Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (; 15 May 1740 – 22 May 1821) was a German

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

Life

Feder was born on 15 May 1740 in the village of Schornweisach (now a part of Uehlfeld,

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

) in the

Principality of Bayreuth The Principality of Bayreuth () or Margraviate of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (''Markgraftum Brandenburg-Bayreuth'') was an immediate territory of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by a Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Since Burgrave Frederi ...

, the son of Martin Heinrich Feder († 1749), the village

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

. Feder studied theology and pedagogy at Erlangen. From 1768 to 1782 he was Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen (, commonly referred to as Georgia Augusta), is a Public university, public research university in the city of Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1734 ...

. At the time of his death, in

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

, he was Director of the Pageninstitut. His writings were widely read at the time due to their clear and tasteful mode of presentation. Feder decisively countered

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...

. He gained notoriety through his abbreviation of Christian Garve's review of Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason''. As philosopher Feder belonged to the better representatives of the eclectics tending towards the

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many ...

– Wolff School.

Works

* ''Sex dies, intra quos opus creationis absolutum, quales fuerint'' (1759). * ''Homo natura non ferus'' (1765). * ''Grundriss der philosophischen Wissenschaften'' (1767). 2nd ed., 1769. * ''Vom Werthe des systematischen Denkens'' (1767). * ''Der neue Emil'' (1768–1774). 2 volumes. ** Volume 1, 1768. 2nd ed., 1771. 3rd ed., 1774. ** Volume 2, 1774. * ''Logik und Metaphysik im Grundriss'' (1769). 3rd ed., 1783. Google (UMich) * ''Lehrbuch der praktischen Philosophie'' (1770). * ''Institutiones logicae et metaphysicae'' (1777). * ''Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Willen'' (1779–1793). 4 volumes. ** Volume 1, 1779. ** Volume 2, 1782. ** Volume 3, 1786. ** Volume 4, 1793. * ''Grundlehren zur Kenntniß des menschlichen Willens'' (1783). 2nd ed., 1785
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* ''Ueber Raum und Causalität, zur Prüfung der kantischen Philosophie'' (1787). * (ed.) ''Philosophische Bibliothek'' (1788–1791). 4 volumes. * ''Grundsätze der Logik und Metaphysik'' (1794). * ''Sophie Churfürstin von Hannover im Umriss'' (1810). * ''Handbuch über das Staats- Rechnungs- und Kassen-Wesen'' (1820)
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* ''Feders Leben, Natur und Grundsätze'' (1825). eder's autobiography, edited by his son Karl August Ludwig

External links

* Biography in ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'', Vol. 6, 1877, pp. 595–597. {{DEFAULTSORT:Feder, Johann Georg Heinrich 1740 births 1821 deaths People from Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim 18th-century German philosophers 19th-century German philosophers Enlightenment philosophers People from the Principality of Bayreuth University of Erlangen–Nuremberg alumni Academic staff of the University of Göttingen 18th-century German male writers