics of ethics. Second volume. System of philosophical ethics and pedagogy. Göttingen-Hamburg: Publishing house publ. Life, 1949. p. 10.
  5. ↑ quoted from: Matthias Rude: Antispeziesismus. The liberation of humans and animals in the animal rights movement and the left . Butterfly-Verlag, Stuttgart 2013, p. 129.
personal data
SURNAME Nelson, Leonard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH October 29, 1927
Place of death Goettingen