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Rudolf Eucken (1846-1926) |
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German philosopher, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1908. Rudolf Eucken was an idealist philosopher who saw that man has an inner spiritual life, which soars beyond everyday life and the physical world. In his work Eucken transformed idealism into a quest toward elevated spiritual level. Eucken's fame was short-lived and today Eucken's writings are more or less forgotten. However, Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung (1907, Life's Basis and Life's Ideal) and Der Sinn und Wert des Lebens (1908, The Meaning and Value of Life) were in their time a bestsellers. Besides philosophical studies, he also published works in religion. Eucken's award was in tune with the partly incomplete will of Alfred Nobel, in which he had intended the literary award to recognize "excellence in works of an idealistic tendency". Naturalism cannot give to literature an inner independence or allow it an initiative of its own; for if literature is only a hand of life on the dial of time, it can only imitate and register events as they happen. By means of impressive descriptions it may help the time to understand its own desires better; but since creative power is denied to it, it cannot contribute to the inner liberation and elevation of man. (from 'Naturalism or Idealism?' by Rudolf Eucken, Nobel lecture, March 27, 1909, in Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, edited by Horst Frenz, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 1969, pp. 86-87) Rudolf
Christoph Eucken was born in Aurich, in the province of
East
Friesland. His childhood was shadowed by the death of
his father, Ammo Becker Eucken, who worked in the postal service. Also
Eucken's only sibling, his younger brother, died. Eucken suffered from poor health in his childhood. As Eucken tells in his memoir, when he was just a baby, he swallowed a curtain-fastener and nearly suffocated. "My mother tried with all her strength to reach and pull out the fastener, and my throat was badly torn. In the end she succeeded in getting it out, and she fainted as soon as she had done so. The whole household gathered round, and four or five doctors were summoned. They all thought that I would die in a few minutes." (Rudolf Eucken: His Life, Work, and Travels by Himself, translated by Joseph McCabe, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1921, p. p. 23) Eucken's mother, the former Ida Maria Gittermann, was a deeply religious woman. Her father was a liberal-minded clergyman. To support the family, she took lodgers, and was able to provide her son a good education. At the gymnasium in Aurich, Euchen became under the influence of the theologian and philosopher Wilhelm Reuter, a pupil of the philosopher K. Ch. F. Krause. "Against the hurry and loud show of the daily round," Reuter argued that "a philosophy of history should uphold the calm strength of the eternal. A spirit of rest would then settle upon the life of humanity and inwardly pervade it." (Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy of Life by W. R. Boyce Gibson, London: A. & C. Black, 1915, p. 4) This thought became one of the guiding principles of Eucken's own philosophy. Eucken studied philosophy, philology, and history at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin, where he was attracted to the ideas of F.A. Trendelenburg, especially his ethical concerns and historical treatment of philosophy. Hermann Lotze's philosophical classes and rationalist teachings left Eucken dissatisfied. Gustav Teichmüller, Lotze's colleague, introduced him to the study of Aristotle. While in Berlin he absorbed Adolf Trendelenburg's idealism and his views about interconnections between philosophy, history, and religion. Eucken took his doctor's degree at Göttingen in classical philology and ancient history. His dissertation dealt with the language of Aristotle. After graduation Eucken worked as a high school teacher for
five years. He published two pamphlets on Aristotle and in 1872
appeared Die Methode der aristotelischen Forschung,
dealing
with Aristotelian logic. In 1871 Eucken was appointed professor of
philosophy at the University of Basle. He often served with Friedrich Nietzsche
on the examining committee of candidates for the doctorate in classical
philology. From 1874 on Eucken held the
chair of philosophy at Jena, succeeding Kuno Fischer. As a lecturer he
was impressively energetic. "His voice rings out loud and clear. He is
tremendously in earnest. Occasionally, when he thinks of it, he
sits down. But not for long. He springs to his feet and throws himself
forward on the reading-desk in the effort to really reach his audience.
He clasps his hands to his breast and then throws his arms out wide, as
though to seize the Geistesleben
with which his heart is overflowing
and spread it far over a materialistic and indifferent generation. Who
can doubt the reality of "the spiritual life" after he has seen
Eucken?" ('Rudolf Eucken,' in Six
Major Prophets by Edwin E. Slosson, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1917, pp. 287-288) Eucken
remained in Jena until his retirement in 1920. Academic
philosophers viewed with suspicion Eucken's ponderous style, his
careless use of philosophical terms, and the lack of clear definitions.
Nevertheless, before World War I Eucken's work was read in
Finland, Holland,
France, Sweden, Bulgaria, England, the USA, China, and Japan. To
American public he was first introduced by M. Stuart Phelps, whose
translation of Eucken's Geschichte
und Kritik der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart
(The Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic Thought) appeared in
1880. Noah Porter said in
his introductory essay: "The writer of this notice was constrained to recommend the work
for translation to his friend and former pupil by his estimate of the
intrisic value of the treatise, and the desire that it might be brought within the reach of English readers, as eminently suited to the times. He can say with an assured confidence that there are few books within his knowledge which are better fitted to
aid the student who wishes to acquaint himself with the course of
modern speculative and scientific thinking, and to form an intelligent
estimate of most of the current theories." (The Fundamental Concepts of Modern Philosophic Thought, Critically and Historically Considered
by Rudolf Eucken, translated by M. Stuart Phelps, introduction by Noah
Porter, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1880, pp. vi-vii) Eucken's own system of philosophical thought, which he called ethical activism, was rejected by the British philosopher Bernard Bosanquet, who defended the Older Idealism against personalist heresies. "There is in Eucken's immense literary output," he wrote in the Quaterly Review in 1914, "no really precise and serious contribution to philosophical science. Free cognition has been submerged by moralist rhetoric." Although philosophy was for Eucken a question of the whole of life, he welcomed the achievements of modern science. He contrasted naturalism's mechanic view of human nature with free spiritual activity. Utilitarism and positivism had no roots in the German philosophical tradition: "It is no matter of chance", he said, "that great positivists have arisen in France and England but not in Germany." (Freedom with Responsibility: The Social Market Economy in Germany 1918-1963 by A. J. Nicholls, 2000, p. 32) An élitist, Eucken was suspicious of the masses and their political philosophies. Socialism was for him a threat to spiritual regeneration. Like Nietzsche, Eucken distrusted abstract intellectualism. He was not a system builder in the spirit of Hegel and his followers, or an empiricist, reducing human experience to sensations and impressions. Eucken emphasized actual human experience as it is "lived." This Lebensphilosophie (philosophy of life) was a part of currents which anticipated some central ideas of phenomenology. In 1882, Eucken married Irene Passow; they had a daughter and two sons. Walter Eucken, their second son, became the intellectual leader of the Freiburg ordo-liberal school of economics. Its political end economic philosophy shaped the Social Market Economy (SME) in the post WWII Germany. Walter Eucken's main works were Die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie (1940, The Foundations of Political Economy) and Grundsätze der Wirtschaftspolitik (1952, Principles of Economic Policy), published posthumously. After receiving the Nobel prize Eucken enjoyed a remarkable international popularity, and received invitations to lecture at several universities. Especially The Problem of Human Life as Viewed by the Great Thinkers (1890) was widely read in its time. In 1911 Eucken delivered a series of lectured in England and in 1912-13 he spent six months as an exchange professor at Harvard University in the United States, and then lectured at New York University. He met, among others, Andrew Carnegie and Theodore Roosevelt. Eucken was won by Roosevelt's charm, and had a conversation with him about American idealism and its future. He also spoke at Smith College, the Lowell Institute at Boston, and Columbia University. Following the outbreak of World War I, he published with the zoologist Ernst Haeckel an article entitled 'Englands Blutschuld am Weltkrieg' (England's blood guilt for the war) in August 1914. Eucken maintained that Germany could not be defeated while it remained truly united and opposed attempts to encourage a negotiated peace. In 1915 he wrote the pamphlet Wir "barbaren"; anekdoten und begebenheiten aus dem weltkriege and patriotically argued that Germany should not be blamed for the hostilities. "We were attacked on all sides and we had to protect out country," he said in 1916 to the American journalist S.S. McClure. "Why did Americans want to travel on a ship that was bringing ammunitions to kill our soldiers? Our Emperor always worked for peace." Eucken took McClure around the town and showed the houses where Goethe had stayed, the street where Humboldt had lived, and the cathedral in which Luther had preached. Eucken died on September 15, 1926, at Jena. Eucken used to revise his major works, Grundbegriffe der
Gegenwart (1878, rev. ed. Geistige Strömungen der Gegenwart in
1908), Die Lebensanschauungen der grosser Denker
(1890, The Problem of Human Life as Viewed by the Great Thinkers), and
others, and update them over a period of several decades. Some of his
works ran into more than a dozen editions. Eucken developed his
philosophy of history in an essay entitled 'Philosophie der Geschichte'
(1907). The Main Currents of Modern Thought was an attempt to
stimulate a new sense of spiritual life – defined as "a
self-contained life, itself giving rise to reality, a life which our
human activity is far from penetrating, but towards which it strives as
a great goal." (Main Currents of Modern Thought: A Study of the Spiritual and Intellectual Movements of the Present Day, translated by Meyrick Booth, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912, p. 60) In Socialism: an Analysis (1921) Eucken attacked Socialism for its naturalistic view of human beings and their place in the world. Philosophically Socialism was far from Eucken's emphasis on "the great goal" behind everyday life. Eucken saw that Socialism represented the political expression of naturalism which downplays spiritual values. In its narrower circles the Socialist movement recognises no freedom, truth, or goodwill outside of itself. While individual is conditioned by physical processes, the soul is something that could not be explained only by reference to natural processes. He maintained that an individual is a mixture of nature and spirit and that one must work to overcome nonspiritual nature by actively striving after the spiritual life. This pursuit requires especially efforts of the will and intuition. Eucken regarded Christianity as the truest type religion – it was not the opium of the people, like Marx said, but answered the central question, What can Religion do for life? However, he did not consider the orthodox religion, which leaves the salvation of man entirely to God's mercy, the right vehicle in the search for meaning in one's own life. Jesus was not God but "merely an incomparable individuality which cannot be directly imitated". As members of the spiritual life, we are immortal. To achieve spiritual autonomy, one must adopt a higher form of religious faith. Eucken – like Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) – saw life as the historical totality of human experience. For further reading: Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy of Life by W. R. Boyce Gibson (1907); Eucken and Bergson: Their Significance for Christian Thought by E. Hermann (1912); An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy by W. Tudor Jones (1912); Rudolf Eucken: His Life and Influence by Meyrick Booth (1913); 'Rudolf Eucken,' in Six Major Prophets by Edwin E. Slosson (1917); Rudolph Eucken: His Life, Work and Travels - by Himself by Rudolf Eucken (1922); Rudolf Eucken und seine Philosophie by Erich Becher (1927); Spekulativer und Phänomenologischer Personalismus. Einflüsse J. G. Fichtes und Rudolf Euckens auf Max Schelers Philosophie der Person by Reinhold J. Haskamp (1966); 'Rudolf Eucken' by G. Wilhelm, in Die Literatur-Nobelpreisträger (1983); Nobel Prize Winners, edited by Tyler Wasson (1987); 'Eucken, Rudolp Christoph' by Alan Sell, in Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers, edited by Sturat Brown, et al. (1996); Phänomenologie und die Ordnung der Wirtschaft: Edmund Husserl, Rudolf Eucken, Walter Eucken, Michel Foucault, edited by Hans-Helmuth Gander, Nils Goldschmidt, Uwe Dathe (2009); 'From Nobel to Nothingness: The Negative Monumentality of Rudolf C. Eucken and Paul Heyse' by Thomas O. Beebe, in German Literature as World Literature, edited by Thomas Oliver Beebee (2014); Sammlung der Geister: kulturkritischer Aktivismus im Umkreis Rudolf Euckens 1890-1945 by Michael Schäfer (2020) Selected works:
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