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Friedrich Paulsen

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FRIEDRICH PAULSEN (1846-1908), German philosopher and educationalist, was born at Langenhorn (Schleswig) and educated at Erlangen, Bonn and Berlin, where he became extraordinary professor of philosophy and pedagogy in 1878. In 1896 he succeeded Eduard Zeller as professor of moral philosophy at Berlin. He died on the 14th of August 1908. He was the greatest of the pupils of G. T. Fechner, to whose doctrine of panpsychism he gave great prominence by his Einleitung in die Philosophic (1892; 7th ed., igloo; Eng. trans., 1895). He went, however, considerably beyond Fechner in attempting to give an epistemological account of our knowledge of the psychophysical. Admitting Kant's hypothesis that by inner sense we are conscious of mental states only, he holds that this consciousness constitutes a knowledge of the "thing-in-itself" - which Kant denies. Soul is, therefore, a practical reality which Paulsen, with Schopenhauer, regards as known by the act of "will." But this "will" is neither rational desire, unconscious irrational will, nor conscious intelligent will, but an instinct, a "will to live" ( Zielstrebigkeit ), often subconscious, pursuing ends, indeed, but without reasoning as to means. This conception of will, though consistent and convenient to the main thesis, must be rigidly distinguished from the ordinary significance of will, i.e. rational desire. Paulsen is almost better known for his educational writings than as a pure philosopher. His German Education, Past and Present (Eng. trans., by I. Lorenz, 1907) is a work of great value.

Among his other works are: Versuch einer Entwickelunggeschichte d. Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie (Leipzig, 1875); Im. Kant (1898, 1 899); "Griindung Organization and Lebensordnungen der deutschen Universit y ten im Mittelalter" (in Sybel's Histor. Zeitschr. vol. xlv. 1881); Gesch. d. gelehrten Unterrichts auf d. deutschen Schulen and Universiteiten (1885, 1896); System der Ethik (1889, 1899; Eng. trans. [partial] 1899); Das Realgymnasium u. d. humanist. Bildung (1889); Kant d. Philos. d. Protestantismus (1899); Schopenhauer, Hamlet u. Mephistopheles (1900); Philosophia militans (1900 ,1901); Parteipolitik u. Moral (1900).