Rudolf Christoph Eucken - he is considered the founder of New Idealism. If one mentions the name Eucken, many people think of the economist Walter Eucken, son of Rudolf Christoph Eucken; the father is rather unknown today. The commonly formulated writings and essays by the philosopher - there were around 1,000 in all - were quite popular in his day. Especially in Scandinavia, many have dealt with the theories of East Frisian. The "Principles of a New View of Life" published in 1907 were translated into Swedish immediately after their publication.
An embarrassment candidate
The Swedish king Oscar II also dealt with Eucken's religious-philosophical writings and thought highly of the philosopher.
Eucken was made a foreign member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences even before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Nevertheless, the fact that Eucken was the second German to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1908 after the historian Theodor Mommsen was a compromise solution. Shortlisted were English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne and Nils Holgersson creator Selma Lagerlöf. The latter was to receive the Nobel Prize a year later.
This memorial stone at the cemetery in Aurich commemorates Rudolf C. Eucken.Since there was no majority for one or the other candidate in the academy, it was finally agreed on a third person:Rudolf C. Eucken. In Germany, the response to the award was muted. The evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel - like Eucken a professor at the University of Jena - even expressed complete incomprehension:Eucken was "a good speaker and a devout Kantian ... he also wrote 'nice books' about 'higher goals' et cetera, but not a single one original work of value done". He thought he had been passed over himself and more deserved the award. Other German scholars were also critical - Eucken was considered an outsider who lacked systematics and linguistic power.
Saving the world
Eucken was amazed that the award was so much more appreciated abroad than in Germany. He wasn't interested in beautifully formulated or succinctly thought-out ideas.
He rejected one-sided intellectualism, saying that "the depth of life silts up in it". He called for "intuitive teaching" and practical action against the theoretical structures of scholarly philosophy. In the onset of industrialization of his time, he saw a dangerous "illusory culture of technology" brewing, which burdened the soul with its "feverish work culture". On the other hand, he called for a stronger confrontation with nature, not for nature's sake, but in order to bring people to wholeness and to let them attain a higher spiritual level. He called this "healed state" the "being with oneself in life". In short:the philosopher saw the world in a state of crisis and he wanted nothing less than to save the world and people through a new meaning.
Passionate studies of the "great thinkers"
Much of what Eucken wrote is pervaded by this impetus. He did his doctorate on Aristotle's remarks on reason and dealt intensively with the theories of the "great thinkers":In addition to Aristotle, he mainly dealt with Plato and Thomas Aquinas. In the search for the ideal worldview, books such as "The Struggle for a Spiritual Purpose in Life" (1896), "The Truth of Religion" (1901) and his two main works:"The Meaning and Value of Life" (1908) and "Mensch und Welt" (1918), for Eucken no less than a "philosophy of life", as the latter's subtitle reads.
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- Part 1:An embarrassment candidate
- Part 2:The Path of Life