Werner Gottfried Brock

Werner Gottfried Brock (born March 28, 1901 in Berlin ; † June 21, 1974 in Emmendingen ) was a German philosopher.

The son of a doctor studied philosophy from 1919, first in Berlin , then in Jena , in Munich and in Heidelberg , where Karl Jaspers was one of his teachers. From 1921 he studied medicine and passed the first state examination in 1928. In 1928 he received his doctorate at the University of Göttingen under Georg Misch and Moritz Geiger with a thesis on Friedrich Nietzsche . In 1931 he completed his habilitation at Misch with a thesis on Philosophical Biology entitled “ The basic structure of being alive. An ontological investigation into the foundation of philosophical biology ”.

From 1930 Brock taught as a private lecturer and research assistant with Martin Heidegger at the University of Freiburg . On September 27, 1933 Brock lost his license to teach because of his Jewish origins. With Heidegger's help, Brock received a scholarship in Cambridge and taught German philosophy there from 1934. In 1951 he returned to the University of Freiburg as an adjunct professor. He taught there until 1969. In the last years of his life, Brock suffered from schizophrenia and died after a long stay in hospital.

Brock's special scientific interests were German idealism , the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and existential philosophy . During his time in England, among other things, he contributed to publicizing German philosophical schools. His anthology, published in 1949 under the title " Existence and Being ", contains the first major introduction to Heidegger's philosophy in English. On his return to Freiburg, on the other hand, he brought his German students closer to the contemporary English philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and George Edward Moore . Brock had a spiritually fruitful friendship with the physicist and molecular biologist Max Delbrück .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hermann Heidegger (Ed.): "Martin Heidegger Complete Edition. 1st Department. Published writings 1910-1976. Volume 16: Speeches and other testimonies of a life path", Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt a. M. 2000 p. 792
2. ^ Walter Shropshire: "Max Delbrück and the New Perception of Biology, 1906-1981" Bloomington 2007 p. 91 ff.

Fonts

• Nietzsche's idea of ​​culture . Bonn 1930, zugl .: Göttingen, Univ. Diss. 1928.
• The basic structure of being alive. An ontological investigation into the foundations of philosophical biology (1931). Göttingen, Univ. Habil.-Schr .; ed. by Michael Becht and Albert Raffelt , Freiburg 2005; also as electronic publication: http://www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/1701/
• An Introduction to Contemporary German Philosophy . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK) 1935
• Martin Heidegger: Existence and Being . Henry Regnery, Chicago 1949. Selection, translation and extensive introduction by Brock.

source

• Heike Delitz:  Brock, Werner Gottfried. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 28, Bautz, Nordhausen 2007, ISBN 978-3-88309-413-7 , Sp. 252-258.