Ernst Platner (; ; 11 June 1744 – 27 December 1818) was a German anthropologist, physician and Rationalist

Frederick Beiser Frederick Charles Beiser (; born November 27, 1949) is an American philosopher who is professor of philosophy at Syracuse University. He is one of the leading English-language scholars of German idealism. In addition to his writings on German idea ...

, ''The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte'', Harvard University Press, 2009, p. 214. philosopher, born in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

. He was the father of painter Ernst Zacharias Platner (1773–1855).

Life

Following the death of his father in 1747, the philologist

Johann August Ernesti Johann August Ernesti (4 August 1707 – 11 September 1781) was a German Rationalist theologian and philologist. Ernesti was the first who formally separated the hermeneutics of the Old Testament from those of the New. Biography Ernesti was bor ...

became his foster father. He received his early education at the gymnasium in Altenburg, the Thomasschule in Leipzig and at the gymnasium in

Gera Gera is a city in the German state of Thuringia. With around 93,000 inhabitants, it is the third-largest city in Thuringia after Erfurt and Jena as well as the easternmost city of the ''Thüringer Städtekette'', an almost straight string of cit ...

.Prof. Dr. med. Ernst Platner
Professorenkatalog der Universität Leipzig Afterwards, he studied at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (german: Universität Leipzig), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 Decemb ...

, where in 1770 he became an associate professor of medicine. Later at Leipzig, he was appointed a full professor of

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

(1780) and philosophy (1811). In 1783/84 and 1789/90 he served as university rector.

Work

Platner was a follower of the teachings of

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...

. He was the author of ''Anthropologie für Aerzte und Weltweise'', one of the more important anthropological works of the ''Spätaufklärung'' (an epoch of German literature). This work was influential to scholars that included Johann Gottfried Herder, Friedrich Schiller and

Karl Philipp Moritz Karl Philipp Moritz ( Hameln, 15 September 1756 – Berlin, 26 June 1793) was a German author, editor and essayist of the ''Sturm und Drang'', late Enlightenment, and classicist periods, influencing early German Romanticism as well. He led a ...

. He believed in treating modern anthropology as a medical-philosophical science of the whole individual — a viewpoint that can be considered as a precursor of psychosomatic medicine. Platner is credited with originally coining the term ''Unbewußtseyn'' (

unconscious Unconscious may refer to: Physiology * Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli Psychology * Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...

). He is also credited for coining the phrase "pragmatic history of the human faculty of cognition" (''pragmatische Geschichte des menschlichen Erkentnißvermogens''), later appropriated by Johann Gottlieb Fichte as "pragmatic history of the human spirit" (''pragmatische Geschichte des menschlichen Geistes'').''Gesamtausgabe'' I/2: 364–65; Daniel Breazeale, "Fichte's Conception of Philosophy as a "Pragmatic History of the Human Mind" and the Contributions of Kant, Platner, and Maimon," ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', 62(4), Oct. 2001, pp. 685–703; Günter Zöller, ''Fichte's Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 130 n. 30; Sally Sedgwick, ''The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, p. 144 n. 33; Daniel Breazeale and

Tom Rockmore Tom Rockmore (born 1942) is an American philosopher. Although he denies the usual distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, he has strong interests throughout the history of philosophy and defends a constructivist view of epi ...

(eds.), ''Fichte, German Idealism, and Early Romanticism'', Rodopi, 2010, p. 50 n. 27: "Α »history of the human mind« is a ''genetic'' account of the self-constitution of the I in the form of an ordered ''description'' of the various acts of thinking that are presupposed by the act of thinking the I"; Ezequiel L. Posesorski, ''Between Reinhold and Fichte: August Ludwig Hülsen's Contribution to the Emergence of German Idealism''. Karlsruhe: Karlsruher Institut Für Technologie, 2012, p. 81: "''Pragmatische Geschichte des menschlichen Geistes'' designates reason's timeless course of production of the different levels of the ''a priori'' system of all knowledge, which are exclusively uncovered and portrayed genetically by personal self-conscious reflection"; Daniel Breazeale, ''Thinking Through the Wissenschaftslehre: Themes from Fichte's Early Philosophy'', Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013, p. 72.

Selected publications

* ''Anthropologie für Aerzte und Weltweise'' (Anthropology for physicians and the worldwise), 1772 * ''Neue Anthropologie für Aerzte