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TRENDELENBURG, FRIEDRICH ADOLF (1802-...
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See also:TRENDELENBURG, See also:FRIEDRICH ADOLF (1802-1872) , See also:German philosopher and philologist, was See also:born on the 30th of See also:November 1802 at See also:Eutin, near See also:Lubeck. He was educated at the See also:universities of See also:Kiel, See also:Leipzig and See also:Berlin. He became more and more attracted to the study of See also:Plato and See also:Aristotle, and his See also:doctor's dissertation (1826) was an See also:attempt to reach through Aristotle's criticisms a more accurate knowledge of the Platonic See also:philosophy (Platonis de ideis et numeris doctrina ex Aristotele illustrata). He declined the offer of a classical See also:chair at Kiel,and accepted a See also:post as See also:tutor to the son of an intimate friend of See also:Altenstein, the Prussian See also:minister of See also:education. He held this position for seven years (1826-1833), occupying his leisure See also:time with the preparation of a See also:critical edition of Aristotle's De anima (1833; 2nd ed. by C. Belger, 1877). In 1833 Altenstein appointed Trendelenburg extraordinary See also:professor in Berlin, and four years later he was advanced to an See also:ordinary professorship. For nearly See also:forty years he proved himself markedly successful as an academical teacher, during the greater See also:part of which time he had to examine in philosophy and pedagogics all candidates for the scholastic profession in See also:Prussia. In 1865 he became involved in an acrimonious controversy on the See also:interpretation of See also:Kant's See also:doctrine of Space with Kuno See also:Fischer, whom he attacked in Kuno Fischer and sein Kant (1869), which See also:drew forth the reply See also:Anti-Trendelenburg (187o). He died on the 24th of See also:January 1872. Trendelenburg's philosophizing is conditioned throughout by his loving study of Plato and Aristotle, whom he regards not as opponents but as See also:building jointly on the broad basis of See also:idealism. His own standpoint may almost be called a See also:modern version of Aristotle thus interpreted. While denying the possibility of an See also:absolute method and an absolute philosophy, as contended for by See also:Hegel and others, Trendelenburg was emphatically an idealist in the See also:ancient or Platonic sense; his whole See also:work was devoted to the demonstration of the ideal in the real. But he maintained that the See also:procedure of philosophy must be See also:analytic, rising from the particular facts to the universal in which we find them explained. We divine the See also:system of the whole from the part we know, but the See also:process of reconstruction must remain approximative. Our position forbids the possibility of a final system. Instead, therefore, of constantly beginning afresh in See also:speculation, it should be our See also:duty to attach ourselves to what may be considered the permanent results of historic developments. The classical expression of these results Trendelenburg finds mainly in the Platonico-Aristotelian system. The philosophical question is stated thus: Flow are thought and being See also:united in knowledge? how does thought get at being? and how does being enter into thought? Proceeding on the principle that like can only be known by like, Trendelenburg next reaches a doctrine See also:peculiar to himself (though based upon Aristotle) which plays a central part in his speculations. See also:Motion is the fundamental fact See also:common to being and thought ; the actual motion of the See also:external See also:world has its See also:counter-part in the constructive motion which is involved in every instance of See also:perception or thought. From motion he proceeds to deduce time, space and the categories of See also:mechanics and natural See also:science. These, being thus derived, are at once subjective and See also:objective in their See also:scope. It is true See also:matter can never be completely resolved into motion, but the irreducible See also:remainder may be treated like the zrpwrq iiXz7 of Aristotle as an See also:abstraction which we asymptotically approach but never reach. The facts of existence, however, are not adequately explained by the See also:mechanical categories. The. ultimate interpretation of the universe can only be found in the higher See also:category of End or final cause. Here Trendelenburg finds the dividing See also:line between philosophical systems. On the one See also:side stand those which acknowledge none but efficient causes—which make force See also:prior to thought, and explain the universe, as it were, a /ergo. This may be called, typically, Democritism. On the other side stands the " organic " or teleological view of the world, which interprets the parts through the See also:idea of the whole, and See also:sees in the efficient causes only the vehicle of ideal ends. This may be called in a wide sense See also:Platonism. Systems like Spinozism, which seem to See also:form a third class, neither sacrificing force to thought nor thought to force, yet by their denial of final causes inevitably fall back into the Democritic or essentially materialistic standpoint, leaving us with the See also:great antagonism of the mechanical and the organic systems of philosophy. The latter view, which receives its first support in the facts of See also:life, or organic nature as such, finds its See also:culmination and ultimate verification in the ethical world, which essentially consists in the realization of ends. Trendelenburg's Naturrecht may, therefore, be taken as in a manner the completion of his system, his working out of the ideal as See also:present in the real. The ethical end is taken to be the idea of humanity, not in the abstract as formulated by Kant, but in the context of the See also:state and of See also:history. See also:Law is treated throughout as the vehicle of ethical requirements. In Trendelenburg's treatment of the state, as the ethical organism in which the individual (the potential See also:man) may be said first to emerge into actuality, we may trace his nurture on the best ideas of -Hellenic antiquity. Trendelenburg was also the author of the following: Elementa logices Aristotelicae (1836; 9th ed., 1892; Eng. trans., 1881), a selection of passages from the See also:Organ on with Latin See also:translation and notes, containing the substance of Aristotle's logical doctrine, supplemented by Erlauterungen zu den Elementen der Aristotelischen Logik (1842; 3rd ed. 1876); Logische Untersuchungen (184o; 3rd ed. 187o), and See also:Die logische Frage in Hegels System (1843), important factors in the reaction against Hegel; Historische Beitrage zur Philosepkie (1846-1867), in three volumes, the first of which contains a history of the doctrine of the Categories; See also:Des Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik (186o); Llicken See also:im Vol.kerrecht (187o), a See also:treatise on the defects of See also:international law, occasioned by the See also:war of 187o. A number of his papers dealing with non-philosophical, chiefly See also:national and educational subjects, are collected in his Kleine Schriften (1871). On Trendelenburg's life and work see H. See also:Bonitz, Zur Erinnerung an F.A.T. (Berlin, 1872); P. Kleinert, Grabrede (Berlin, 1872); EBratuschek, Adolf Trendelenburg (Berlin, 1873); C. von Prantl, Geddchtnissrede (See also:Munich, 1873); G. S. See also:Morris in the New Englander (1874), xxxiii. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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