Max Müller (6 September 1906 – 18 October 1994) was a German philosopher and influential post–

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Catholic intellectual. Müller was Professor at the

University of Freiburg The University of Freiburg (colloquially german: Uni Freiburg), officially the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg (german: Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württe ...

and the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: link=no, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of ...

Life

Max Müller was born as the son of a jurist and completed his Gymnasium-Abitur in Freiburg at the Friedrich-Gymnasium Freiburg. Müller graduated in 1930 along with the philosopher

Martin Honecker Martin Honecker (9 June 1888 – 20 October 1941) was a German philosopher and psychologist. Biography The son of a businessman, he studied at the University of Bonn, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn and the Ludwig-Maximilian ...

. He established his academic reputation in 1937 with a work on Tomas Aquinas ("Reality and Rationality"'). At this time he was active in the Catholic Youth Movement who were influenced by their study with

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centu ...

, generating their own thinking in engagement with his philosophy. During the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

they were opponents of Nazism. Falling foul of Nazi educational policies, Müller was dismissed by Heidegger from research positions. He became a member of

Sturmabteilung The (; SA; literally "Storm Detachment (military), Detachment") was the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. It played a significant role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing pro ...

i 1934 and applied for membership in

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

in 1937, but he was not accepted a member until 1940. He became active as a lecturer at the Catholic . After the war he succeeded the late Martin Honecker in his academic positions at the

. In addition to his activity at the university Müller was active in addressing social problems in Freiburg. In 1960 he moved to Ludwig Maximilians university in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

. After his retirement he returned to Freiburg for research activity in philosophy and theology. Müller's main influences were Honecker,

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

and Heidegger. He was also influenced by the historian

Friedrich Meinecke Friedrich Meinecke (October 20, 1862 – February 6, 1954) was a German historian, with national liberal and anti-Semitic views, who supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. After World War II, as a representative of an older tradition, he crit ...

and the theologian

Romano Guardini Romano Guardini (17 February 1885 – 1 October 1968) was a German Catholic priest, author, and academic. He was one of the most important figures in Catholic intellectual life in the 20th century. Life and work Guardini was born in Verona, I ...

Müller's philosophy

Müller linked classical

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

with

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

of Husserl and the

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning Meaning most comm ...

of Heidegger. He developed from it a theory of “metahistory” as a philosophy of historical liberty. For Müller, the sense of history is distinctive in each epoch. The "transcendental experience" of humans is created in personal engagement through communal achievement in the world as work. Politics, religion, art and science, along with the personal relationships between people, carry material and symbolic means to attempt answers and achieve effective representations.

References

* Ramón Eduardo Ruiz-Pesce: ''Metaphysik als Metahistorik oder Hermeneutik des unreinen Denkens'': die Philosophie Max Müllers. Freiburg: Alber, 1987. (Symposion; 79) * Wilhelm Vossenkuhl: Max Müller. In: ''Christliche Philosophie im katholischen Denken des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts.'' Vol. 3. Ed. by. E. Coreth, W. Neidl, G. Pfligersdorffer, Graz/Wien/Köln 1990, 318–327. * Albert Raffelt: Müller, Max. In: ''Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche''. 3. Aufl. Bd. 7 aximilian bis Pazzi Freiburg: Herder 1998, Sp. 518–519. * Kai-Uwe Socha: ''Person-sein: Freiheit und Geschichtlichkeit als Grundkonstanten des Menschen im Denken von Max Müller (1906 - 1994)''. Frankfurt am Main; Berlin: Lang 1999. (Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe 20; Band 593) * Veronica Fabricius: ''Von der Metaphysik zur Metahistorik. Freiheit als Geschichte nach Max Müller.'' Freiburg: Alber 2004. (Alber Thesen, Philosophie; Bd. 23) {{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Max 20th-century German philosophers Roman Catholic theologians Phenomenologists German Roman Catholics Catholic philosophers 1906 births 1994 deaths Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany German male writers Nazi Party members Sturmabteilung personnel

Life

Müller's philosophy

See also

References