Hermann Lotze

Rudolf Hermann Lotze (German: [ˈlɔtsə]; 21 May 1817 – 1 July 1881) was a German philosopher and logician. He also had a medical degree and was unusually well versed in biology. He argued that if the physical world is governed by mechanical laws, relations and developments in the universe could be explained as the functioning of a world mind. His medical studies were pioneering works in scientific psychology.

Biography

Lotze was born in Bautzen (Budziszyn), Saxony, Germany, the son of a physician. He was educated at the grammar school of Zittau; he had an enduring love of the classical authors, publishing a translation of Sophocles' Antigone into Latin verse in his middle age.

He attended the University of Leipzig as a student of philosophy and natural sciences, but entered officially as a student of medicine when he was seventeen. Lotze's early studies were mostly governed by two distinct interests: the first was scientific, based upon mathematical and physical studies under the guidance of E. H. Weber, Alfred Wilhelm Volkmann and Gustav Fechner. The other was his aesthetic and artistic interest, which was developed under the care of Christian Hermann Weisse. He was attracted both by science and by the idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.