Max Wentscher (12 May 1862 29 September 1942) was a German philosopher and professor of philosophy at the

University of Bonn The University of Bonn, officially the Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (), is a public research university in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the () on 18 October 1818 by Frederick Willi ...

Life

Max Wentscher was born in

Grudziądz Grudziądz (, ) is a city in northern Poland, with 92,552 inhabitants (2021). Located on the Vistula River, it lies within the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship and is the fourth-largest city in its province. Grudziądz is one of the oldest citie ...

in 1866. The son of a merchant, he attended the Academic School of the Johanneum (

Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums The ''Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums'' ( ''Academic School of the Johanneum'', short: Johanneum) is a '' Gymnasium'', or grammar school, in Hamburg, Germany. It is Hamburg's oldest school and was founded in 1529 by Johannes Bugenhagen. The sch ...

) in Hamburg, where he graduated in 1881. From 1881 to 1887 he studied mathematics, physics, and philosophy in Berlin, Freiburg, Halle-Wittenberg, and Leipzig. In 1893 he received his doctorate in Halle-Wittenberg with the thesis ''Lotze's concept of God and its metaphysical justification.'' In 1897 he habilitated in Bonn. Until 1904 he was a private lecturer and titular professor in Bonn. From 1904 to 1906 he was an associate professor in Königsberg, and from 1906 to 1918 again in Bonn. From 1918 until his retirement in 1933, he was a full professor of philosophy and education at the University of Bonn. His main research areas were ethics and the history of philosophy. Wentscher was married to the philosopher Else Wentscher (1877-1946), who published works on German and British philosophy and translated

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

into German. Horn, Klaus-Peter. ''Erziehungswissenschaft in Deutschland im 20. Jahrhundert: Zur Entwicklung der sozialen und fachlichen Struktur der Disziplin von der Erstinstitutionalisierung bis zur Expansion''. Julius Klinkhardt, 2003, p. 374.

Selected works

* ''Geschichte der Ethik'' (1931); Bd. 3 der Reihe ''Geschichte der Philosophie in Längschnitten'' von Willy Moog, Berlin: Juncker und Dünnhaupt, 11 Bde. * ''Metaphysik'' (1928), Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co. * ''Pädagogik'' (1926), Berlin: W. de Gruyter & Co. * ''Fechner und Lotze'' (1925), München: E. Reinhardt. * ''Erkenntnistheorie'' (1920), Berlin: Vereinig. wiss. Verl., Sammlung Göschen, 2 Bde. * ''Einführung in die Philosophie'' (1916), Berlin: Göschen, 4. Neudr. * ''Hermann Lotze'' (1913), Heidelberg: Winter. * ''Das Problem der Lehrfreiheit'' (1907), Heidelberg: J. C. B. Mohr. * ''Ethik'' (1902/1906), Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 2 Bde. * ''Über physische und psychische Kausalitat und das Prinzip des Psycho-physischen Parallelismus'' (1896), Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth.

References

1862 births 1942 deaths People from Grudziądz 19th-century German philosophers 20th-century German philosophers Academic staff of the University of Bonn 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers People educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums {{germany-philosopher-stub