Maximilian Dessoir (8 February 1867 – 19 July 1947) was a German philosopher,

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

and theorist of

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

Career

Dessoir was born in Berlin, into a German Jewish family, his parents being Ludwig Dessoir (1810-1874), "Germany's most admired Shakespearean actor", and Ludwig's third wife Auguste Grünemeyer (died about 1924). Max earned doctorates from the universities of

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

(philosophy, 1889) and

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

(medicine, 1892). He was a professor at Berlin from 1897 until 1933, when the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

forbade him to teach. An associate of Pierre Janet and

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies seen as originating fro ...

, Dessoir published in 1890 a book on ''The Double Ego'', describing the mind as divided into two layers, each with its own associative links - its own chain of memory. He considered that the 'underconsciousness' (''Unterbewusstein'') emerged in such phenomena as dreams, hypnosis, and dual personality. His work was built on by

Otto Rank Otto Rank (; ; né Rosenfeld; 22 April 1884 – 31 October 1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, and philosopher. Born in Vienna, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, ...

in his study of the Doppelgänger. In an article of 1894, Dessoir published an account of the evolution of the sex instinct from undifferentiated to differentiated, which was taken up by Albert Moll and Sigmund Freud. Freud cites it approvingly in his '' Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality''. Considered a Neo-Kantian philosopher Max Dessoir founded the ''Zeitschift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft'', which he edited for many years, and published the work ''Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft'' in which he formulated five primary aesthetic forms: the beautiful, the sublime, the tragic, the ugly, and the comic. Dussoir was married to soprano Susanne Dessoir. He died in Königstein im Taunus at the age of 80.

Parapsychology

In 1889, in an article in the German periodical ''Sphinx,'' Dessoir coined the term '

parapsychology Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, teleportation, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry (paranormal), psychometry) and other paranormal cla ...

' (actually in its German equivalent, 'Parapsychologie'): "If one ... characterizes by ''para-'' something going beyond or besides the ordinary, than one could perhaps call the phenomena that step outside the usual process of the inner life parapsychical, and the science dealing with them parapsychology. The word is not nice, yet in my opinion it has the advantage to denote a hitherto unknown fringe area between the average and the pathological states; however, more than the limited value of practical usefulness such neologisms do not demand." Dessoir was a member of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...

. He was highly skeptical of physical mediumship. He was the author of the book ''Vom Jenseits der Seele: Die Geheimwissenschaften in kritischer Betrachtung'' (''The "beyond" of the soul: occult sciences critically examined'') that went through six editions. The book contained skeptical information on the mediums Jan Guzyk, Franek Kluski, Henry Slade and many others.Hövelmann. Gerd H; Truzzi, Marcello; Hoebens, Piet Hein. (1985). ''Skeptical Literature on Parapsychology: An Annotated Bibliography''. In Paul Kurtz. ''A Skeptic's Handbook of Parapsychology''. Prometheus Books. pp. 473-474. The 1930 sixth edition (reprinted in 1967) contained an exposure of the alleged poltergeist victim Eleonore Zugun. According to Dessoir she had performed the phenomena fraudulently.

Magic

Dessoir was an amateur magician who had used the pseudonym "Edmund W. Rells". He was interested in the history and psychology of magic. He published a series of articles entitled ''The Psychology of Legerdemain'', which were printed in five weekly installments for the '' Open Court'' journal from 23 March – 20 April 1893. His article ''Psychology of the Art of Conjuring'' was included in H. J. Burlingame's book ''Around the World with a Magician and a Juggler'' (1891). Burlingame, H. J. (1891)
''Around the World with a Magician and a Juggler''
Chicago: Clyde Publishing Co. pp. 137-165

Publications

''Bibliographie des modernen Hypnotismus''
(1888)
''Karl Philipp Moritz als Aesthetiker''
(1889)
''Geschichte der neueren deutschen Psychologie''
(1902)
''Zeitschrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine kunstwissenschaft''
(1906)
''Outlines of the History of Psychology''
(1912)
''Vom Jenseits der Seele: Die Geheimwissenschaften in kritischer Betrachtung''
(1917, 1920, 1930, reprinted in 1967) On magic
''Psychology of the Art of Conjuring''
(1891)
''Psychologische Skizzen''
(1893, Edmund W. Rells seud. *Dessoir, M. (1893)
''The Psychology of Legerdemain''
The Open Court 7: 3599-3602.

References

External links