Dr. Julius Friedrich August Bahnsen (March 30, 1830 – December 7, 1881) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 philosopher. Bahnsen is usually considered the originator of characterology

Characterology

Characterology is a method of character reading that attempted to combine revised physiognomy, reconstructed phrenology and amplified pathognomy, with ethnology, sociology and anthropology. Developed by L...

 and a real-dialectic

Dialectic

Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...

al method of philosophical reflection

Human self-reflection

Human self-reflection is the capacity of humans to exercise introspection and the willingness to learn more about their fundamental nature, purpose and essence. The earliest historical records demonstrate the great interest which humanity has had in itself...

 which he laid down in his two-volume Contributions to Characterology (1867) and developed forth with his following works, amongst others his Opus magnum

Masterpiece

Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

 The Contradiction in the Knowledge and Being of the World (1880/82).

Biographical data

Born in Tondern (Tønder)

Tønder

Tønder is a municipality in Region of Southern Denmark on the Jutland peninsula in south Denmark. The municipality covers an area of 1,278 km², and has a total population of 40,367...

, Schleswig

Schleswig

Schleswig or South Jutland is a region covering the area about 60 km north and 70 km south of the border between Germany and Denmark; the territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany...

, in 1847 Bahnsen began his study of philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and (under Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch

Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch

Gregor Wilhelm Nitzsch was a German classical scholar known chiefly for his writings on Homeric epic.Brother of Karl Immanuel Nitzsch, he was born at Wittenberg. In 1827, he was appointed professor of ancient literature at Kiel but, in 1852, was dismissed by the Danish government for his German...

) philology

Philology

Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...

 in Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

. From 1849 he fought as a volunteer against the Danes

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 in the First War of Schleswig

First War of Schleswig

The First Schleswig War or Three Years' War was the first round of military conflict in southern Denmark and northern Germany rooted in the Schleswig-Holstein Question, contesting the issue of who should control the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The war, which lasted from 1848–1851,...

 (1848–1851) and fled to Tübingen in the Kingdom of Württemberg

Kingdom of Württemberg

The Kingdom of Württemberg was a state that existed from 1806 to 1918, located in present-day Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It was a continuation of the Duchy of Württemberg, which came into existence in 1495...

 after the disarming of Schleswig-Holstein’s

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...

  army in 1850. There he studied philosophy and in 1853 graduated under Friedrich Theodor Vischer

Friedrich Theodor Vischer

Friedrich Theodor Vischer was a German writer on the philosophy of art.Born at Ludwigsburg as the son of a clergyman, Vischer was educated at Tübinger Stift, and began life in his father's profession...

 with a topic relating to the aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

. Various employments as a teacher followed. In 1862, Bahnsen acquired an employment at a progymnasium

Gymnasium (school)

A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...

 in Lauenburg (Lębork)

Lebork

Lębork is a town on the Łeba and Okalica rivers in Middle Pomerania region, north-western Poland with some 37,000 inhabitants.Lębork is also the capital of Lębork County in Pomeranian Voivodeship since 1999, formerly in Słupsk Voivodeship ....

, Hinterpommern, where he lived until his death.

Philosophical work

As a disciple of Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

, Bahnsen dared a mergence of Hegel’s

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...

 dialectic (which Bahnsen, however, accepted only within the realms of the abstract

Abstract object

An abstract object is an object which does not exist at any particular time or place, but rather exists as a type of thing . In philosophy, an important distinction is whether an object is considered abstract or concrete. Abstract objects are sometimes called abstracta An abstract object is an...

) and Schopenhauer’s monism

Monism

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...

. Though in this connection the reasonless, all-embracing Schopenhauerian will

Will (philosophy)

Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...

 is still accepted as the essence of the world and the only thing real, it doesn’t regard the will as being the same within all individuals, but as just as manifold as these individuals.

This characterological element of Bahnsen’s teachings, on which the works of such philosophers as Ludwig Klages

Ludwig Klages

Ludwig Klages was a German philosopher, psychologist and a theoretician in the field of handwriting analysis.-Life:...

are build upon, is laid down in the Contributions to Characterology (1867) as well as the disquisitions On the Relationship Between Will and Motive (1870) and Mosaics and Silhouettes (1877). Since the nature of unreasonableness consists in contradiction—particularly the contemporaneous existence of multiple will directions attaching themselves to each other—it follows that not only reality is a continuous struggle of material contrasts (real-dialectic), but that the inside of each individual is addicted to the insolvable antagonism of opposite will directions (will collisions) as well. Bahnsen negates a redemption of the countless will units (“will henades”, as he expresses it himself) and postulates the permanence of the existence of the contradiction as a basic nature of the world, whereby the law of this world becomes a tragic world order.

The real-dialectical side of his teachings Bahnsen laid down in the paper On the Philosophy of History (1871), his central work The Contradiction in the Knowledge and Being of the World (1880/82), and his anniversary publication to the jubilee of the city Tübingen The Tragical as World Law and Humour as Aesthetic Shape of the Metaphysical (1877).

Literature

• Julius Bahnsen, Winfried H. Müller-Seyfarth (Ed.): Das Tragische als Weltgesetz und der Humor als ästhetische Gestalt des Metaphysischen. (“The Tragical as World Law and Humour as Aesthetic Shape of the Metaphysical.”) VanBremen VerlagsBuchhandlung, Berlin 1995
• Julius Bahnsen, Anselm Ruest (Ed.): Wie ich wurde, was ich ward, nebst anderen Stücken aus dem Nachlaß des Philosophen. Leipzig 1931