FRIEDRICH KARL

See also:

• CHRISTIAN
• CHRISTIAN, WILLIAM (1608-1663)

CHRISTIAN

See also:

• LUDWIG, KARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1816—1895)
• LUDWIG, OTTO (1813-1865)

LUDWIG

See also:

• FRIEDRICH KARL CHRISTIAN LUDWIG BUCHNER (1824-1899)

BUCHNER (1824-1899)  , German philosopher and physician, was born at Darmstadt . He studied at Giessen, Strassburg, Wiirzburg and Vienna . In 1852 he became lecturer in medicine at the university of Tubingen, where he published his great work Kraft und Slog (18J5) . In this work, the product, according to Lange, of a fanatical enthusiasm for humanity, he sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of matter and force, and the finality of physical force . The extreme materialism of this work excited so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his post at Tubingen . He retired to Darmstadt, where he practised as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological and physiological magazines . He continued his philosophical work in defence of materialism, and published Natur and Geist (18J7), Aus Natur and Wissenschaft (vol. i., 1862; vol. ii., 1884), Fremdes and Eigenes aus dem geistigen Leben der Gegenwart (189o), Darwinismus and Socialismus (1894), IM Dienste der Wahrheit (1899) . He died at Darmstadt on the 1st of May 1899 . In estimating Buchner's philosophy it must be remembered that he was primarily a physiologist, not a metaphysician . Matter and force (or energy) are infinite; the conservation of force follows from the imperishability of matter, the ultimate basis of all science . Buchner is not always clear in his theory of the relation between matter and force . At one time he refuses to explain it, but generally he assumes that all natural and spiritual forces are indwelling in matter .

" Just as a

steam-engine," he says in Kraft and Stoff (7th ed., p . 130), " produces motion, so the intricate organic complex of force-bearing sub-stance in an animal organism produces a total sum of certain effects, which, when bound together in a unity, are called by us mind, soul, thought." Here he postulates force and mind as emanating from original matter—a materialistic monism . But in other parts of his works he suggests that mind and matter are two different aspects of that which is the basis of all things--a monism which is not necessarily materialistic, and which, in the absence of further explanation, constitutes a confession of failure . Buchner was much less concerned to establish a scientific metaphysic than to protest against the romantic idealism of his predecessors and the theological interpretations of the universe . Nature according to him is purely physical; it has no purpose, no will, no laws imposed by extraneous authority, no supernatural ethical sanction . See Frauenstadt, Der Materialismus (Leipzig, 1856) ; Janet, The Materialism of the Present Day: A Criticism of Dr Biuhner's System, trans . Masson (London, 1867) .