Philip Merlan

Philip Merlan (born December 21, 1897 in Kolomyja , Galicia , † December 24, 1968 in Pomona , California ) was an Austrian-American historian of philosophy .

Merlan took part in the First World War and was wounded in Italy. He then studied philosophy and law at the University of Vienna . Heinrich Gomperz was an important teacher in philosophy . In 1924 he received his doctorate in philosophy, in 1927 he was awarded a Dr. jur. ( Doctor iuris utriusque ). Because of the Anschluss he left Austria; in 1940 he emigrated with his wife to the USA via the Soviet Union and Japan. Merlan taught from 1942 on in Claremont , California, where he held a professorship for German philosophy and literature. He was visiting professor in Würzburg, Bonn, New York ( Columbia University ), Munich and Oxford.

The focus of his research was in the field of ancient philosophy , with particular attention to Neoplatonism . He has also worked on some modern day philosophers, including Johann Georg Hamann .

Works (selection)

• Plato's form of philosophical communication . Lviv 1939.
• Form and Content in Plato's Philosophy . In: Journal of the History of Ideas 8/4 (1947), pp. 406-430.
• From Platonism to Neoplatonism . Nijhoff, Den Haag 1953. 2nd revised and expanded edition: Nijhoff, Den Haag 1960.
• Studies in Epicurus and Aristotle . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1960.
• Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness . Nijhoff, The Hague 1963.
• Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus . In: Arthur H. Armstrong (ed.): The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1967, pp. 14-132.
• Metaphysics. Name and subject . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1969.
• A Syllabus in the Humanities. The Cultural History of the Western World from the Age of Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century . Christopher Publishing House, North Quincy (Mass.) 1973.
• Small philosophical writings , ed. by Franciszka Merlan with an accompanying word by Hans Wagner . Olms, Hildesheim / New York 1976, ISBN 3-487-05727-1 (numerous essays on ancient, medieval and modern philosophy)

Festschrift

• Robert B. Palmer, Robert Hammerton-Kelley (Eds.): Philomathes . Brill, Leiden 1971 (with bibliography)

Web links

• Literature by and about Philip Merlan in the catalog of the German National Library
• Philip Merlan's estate in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek