Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus (1796–1862) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
philosopher best known for his exegetical work on philosophy, such as his characterisation of Hegel's
dialecticDialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues...
as positing a triad of
thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
He was born at
PfaffrodaPfaffroda is a municipality in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in Saxony, Germany....
in
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
. For some years he taught at
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and won a high reputation by his lectures on the history of philosophy in Germany. In 1839 he became professor in Kiel University, where, with the exception of one brief interval, when he was expelled with several colleagues because of his German sympathies, he remained till his death.
His first published work,
Historische Entwicklung der spekulativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel (1837, 5th ed.
Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus (1796–1862) was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
philosopher best known for his exegetical work on philosophy, such as his characterisation of Hegel's
dialecticDialectic is a method of argument, which has been central to both Eastern and Western philosophy since ancient times. The word "dialectic" originates in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato's Socratic dialogues...
as positing a triad of
thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
He was born at
PfaffrodaPfaffroda is a municipality in the district Erzgebirgskreis, in Saxony, Germany....
in
SaxonyThe Free State of Saxony is a federal state of Germany, located in the southeastern part of present-day Germany. It is the tenth-largest German state in area and the sixth largest in population , of Germany's sixteen states.Long in the heart of German-speaking Europe, Saxony became one of the new...
. For some years he taught at
DresdenDresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, and won a high reputation by his lectures on the history of philosophy in Germany. In 1839 he became professor in Kiel University, where, with the exception of one brief interval, when he was expelled with several colleagues because of his German sympathies, he remained till his death.
His first published work,
Historische Entwicklung der spekulativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel (1837, 5th ed. 1860), which still ranks among the best expositions of modern German thought, has been twice translated into English, by Alfred Tulk (London, 1854), and by
Alfred EdersheimAlfred Edersheim was a Jewish convert to Christianity and a Biblical scholar known especially for his book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah .- Early life and education :...
(Edinburgh, 1854). His chief works are
Entwurf eines Systems der Wissenschaftslehre (Kiel, 1846) and
System der spekulativen Ethik (2 vols., 1850).
He opposed both the extreme realism of Herbart and what he regarded as the one-sided idealism of Hegel, and endeavoured to find a mean between them, to discover the ideal or formal principle which unfolds itself in the real or material world presented to it. His
Wissenschaftslehre, accordingly, divides itself into
- Principlehre, or theory of the one principle;
- Vermittelungslehre, or theory of the means by which this principle realizes itself; and
- Teleologie.
The most noticeable point is the position assigned by Chalybäus to the World Ether, which is defined as the infinite in time and space, and which, he thinks, must be posited as necessarily coexisting with the Infinite Spirit or God. The fundamental principle of the
System der Ethik is carried out with great strength of thought, and with an unusually complete command of ethical material.