Philipp Buttmann (pedagogue)

Portrait of Philipp Karl Buttmann in the Dorotheenstädtischer Friedhof Berlin

Philipp Karl Buttmann (born December 5, 1764 in Frankfurt am Main , † June 21, 1829 in Berlin ) was a German librarian , pedagogue , classical philologist and member of the Berlin Enlightenment . He is considered to be the link between the "old" philology Christian Gottlob Heynes and the "new" philology Friedrich August Wolf and August Boeckh .

Life, achievements and impact

1685 great-grandfather Jacques Boudemont fled because of the Huguenot persecution from Flanders to Philippsburg (Baden-Württemberg). Only Buttmann's father changed the name to Buttmann. He is the father of the philologists August Buttmann and Alexander Buttmann and the theologian Philipp Buttmann .

Buttmann attended grammar school in his native Frankfurt am Main. In 1782 he began at the University of Göttingen with Christian Gottlob Heyne with the study of the only recently independent classical philology. However, he was only a guest and not a full member of Heyne's famous philological seminar . Buttmann self-critically admitted a certain discontinuity during his studies, which he did not complete with a qualification letter despite Heyne's advice, which made it difficult for him to find a job for some time after graduating. In 1786 he moved to the University of Strasbourg to work with Johannes Schweighäuser , who used Buttmann in his work on his Polybios edition. A year later he became the educator of the grandchildren of Leopold I (Anhalt-Dessau) , in particular the Hereditary Prince. He uses the time for intensive studies of Greek. In 1789 he became an unskilled worker under the second librarian Erich Biester through the agency of the widow of the bookseller August Mylius , and in 1796 secretary-librarian at the Royal Library in Berlin. In 1800 Buttmann was appointed to teach Latin and Greek at the Joachimsthalsches Gymnasium . In 1808 he finished his activity at the school, but turned down an appointment as professor at the University of Landshut . After leaving school, he founded the (Second) Lawless Society in Berlin in 1809 and became its first master. In 1810 Buttmann was appointed to the "Furnishing Commission" of the newly founded Berlin University and one year later he became secretary of the historical-philological class of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences , to which he had been a member since 1806, following his deceased friend Georg Ludwig Spalding . Initially, this choice was viewed critically by Wilhelm von Humboldt, for example , because Buttmann was not trusted to carry out this activity, which involved a lot of administrative work and which was not in itself suitable for him. With a few reservations, however, he had fulfilled the function well. Adolf von Harnack later described Buttmann's work as "irreplaceable for the academy". In 1816, after the beast, who had meanwhile become the first librarian, he was offered the position of First Librarian of the Royal Library, which he turned down. Here, as with the withdrawal from high school teaching and the rejection of university appointments, Buttmann's unwillingness to take on official positions was evident. He deviated from this attitude only in his functions in founding the Berlin University. But even there he did not strive for a job, but held lectures, whereupon he was awarded his doctorate in 1811. After August Boeckh founded the Philological Seminar, he limited himself as far as possible to interpretive exercises on Roman writers. But he kept this voluntarily and unpaid until an illness forced him to give up until 1827. Boeckh then also paid tribute to Buttmann's unselfishness in an obituary. Since 1820 he was a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

After living a rather unsteady research life without specialization, Buttmann devoted himself to two subject areas in particular. On the one hand, this was the grammar of the ancient Greek language , where it was in the tradition of Johannes Schweighäuser. Here he mainly researched language teaching and published an important school grammar here, which increased in size in several editions. The work was inspired by the widow Mylius, who also brought out the book in her publishing house as a supplement to Friedrich Gedike's reading book. While the first edition in 1792 was still a small grammar, it grew over the increased editions in 1799 up to two volumes in three parts, which were published between 1819 and 1827. During Buttmann's lifetime, his grammar was published 13 times. His grammar was in its 22nd edition in 1869, and the English translation is still in use today. In German-speaking countries, it was praised for its clarity and quickly spread across high schools. The grammar ensured an upswing in Greek teaching in German-speaking countries and was in use for several decades and was a central grammar in school teaching. She also experienced translations into several languages. Second, Buttmann did research on Greek mythology . As a successor to Christian Gottlob Heyne, a teacher he admired, he understood ancient myths as the expression of a primitive, pre-logical and symbolic language. He tried to get to the original, historical core of the myths by analyzing the myths historically. In the end he hoped to be able to work out the original character of ancient peoples. This contradicts Friedrich Creutzer's research on symbolism. He had combined his two most important research areas in the besus or contributions to the Greek word explanation , in which he discussed questions going beyond his school grammar, in particular on the basis of the poets Homer and Hesiod . In particular, they had a lasting effect on Homer research . Jacob Wackernagel judged that only Buttmann's work on Greek grammar had met higher scientific standards. Its aftermath in research on mythology is of far less importance.

Grave in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery.

Buttmann was a central figure in the Enlightenment in Berlin. His character is described as humorous, sociable, lovable, selfless and sociable. He had a very comprehensive general education. Not least because of these characteristics, Buttmann was part and in part the driving force of several important intellectual circles. This included the salon of the widow Mylius and the Society of Herodotus-loving Friends founded by him, as well as the (Second) Lawless Society . In addition to him, these circles included Wilhelm von Humboldt, Friedrich Schleiermacher , Friedrich Carl von Savigny and August Boeckh. The Museum of Antiquities , founded by Friedrich August Wolf, was only granted a short lifespan; founded in 1807, the second volume in 1809 was the last again. Still, this periodical had a tremendous impact. Ludwig Friedrich Heindorf's publication of the Plato dialogues continued after Buttmann's death, as did the work of other friends such as Georg Ludwig Spalding and Friedrich Gedike. After Wolf's criticism of Heindorf's work, Buttmann defended it, which led to a break between Wolf and Buttmann.

Buttmann's grave can be found in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery .

Fonts

• with Friedrich August Wolf (Ed.): Museum of Ancient Science. Vol. 1-2, 1807-1809.
• Mythologus or collected treatises on the sagas of antiquity. 2 volumes, Berlin 1828.
• Extensive Greek language teaching. Volume I, Adamant Media Corporation, 2002 ISBN 0-543-83066-7 .
• Buttmann's Larger Greek Grammar. A Greek Grammar for the Use of High Schools and Universities. University of Michigan Library, 2009 (English).
• with Karl Lachmann : Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine. 2 volumes, ISBN 1-108-00764-3 .

literature

• August Buttmann:  Buttmann, Philipp . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 3, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1876, pp. 656-659.
• Genethliakon zum Buttmannstage, December 5, 1899 . Berlin 1899 (with picture)
• Wolfhart Unte : Berlin Classical Philologists in the 19th Century , in: Willmuth Arenhövel, Christa Schreiber (Hrsg.): Berlin and the ancient world. Essays. Architecture, applied arts, painting, sculpture, theater and science from the 16th century to the present day . Berlin 1979, pp. 9-67.
• Sotera Fornaro: Buttmann, Philipp Karl. In: Peter Kuhlmann , Helmuth Schneider (Hrsg.): History of the ancient sciences. Biographical Lexicon (= The New Pauly . Supplements. Volume 6). Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02033-8 , Col. 185 f.

Web links

Commons : Philipp Buttmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Philipp Buttmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Philipp Buttmann on the website of The Lawless Society in Berlin