Richard Kroner

Richard Kroner ( born March 8, 1884 in Breslau, † November 2, 1974 in Mammern ) was a German philosopher and theologian. Kroner was close to the Southwest German school of neo-Kantianism, but also provided - especially with his work From Kant to Hegel - important contributions to neo-Hegelianism.

Life

The father, Traugott Kroner from Glatz, was a physician and lecturer in Wroclaw. Richard Kroner attended from 1895 that Mary Magdalene School, which he left in 1902 with the Abitur. Already during his school years he met Alice Kauffmann, his future wife while dancing lessons know in the house of the mother of Alice. Alice Kaufmann came from a family of industrialists and Breslauer was the cousin of Max Born, the Kroner also met here.

He studied philosophy and literature in Wroclaw in Jacob Freudenthal, Matthias Baumgartner and Psychology Hermann Ebbinghaus. In the winter semester 1902/ 02 he heard in Berlin under Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, then in the summer of 1903 in Heidelberg at Kuno Fischer and Wilhelm diaper band. Here he met Paul Hensel, Emil Lask, Julius Ebbinghaus, Fedor Stepun and Heinz Heimsoeth know. Heimsoeth reported over time:

" In the seminar on the Critique of Pure Reason shone as a model of four semester senior Richard Kroner, which should be in the still accepted by the old master renovation of Hegelianism later to become a leading head. Formative power went out in the systematic of which had just been habilitated Emil Lask, was discussed in the narrower circles Fichte's critique of his age. "

Kroner went twice in the study period to Breslau, where he made ​​1906 military service in an artillery regiment from October 1905 to October. He then continued his studies on the advice of diaper band continued because of its epistemological interest in Freiburg. There doctorate in 1908, he with Heinrich Rickert with the work over logical and aesthetic whole. In the Auto indication of the work in the Kant-Studien states:

"The work stands on critical ground. Its main purpose is in a test of the correlation of the universality of aesthetic judgment and the transcendental- logical universality represented by Kant in his Critique of Judgment. "

At the same time the work was one of the first clashes with Husserl's phenomenology. On May 12, 1908, he married his childhood friend Alice in Wroclaw. They got back in 1909 their only daughter Gerda, who after eventful stations should be a lecturer in linguistics in Ann Arbor later. In 1910 Kroner co-founder of the journal Logos, whose publication in the circle of friends with Stepun, Georg Mehlis, Sergius Hessen and Nikolai von Bubnoff was discussed Rickert in the house, among other things, was agreed. Editor of the first volume was Mehlis. Kroner was from the third band co-editor and after the war alone editor. The concept of the magazine was an international and interdisciplinary. They did not only develop theoretical positions, but immediately take on the current issues of culture and influence.

In the first volume of the logo Kroner published an essay in the philosophy of Bergson was shown for the first time in German language. After Bergson had been positive about this work, this starting point of habilitation submitted Kroner 1912 with the theme and purpose of the Act was biology. Kroner was on March 1, 1912 Associate Professor of Philosophy at Heidelberg. After four years in the First World War, from the Kroner as a captain and awarded returned with the Iron Cross second and first class, he continued his studies at Rickert and then Husserl continues. On March 14, 1919, he became a non-tenured ao. Professor appointed. In 1920, he received a three-year salaried teaching position on the philosophy of German Idealism, the first time enabled him to deny his own livelihood and that of his family. This gave rise to the two-volume work " From Kant to Hegel ," which he also found international acclaim and recognition.

In 1922 an appeal failed on a professorship in Marburg, was preferred in Martin Heidegger. Then in 1924 it came with support of Viktor Klemperer to the appointment to the chair of " theoretical pedagogy and philosophy " at the Technical University Dresden, where he sat down in competition with Paul Luchtenberg. In Dresden Kroner came across Alfred Baeumler, with whom he worked initially friendly, but went to him at a distance, as Baeumler from 1926 vehemently opposed the idealism and the philosophy of value. As of 1925, Paul Tillich to Dresden, with the Kroner befriended. Also in 1925, it was possible for his friend Fedor Stepun a position as ao. Enforce a professor of sociology. About the work at the University of attractions were Kroner and his wife for a variety of socializing in their large villa on the Elbe: "A large part of the intellectual and artistic Dresden where he met for lectures, afternoon teas, discussions, drama, but also to summer festivals with lanterns. "

In 1928 Kroner took a professorship at the University of Kiel as the successor of Heinrich Scholz on a pure chair of philosophy. Here he was able to increasingly focus on its particular topic, German Idealism from the summer semester of 1929. On the 1st International Hegel Congress in The Hague, he was elected as a leading German Hegelian 1 Chairman of the newly established International Hegel Federal. He held until 1934, as chairman.

In addition to his commitment to Hegel Kroner published 1931 Scripture: "Cultural Philosophical foundation of the policy." In this he criticizes the idea of the targeted both by Fascism and Bolshevism " absolute state". Herein as expressed, though conservative, but democratic political setting may have been one of the causes that led to significant disruption of his lectures on the "seizure of power " by the Nazis, although he as a participant of the 1st World War, according to the " front-line fighters privilege" was officially not yet affected by the law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. Then there was 1934 a compulsory transfer to the University of Frankfurt. There they strongly advised him to avoid further personal damage, to a voluntary retirement. Kroner followed this and went to his sister, who had also studied with Rickert, 1935 in Berlin. In 1938 he finally decided to emigrate to England, where he could teach for three years in Oxford. In 1940 he finally moved to the U.S., where he taught from 1941 1952 Philosophy of Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York until his retirement.