Thomas Abbot

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Professor of Mathematics and Philosophy

Thomas Abbt (born November 25, 1738 in Ulm , † November 3, 1766 in Bückeburg ) was a German writer and philosopher of the Enlightenment .

Life

Thomas Abbt's father was a wealthy arms dealer and trained wig maker of the same name. His mother Anna Elisabeth, b. Binderin, was a pastor's daughter. After attending grammar school in Ulm, he studied philosophy and mathematics at Halle University from 1756 . After he had acquired the academic degree of a master's degree in philosophy in Halle in 1758, he worked in 1760 as an associate professor of philosophy at the Brandenburg University of Frankfurt ; on November 11, 1761 he followed the call of the University of Rinteln as a professor of philosophy and mathematics. Before that, he had studied in Berlin .

His stay in Berlin brought him the acquaintance of the enlightener Christoph Friedrich Nicolai , to whose Berlin Wednesday company he soon belonged. Abbot also became friends with Moses Mendelssohn . Under the pseudonym * B *, Abbot worked on the letters relating to the latest literature , which appeared in Berlin in 24 parts between 1733 and 1765. On his way home after spending almost a year in France , Abbot visited the philosopher Voltaire in Ferney near Geneva .

At the end of 1765, Wilhelm Graf zu Schaumburg-Lippe appointed Thomas Abbt to the count of Schaumburg-Lippischen court, government and consistorial councilor and to Patronus scholarum and brought him to Bückeburg. Abbt accepted, although he had simultaneously received offers to the University of Marburg as professor of mathematics and to the University of Halle as professor of philosophy.

On November 3, 1766, Thomas Abbt died of a hemorrhoid disease in Bückeburg. A written estate can be found as part of the Princely Schaumburg-Lippische Hausarchiv in the state archive in Bückeburg .

Works

  • Correspondences with Mendelssohn and Nicolai
  • Thoughts of the establishment of the first studies of a young gentleman of the state . Leipzig and Berlin 1767. ( urn : nbn: de: gbv: 3: 1-170820 )
  • Fragment of Portuguese History . Berlin and Stettin 1770 (digitized from SUB Goettingen)
  • About the friendships of women
  • Investigation into whether God himself buried Moses , 1757
  • On the Influence of the Beautiful on the Stricter Sciences
  • From death for the fatherland , Berlin, 1761, digitized
  • On Merit , 1765
  • About certainty in sensual, theoretical and moral truths

Newer editions

  • Mixed works , reprint of the 3-volume edition Berlin and Stettin 1772–1782; Hildesheim, Olms 1978.
  • On the merits , reprint of the edition Goslar and Leipzig 1766; Scriptor, Königstein 1978 ISBN 3-589-15200-1 .

literature

  • Wilhelm-Ludwig Federlin: Abbot, Thomas . In: Killy Literature Lexicon , Volume 1. A. De Gruyter, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-916087-2 (accessed via De Gruyter Online)
  • Annie Bender: Thomas Abbot. A contribution to the representation of the awakening attitude towards life in the 18th century . Cohen, Bonn 1922, archive.org .
  • Stefan Brüdermann : The Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Abbt in Rinteln and Bückeburg , in: Niedersächsisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 90 (2018), pp. 77-99.
  • Stefan Lorenz: Skepticism and natural religion. Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn in their debate on Johann Joachim Spalding's “Determination of Man” . In: Michael Albrecht / Eva J. Engel / Norbert Hinske (eds.): Moses Mendelssohn and the circles of his effectiveness, Tübingen 1994, pp. 113-133.
  • Eva J. Engel: Moses Mendelssohn's correspondence with Lessing, Abbt and Iselin . Leipzig, Rosa-Luxemburg-Verein 1994 ISBN 3-929994-30-5
  • Ingeborg Nerling-Pietsch: Herders literary monuments. Forms of characteristics before Friedrich Schlegel . Lit, Münster 1997 ISBN 3-8258-3287-2
  • Edmund Pentzhorn: Thomas Abbot . Giessen, Univ. Diss., 1884
  • Friedrich von Pressel:  Thomas Abbt . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, pp. 2-4.
  • Wilhelm Michel:  Abbot, Thomas. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 4 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , p. 1 (third entry).
  • Benjamin W. Redekop: Enlightenment and Community. Lessing, Abbt, Herder and the Quest for a German Public , Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000. (McGill-Queen's studies in the history of ideas, 28)
  • Eva Piirimäe: Dying for the Fatherland. Thomas Abbt's Theory of Aesthetic Patriotism. In: History of European Ideas , 35 (2009), pp. 194-208, ISSN  0191-6599 .
  • Wolfgang Rother : Thomas Abbot . In: Helmut Holzhey, Vilem Mudroch (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy, The philosophy of the 18th century , Volume 5: Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Switzerland, Northern and Eastern Europe . Schwabe, Basel 2014, pp. 677-680 (literature: p. 710), ISBN 978-3-7965-2631-2 .
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Strieder : Basis for a Hessian scholar and writer story. From the Reformation to the present day. Barmeier, Göttingen 1781, volume 1, p. 1 ( books.google.de )
  • Johann Georg Meusel : Lexicon of the German writers who died from 1750 to 1800. Gerhard Fleischer d. J., Leipzig 1802, volume 1, p. 3 ( books.google.de )
  • Johann Gottfried Herder : About Thomas Abbts writings. The torso of a memorial erected on his grave . First piece, 1768 ( full text of "Ueber Thomas Abbts Schriften" at the University of Tartu)
  • Michael Zaremba: Philosopher and friend of Berlin . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 11, 1998, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 52-56 ( luise-berlin.de ).

Web links

Wikisource: Thomas Abbt  - Sources and full texts
Commons : Thomas Abbt  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1890–1973, curriculum vitae
personal data
SURNAME Abbot, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH November 25, 1738
PLACE OF BIRTH Ulm
DATE OF DEATH November 3, 1766
Place of death Buckeburg