Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (; 15 May 1740 – 22 May 1821) was a German philosopher.

Life

Feder was born on 15 May 1740 in the village of Schornweisach (now a part of Uehlfeld,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

) in the Principality of Bayreuth, the son of Martin Heinrich Feder († 1749), the village

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

. Feder studied theology and pedagogy at Erlangen. From 1768 to 1782 he was Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. At the time of his death, in

Hanover Hanover (; german: Hannover ; nds, Hannober) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Lower Saxony. Its 535,932 (2021) inhabitants make it the 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-largest city in Northern Germany ...

, he was Director of the Pageninstitut. His writings were widely read at the time due to their clear and tasteful mode of presentation. Feder decisively countered

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...

idealism In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected t ...

. He gained notoriety through his abbreviation of Christian Garve's review of Kant's ''Critique of Pure Reason''. As philosopher Feder belonged to the better representatives of the

eclectics Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in ...

tending towards the

Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...

– Wolff School.

Works

* ''Sex dies, intra quos opus creationis absolutum, quales fuerint'' (1759). * ''Homo natura non ferus'' (1765). * ''Grundriss der philosophischen Wissenschaften'' (1767). 2nd ed., 1769. * ''Vom Werthe des systematischen Denkens'' (1767). * ''Der neue Emil'' (1768–1774). 2 volumes. ** Volume 1, 1768. 2nd ed., 1771. 3rd ed., 1774. ** Volume 2, 1774. * ''Logik und Metaphysik im Grundriss'' (1769). 3rd ed., 1783. Google (UMich) * ''Lehrbuch der praktischen Philosophie'' (1770). * ''Institutiones logicae et metaphysicae'' (1777). * ''Untersuchungen über den menschlichen Willen'' (1779–1793). 4 volumes. ** Volume 1, 1779. ** Volume 2, 1782. ** Volume 3, 1786. ** Volume 4, 1793. * ''Grundlehren zur Kenntniß des menschlichen Willens'' (1783). 2nd ed., 1785
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* ''Ueber Raum und Causalität, zur Prüfung der kantischen Philosophie'' (1787). * (ed.) ''Philosophische Bibliothek'' (1788–1791). 4 volumes. * ''Grundsätze der Logik und Metaphysik'' (1794). * ''Sophie Churfürstin von Hannover im Umriss'' (1810). * ''Handbuch über das Staats- Rechnungs- und Kassen-Wesen'' (1820)
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* ''Feders Leben, Natur und Grundsätze'' (1825). eder's autobiography, edited by his son Karl August Ludwig

External links

* Biography in ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'', Vol. 6, 1877, pp. 595–597. {{DEFAULTSORT:Feder, Johann Georg Heinrich 1740 births 1821 deaths People from Neustadt (Aisch)-Bad Windsheim 18th-century German philosophers 19th-century German philosophers Enlightenment philosophers People from the Principality of Bayreuth University of Erlangen-Nuremberg alumni University of Göttingen faculty 18th-century German male writers