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 ...
neo-Kantianism
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism () was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy ...
. He was known as an authority on
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
.
Biography
Paul Natorp was born in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
, the son of the
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that emphasizes Justification (theology), justification of sinners Sola fide, through faith alone, the teaching that Salvation in Christianity, salvation comes by unmerited Grace in Christianity, divin ...
minister Adelbert Natorp and his wife Emilie Keller. From 1871 he studied music, history, classical philology and philosophy in
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 ...
,
Bonn
Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...
and
Strasbourg
Strasbourg ( , ; ; ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est Regions of France, region of Geography of France, eastern France, in the historic region of Alsace. It is the prefecture of the Bas-Rhin Departmen ...
. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1876 at the
University of Strasbourg
The University of Strasbourg (, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. Founded in the 16th century by Johannes Sturm, it was a center of intellectual life during ...
under the supervision of the philosopher Ernst Laas and in 1881 completed his ''
Habilitation
Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...
'' under the neo-Kantian
Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen (; ; 4 July 1842 – 4 April 1918) was a German philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".
Bio ...
. In 1885 he became an extraordinary professor and in 1893 became an ordinary professor in philosophy and
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
at Marburg University, a position he retained until his retirement in 1922. In the winter semester of 1923–24 Natorp conducted an intensive exchange of ideas with
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; 26 September 1889 – 26 May 1976) was a German philosopher known for contributions to Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a range of topics including metaphysics, art ...
, who had been called to Marburg and whose work on
Duns Scotus
John Duns Scotus ( ; , "Duns the Scot"; – 8 November 1308) was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian. He is considered one of the four most important Christian philosopher-t ...
Natorp had read very early on.
In 1887 he married his cousin Helene Natorp; they had five children. Natorp was an ambitious
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and def ...
, who wrote chiefly
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...
(including a
cello
The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
sonata
In music a sonata (; pl. ''sonate'') literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cantare'', "to sing"), a piece ''sung''. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until th ...
, a
violin
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
sonata, and a
piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
trio). He also wrote some 100 songs and two choral works. He conducted a correspondence with
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; ; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period (music), Romantic period. His music is noted for its rhythmic vitality and freer treatment of dissonance, oft ...
, who dissuaded him from becoming a professional composer.
He was an influence on the early work of
Hans-Georg Gadamer
Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; 11 February 1900 – 13 March 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 on hermeneutics, '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode'').
Life
Family and early life
Gad ...
and had a profound effect on the thought of
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 ...
, the "father" of
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...
. His students included the philosopher and
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
theologian
Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...
Karl Barth
Karl Barth (; ; – ) was a Swiss Reformed theologian. Barth is best known for his commentary '' The Epistle to the Romans'', his involvement in the Confessing Church, including his authorship (except for a single phrase) of the Barmen Decl ...
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator.
Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...
.
Works
* ''Descartes' Erkenntnistheorie. Eine Studie zur Vorgeschichte des Kriticismus.'' 1882; 2014,
* ''Sozialpädagogik'' (1899)
* ''Logik in Leitsätzen'' (1904)
* ''Gesammelte Abhandlungen zur Sozialpädagogik'' (3 volumes, 1907)
* ''Pestalozzi. Leben und Lehre'' (1909)
* ''Die logischen Grundlagen der exakten Wissenschaften'' (1910)
* ''Philosophie; ihr Problem und ihre Probleme'' (1911), new edition: Edition Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008 (ed. and introduction by Karl-Heinz Lembeck),
* ''Sozialidealismus'' (1920)
* ''Beethoven und wir'' (1920)
* ''Platos Ideenlehre'' (1921); transl. 2004, ''Platos's Theory of Ideas: An Introduction to Idealism.'', Academia Verlag
* ''Allgemeine Logik'' (in: Flach und Holzhey, ''Erkenntnistheorie und Logik im Neukantianismus'', 1979)
Notes
References
* Judy Deane Saltzmann ''Paul Natorp's Philosophy of Religion within the Marburg Neo-Kantian Tradition'' (1980)
* Alexis Philonenko ''L'École de Marbourg : Cohen, Natorp, Cassirer'' (1989)
* Karl-Heinz Lembeck ''Platon in Marburg: Platon-Rezeption Und Philosophiegeschichtsphilosophie Bei Cohen Und Natorp'' (1994)
* Julien Servois ''Paul Natorp et la Théorie Platonicienne des Idées'' (2004)
* Norbert Jegelka ''Paul Natorp'' (1992)