EUGEN KARL

DUHRING (1833-1901)  , German philosopher and political economist, was born on the r2th of January 1833 at Berlin . After a legal education he practised at Berlin as a lawyer till 1859 . A weakness of the eyes, ending in total blindness, occasioned his taking up the studies with which his name is now connected . In 1864 he became docent of the university of Berlin, but, in consequence of a quarrel with the professoriate, was deprived of his licence to teach in 1874 . Among his works are Kapital and Arbeit (1865); Der Wert des Lebens (1865); Natiirliche Dialektik (1865); Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie (1869); Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik (1872)—one of his most successful works; Kursus der National- and Sozialokonomie (1873); Kursus der Philosophie (1875), entitled in a later edition Wirklichkeitsphilosophie; Logik and Wissenschaftstheorie (1878); Der Ersatz der Religion durch Vollkommeneres (1883) . He published his autobiography in 1882 under the title Sache, Leben and Feinde; the mention of " Feinde " (enemies) is characteristic . Duhring's philosophy claims to be emphatically the philosophy of reality . He is passionate in his denunciation of everything which, like mysticism, tries to veil reality . He is almost Lucretian in his anger against religion which would withdraw the secret of the universe from our direct gaze . His " substitute for religion " is a doctrinein many points akin to Comte and Feuerbach, the former of whom he resembles in his sentimentalism . Duhring's opinions changed considerably after his first appearance as a writer . His earlier work, Natitrliche Dialektik, in form and matter not the worst of his writings, is entirely in the spirit of the Critical Philosophy .

Later, in his

movement towards Positivism, he strongly repudiates Kant's separation of phenomenon from noumenon, and affirms that our intellect is capable of grasping the whole reality . This adequacy of thought to things is due to the fact that the universe contains but one reality, i.e. matter . It is to matter that we must look for the explanation both of conscious and of physical states . But matter is not, in his system, to be understood with the common meaning, but with a deeper sense as the substratum of all conscious and physical existence; and thus the laws of being are identified with the laws of thought . In this materialistic or quasi-materialistic system Duhring finds room for teleology; the end of Nature, he holds, is the production of a race of conscious beings . From his belief in teleology he is not deterred by the enigma of pain; he is a determined optimist . Pain exists to throw pleasure into conscious relief . In ethics Duhring follows Comte in making sympathy the foundation of morality . In political philosophy he teaches an ethical communism, and attacks the Darwinian principle of struggle for existence . It economics he is best known by his vindication of the American writer H . C . Carey, who attracts him both by his theory of value, which suggests an ultimate harmony of the interests of capitalist and labourer, and also by his doctrine of " national " political economy, which advocates protection on the ground that the morals and culture of a people are promoted by having its whole system of industry complete within its own borders .

His patriotism is fervent, but narrow and exclusive . He idolized

Frederick the Great, and denounced Jews, Greeks, and the cosmopolitan Goethe.• Duhring's clear, incisive writing is disfigured by arrogance and ill-temper, failings which may be extenuated on the ground of his physical affliction . He died in 1901 . See H . Druskowitz, Eugen Duhring (Heidelberg, 1888) ; E . Doll, Eugen Duhring (Leipzig, 1892) ; F . Engels, Eugen D.'s Umwalzung der Wissenschaft (3rd ed., Stuttgart, 1894) ; H . Vaihinger, Hartmann, Diihring and Lange (1876) . (H .