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BUCHNER, FRIEDRICH KARL CHRISTIAN LUD...
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See also:BUCHNER, See also:FRIEDRICH KARL See also:CHRISTIAN See also:LUDWIG (1824-1899) , See also:German philosopher and physician, was See also:born at See also:Darmstadt. He studied at See also:Giessen, See also:Strassburg, Wiirzburg and See also:Vienna. In 1852 he became lecturer in See also:medicine at the university of See also:Tubingen, where he published his See also:great See also:work Kraft und Slog (18J5). In this work, the product, according to See also:Lange, of a fanatical See also:enthusiasm for humanity, he sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of See also:matter and force, and the finality of See also:physical force. The extreme See also:materialism of this work excited so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his See also:post at Tubingen. He retired to Darmstadt, where he practised as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological and physiological magazines. He continued his philosophical work in See also:defence of materialism, and published Natur and Geist (18J7), Aus Natur and Wissenschaft (vol. i., 1862; vol. ii., 1884), Fremdes and Eigenes aus dem geistigen Leben der Gegenwart (189o), Darwinismus and Socialismus (1894), See also:IM Dienste der Wahrheit (1899). He died at Darmstadt on the 1st of May 1899. In estimating Buchner's See also:philosophy it must be remembered that he was primarily a physiologist, not a metaphysician. Matter and force (or See also:energy) are See also:infinite; the conservation of force follows from the imperishability of matter, the ultimate basis of all See also:science. Buchner is not always clear in his theory of the relation between matter and force. At one See also:time he refuses to explain it, but generally he assumes that all natural and spiritual forces are indwelling in matter. " Just as a See also:steam-See also:engine," he says in Kraft and Stoff (7th ed., p. 130), " produces See also:motion, so the intricate organic complex of force-bearing sub-stance in an See also:animal organism produces a See also:total sum of certain effects, which, when See also:bound together in a unity, are called by us mind, soul, thought." Here he postulates force and mind as emanating from See also:original matter—a materialistic See also:monism. But in other parts of his See also:works he suggests that mind and matter are two different aspects of that which is the basis of all things--a monism which is not necessarily materialistic, and which, in the See also:absence of further explanation, constitutes a See also:confession of failure. Buchner was much less concerned to establish a scientific metaphysic than to protest against the romantic See also:idealism of his predecessors and the theological interpretations of the universe. Nature according to him is purely physical; it has no purpose, no will, no See also:laws imposed by extraneous authority, no supernatural ethical See also:sanction. See Frauenstadt, Der Materialismus (See also:Leipzig, 1856) ; See also:Janet, The Materialism of the See also:Present See also:Day: A See also:Criticism of Dr Biuhner's See also:System, trans. See also:Masson (See also:London, 1867). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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