Aron Gurwitsch (; 17 January 1901 – 25 June 1973) was a Lithuanian-born German-American phenomenologist.

Life

Gurwitsch was born in

Vilna Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

, Vilna Governorate,

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, on 17 January 1901 to a

Lithuanian Jewish {{Infobox ethnic group , group = Litvaks , image = , caption = , poptime = , region1 = {{flag, Lithuania , pop1 = 2,800 , region2 = {{flag, South Africa , pop2 = 6 ...

family. His family moved to Danzig in 1905 or 1906 to escape

pogroms A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe late 19th- and early 20th-century attacks on Jews i ...

. He enrolled in the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

in 1918, where he studied under

Carl Stumpf Carl Stumpf (; 21 April 1848 – 25 December 1936) was a German philosopher, psychologist and musicologist. He is noted for founding the Berlin School of experimental psychology. He studied with Franz Brentano at the University of Würzburg be ...

. He subsequently worked with

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

Göttingen Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...

, and with and

Kurt Goldstein Kurt Goldstein (November 6, 1878 – September 19, 1965) was a German neurologist and psychiatrist who created a holistic theory of the organism. Educated in medicine, Goldstein studied under Carl Wernicke and Ludwig Edinger where he focused on ...

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

. He died on 25 June 1973 in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

Work

Gurwitsch wrote on the relations between phenomenology and

Gestalt psychology Gestalt psychology, gestaltism, or configurationism is a school of psychology and a theory of perception that emphasises the processing of entire patterns and configurations, and not merely individual components. It emerged in the early twent ...

, and in the problems of the organization of consciousness. In particular, he distinguished between the theme, the thematic context and the margin. This is the core of his theory of the Field of Consciousness. He also has his own theory of the noema, the horizon and the transcendental ego. Gurwitsch was an important influence for

Merleau-Ponty Maurice Jean Jacques Merleau-Ponty. ( ; ; 14 March 1908 – 3 May 1961) was a French phenomenological philosopher, strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. The constitution of meaning in human experience was his main interest ...

. He taught at the Sorbonne in Paris from 1933 until he was forced to emigrate in 1940, where Merleau-Ponty attended his lectures. He taught at

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

in the mid-1950s. He taught at The New School For Social Research's Graduate Faculty of Social and Political Science from 1959 to 1973.

Bibliography

* ''Théorie du champ de la conscience'' (1957). Translated: ''Field of Consciousness'', Pittsburgh, Pa.: Dusquesne University Press (1964). * ''Studies in phenomenology and psychology''. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press (1966). * ''Leibniz'', New York: de Gruyter (1974). * ''Phenomenology and the Theory of Science''. Edited by Lester Embree. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press (1974). * ''Kants Theories des Verstandes'', edited by Thomas Seebohm. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (1990). * ''The Collected Works of Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973)'' published by Springer. ** Vol. I: ''Constitutive Phenomenology in Historical Perspective'' ** Volume II: ''Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology'' ** Volume III: ''The Field of Consciousness: Theme, Thematic Field, and Margin

References

External links

www.gurwitsch.net
*

(by Lester Embree) *

with photos 1901 births 1973 deaths People from Vilnius 20th-century Lithuanian Jews American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent Jewish philosophers 20th-century Lithuanian philosophers Phenomenologists Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States {{Europe-philosopher-stub