Ludwig Büchner

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Ludwig Friedrich Büchner , pseudonym: Karl Ludwig , (born March 29, 1824 in Darmstadt ; † May 1, 1899 ibid), actually Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner , was a doctor , scientist and philosopher . In the materialism dispute , Büchner was, alongside Carl Vogt and Jakob Moleschott, one of the most fruitful and successful representatives of scientific materialism. He contributed to the spread of Darwinism . Ludwig Büchner is a brother of Georg Büchner .

Ludwig Büchner was called Louis after his first name , which occasionally leads to confusion: Both his older brother Wilhelm Büchner and his younger brother Alexander Büchner - he lived in France after 1855 - had the name Ludwig, the permanent first name of Hessian landgraves and Grand dukes.

Ludwig Büchner

Life

Ludwig Büchner was the son of the doctor Ernst (Karl) Büchner (1786–1861) and his wife Louise Caroline née Reuss (1781–1858). He was a younger brother of the poet Georg Büchner (1813–1837), whose posthumous writings he was the first to publish anonymously, as well as the brother of Mathilde (1815-188), Luise (1821–1877), writer and women's rights activist, Wilhelm Ludwig (1816– 1892), manufacturer and politician and Alexander (1827–1904), professor of literary history.

Ludwig Büchner studied medicine and philosophy in Gießen , where he co-founded the old Gießen fraternity Allemannia in 1844 , as well as in Strasbourg , Würzburg and Vienna . He received his doctorate in medicine in 1848 and then worked as a general practitioner in Darmstadt. In 1852 he became an assistant doctor at the University of Tübingen , where he completed his habilitation in forensic medicine in 1854. Büchner published numerous scientific and philosophical writings. While he was still doing his doctorate , he took part in the 1848 revolution and in 1855 his license to teach in Tübingen was revoked after the publication of Kraft und Material , so that he had to return to Darmstadt to earn his living as a general practitioner there again.

In 1860 Louis Büchner married his wife (Karoline Georgine) Sophie, née Thomas (1836–1920), the daughter of the writer and lawyer Dr. Georg Christian Thomas and his wife Caroline née Henkelmann.

In 1881, Büchner founded the German Freethinkers Association together with Wilhelm Liebknecht and others and was co-initiator of the Free German Hochstift in Frankfurt am Main, which still exists today .

Ludwig Büchner's grave is in the old cemetery in Darmstadt (grave site: IS 17).

plant

In terms of intellectual history, Büchner's materialism meant the replacement of philosophy with an ideological superstructure that was built on the evolving natural sciences in the second half of the 19th century after speculative systems were forgotten. Büchner popularized scientific research results. So he propagated Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and a mechanistic theory of inheritance. At the same time he tried again and again to systematic representations of his theory of a "natural", i.e. H. mechanistic-materialistic world order.

For Büchner, "thinking and being are just as inseparable as force and matter or spirit and matter"; therefore “nothing is clearer than that, however highly differentiated and peculiar the characters of life may be, they are nothing more and nothing less than movements of ordinary matter brought under peculiar and highly specialized conditions”. According to Büchner, his own materialism is incapable of solving the “great world puzzle”: “This world puzzle will never be solved by the human mind because it is the boundaries of time, space and causality set by nature and experience, which the universe as neither knows nor can skip it. ”Several of Büchner's later writings, in which the core of his materialism reveals a vulgar, morally pointed idealism, are devoted to the relationship between the natural sciences and religious questions.

reception

With 21 German editions within just fifty years and numerous translations into other languages, Kraft und Stoff was an unusually successful bestseller for its time .

The Marxist attitude towards Büchner's work is inconsistent. While Friedrich Engels dismissed him as a representative of “ travel preacher materialism ”, Franz Mehring described his work as a “fresh gust of wind” in the reaction that formed after 1848.

Ludwig Büchner is of particular importance for the intellectual history of the Middle East, as Darwinism and materialism became known there through the French translations of his works. Strongly influenced by him were, for example, the Kurdish-born Ottoman journalist Abdullah Cevdet and Schiblī Schumayyil , an author of Christian origin who worked in Egypt and came from Syria.

politics

From 1884 to 1890 Ludwig Büchner was a member of the second chamber of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse for the Liberal Party . He was elected for the constituency Rheinhessen 9 / Ober-Ingelheim .

Fonts

  • Strength and substance. Empirical and natural philosophical studies. In a generally understandable presentation. Meidinger, Frankfurt am Main 1855, digitized version and full text in the German text archive
  • Physiological pictures. 2 volumes. Thomas, Leipzig 1861–1875
  • Nature and spirit. 2nd edition Leipzig 1865
  • Six lectures on Darwin's theory of the transformation of species and the first emergence of the world of organisms. As well as about the application of the theory of transformation to man, the relation of this theory to the doctrine of progress and its connection with the materialistic philosophy of the past and present. In a generally understandable representation. Thomas, Leipzig 1868, digitized
  • The position of man in nature in the past, present and future or: where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Generally understandable text with numerous scientific explanations and comments. Thomas, Leipzig 1869, digitized
  • From the spiritual life of animals or states and deeds of the little ones. 3rd edition, Thomas, Leipzig 1880
  • Love and love life in the animal world. 2nd edition, Berlin 1885
  • About religious and scientific worldview. A historical-critical attempt. Thomas, Leipzig 1887
  • The power of heredity and its influence on the moral and spiritual advancement of mankind . Darwinist Writings, Volume 12, Ernst Günther, Leipzig 1882 ( digitized version )
  • The new Hamlet. Poetry and prose from the papers of a late pessimist. Roth, Giessen 1885
  • At the death camp of the century. A free thinker's glimpses from time into time . Roth, Giessen 1898.
  • The book of long life. Or the doctrine of the duration and maintenance of life (macrobiotics). Spohr, Leipzig 1892
  • Darwinism and Socialism or The Struggle for Existence and Modern Society . Darwinist Writings, Issue 19, Ernst Günther, Leipzig 1894 ( digitized version )
  • In the service of truth. Selected essays from nature and science. With biography of the author by Alex Büchner. Roth, Giessen 1900, digitized version

literature

  • Axel W. Bauer : Büchner, Ludwig Friedrich Karl Christian. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 219.
  • Peter Berglar : The new Hamlet. Ludwig Büchner in his time (= Hessian contributions to German literature. ISSN  0440-7512 ). Society of Hessian Literature Friends, Darmstadt 1978.
  • Heiner Boehncke , Peter Brunner, Hans Sarkowicz : The Büchners or the desire to change the world. Societäts-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-7973-1045-3 .
  • Andreas W. Daum , Science Popularization in the 19th Century. Civil culture, scientific education and the German public, 1848–1914 . Oldenbourg, Munich (1st edition 1998) 2002, ISBN 978-3-486-56551-5 .
  • Rolf Dlubek : Ludwig Büchner and the international workers' association . In: Meeting reports of the Leibnitz Society . and 53, born in 2002. Digitized
  • Helge Dvorak: Biographical Lexicon of the German Burschenschaft. Volume I: Politicians. Volume 7: Supplement A – K. Winter, Heidelberg 2013, ISBN 978-3-8253-6050-4 , pp. 170-173.
  • Julius Frauenstädt : Materialism and its error. A response to Ludwig Büchner's "Kraft und Stoff". Brockhaus, Leipzig 1856, digitized .
  • Fredrick Gregory: Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (= Studies in the History of Modern Science. Vol. 1). Reidel, Dordrecht a. a. 1977, ISBN 90-277-0760-X .
  • Matthias Gröbel: Georg Büchner's siblings in the revolution of 1848/49. In: Georg Büchner Yearbook. Vol. 12, 2009/2012 (2012), pp. 371-406, doi: 10.1515 / 9783110280593.371 .
  • Matthias Gröbel: "One must therefore seek to cultivate humanity". Ideas of an ideal society with Ludwig Büchner. In: Georg Büchner and his time. 1813-1837. An exhibition by the Hessian State Archives Darmstadt and the Darmstadt City Archives on the 175th anniversary of Georg Büchner's death and 200th birthday (2012–2013). Hessisches Staatsarchiv, Darmstadt 2012, pp. 50–58.
  • Matthias Gröbel, Manfred HW Köhler, Thomas Lange, Cordelia Scharpf: “Human progress in human development.” Georg Büchner's siblings in their century (= sources and research on Hessian history. Vol. 167). Self-published by the Hessian Historical Commission Darmstadt and the Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt a. a. 2012, ISBN 978-3-88443-322-5 (in it a detailed essay by Matthias Gröbel on the life and work of Ludwig Büchner: Ludwig Büchner - A seeker of salvation in the industrial age. ).
  • Şükrü Hanioğlu: Blueprints for a future society. Late Ottoman materialists on science, religion, and art. In: Elizabeth Özdalga (Ed.): Late Ottoman society. The intellectual legacy (= SOAS Routledge Shorton studies on the Middle East. Vol. 3). Routledge Shorton, London a. a. 2005, ISBN 0-415-34164-7 , pp. 28-116.
  • Paul Janet : The materialism of our time in Germany. Examination of the Dr. Büchner's system. Translated with an introduction and comments by KA von Reichlin-Meldegg. Published with a foreword by IH Fichte . Baillière et al. a., Paris a. a. 1866.
  • Friedrich Albert Lange : History of materialism and criticism of its significance in the present. Volume 2: History of materialism since Kant (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch Wissenschaft 70). Edited and introduced by Alfred Schmidt . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-518-07670-1 , passim.
  • Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 93.
  • Volker Mueller (Ed.): L. Büchner: About scientific worldview. A historical-critical attempt (= historical series of free-spirited texts. Vol. 2). (Reprint of the Leipzig edition, Verlag Thomas, 1887). Lenz, Neustadt am Rübenberge 1999, ISBN 3-933037-12-3 .
  • Anton Neuhäusler :  Büchner, Ludwig Friedrich Karl Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1955, ISBN 3-428-00183-4 , p. 722 ( digitized version ).
  • Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the first and second chambers of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse 1820–1918 and the state parliament of the People's State of Hesse 1919–1933 (= Political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse. Vol. 19 = Work of the Hessian Historical Commission. NF Vol. 29) . Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1 , No. 95.
  • Hans Georg Ruppel, Birgit Groß: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse (2nd Chamber) and the Landtag of the People's State of Hesse (= Darmstädter Archivschriften. Vol. 5). Verlag des Historisches Verein für Hessen, Darmstadt 1980, ISBN 3-922316-14-X , p. 77.
  • Franz Staudinger :  Büchner, Ludwig . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, pp. 459-461.
  • Dieter Wittich : On the history and interpretation of materialism by Vogt, Moleschott and Ludwig Büchner. In: Scientific journal of the Humboldt University in Berlin. Social and Linguistic Series. 12, 1963, ISSN  0522-9855 , 389 ff.

Web links

Wikisource: Ludwig Büchner  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Ludwig Büchner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Andreas Mettenleiter : Personal reports, memories, diaries and letters from German-speaking doctors. Supplements and supplements II (A – H). In: Würzburg medical history reports. 21, 2002, pp. 490-518, here p. 497
  2. ↑ Ruppel / Groß give the date of death April 30, 1899, but the correct date is May 1, 1899 (see Hessisches Staatsarchiv Marburg (HStAMR), Order 901 No. 342, p. 361 ( digitized ).).
  3. ^ Axel W. Bauer: Büchner, Ludwig Friedrich Karl Christian. 2005, p. 219.
  4. ↑ Şükrü Hanioğlu: Blueprints for a future society: late Ottoman materialists on science, religion, and art. In Elizabeth Özdalga (ed.): Late Ottoman society. London 2005, pp. 28-116.
personal data
SURNAME Büchner, Ludwig
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Büchner, Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor, scientist and philosopher, brother of Georg Büchner
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt
DATE OF DEATH May 1, 1899
Place of death Darmstadt