Otto Most (philosopher)

Otto Most (born November 19, 1904 in Breslau ; † November 2, 1968 in Münster ) was a German philosopher and professor in Münster.

Most passed the Abitur at the Catholic Matthias Gymnasium , studied in Innsbruck and from 1926 at the University of Breslau with Ludwig Baur and Richard Hönigswald . In 1931 he received his doctorate on a subject on Franz Brentano , and in November 1932 he received his habilitation . He joined the NSLB on August 1, 1933, and the SS on November 1, 1933 . In 1934 he left at his own request. His habilitation thesis “The determinants of mental life” (published only in 1939) was directed against psychologism and defended freedom of will and thought in the Catholic tradition. In 1936/7 Most could still represent the Baur chair. In 1939 the venia legendi for Breslau was withdrawn from him under the influence of the Nazi philosopher August Faust . Most was drafted into the Army Personnel Office . He joined the NSDAP on April 1, 1942 . In 1941, however, he did not receive Peter Wust's chair in Münster, and it was only in 1948 that he succeeded in receiving this Catholic concordat chair . Ludger Oeing-Hanhoff was his assistant and student.

Most was a member of the Catholic student union AV Austria Innsbruck since 1923 .

Fonts (selection)

• Franz Brentano's ethics and their historical foundations. Studies on the ethical value problem (= Universitas archive; Vol. 7 = Vol. 43 of the entire series). Helios publishing house, Münster i. W. 1931.
• The determinants of mental life. 1. Limits of the causal approach . Franke, Breslau 1939.
• Hannes Böhringer (ed.): Temporal and Eternal in the Philosophy of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer (= Studies on Philosophy and Literature of the Nineteenth Century; Vol. 33). Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1977.

literature

• Norbert Kapferer : The Nazification of Philosophy at the University of Breslau, 1933–1945 , Münster 2002.
• Christian Tilitzki : The German Philosophy in the Weimar Republic and in the Third Reich , Berlin 2002 (esp. Part II, p. 313 f).
• Joachim Ritter : Otto Most, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 77 (1970) 421f.

Web links

• Literature by and about Otto Most in the catalog of the German National Library