Jacob Klein (March 3, 1899 – July 16, 1978) was a Russian-American philosopher and interpreter of Plato, who worked extensively on the nature and historical origin of modern symbolic mathematics.

Biography

Klein was born in Libava, Russian Empire. He studied at Berlin and Marburg, where he received his Ph.D. in 1922. A student of Nicolai Hartmann,

Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...

, and Edmund Husserl, he later taught at St. John's College in

Annapolis, Maryland Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...

from 1938 until his death. He served as dean from 1949 to 1958. Klein was affectionately known as Jasha (pronounced "Yasha"). He was one of the world's preeminent interpreters of Plato and the Platonic tradition. As one of many Jewish scholars who were no longer safe in Europe, he fled the Nazis. He was a friend of fellow émigré and German-American philosopher

Leo Strauss Leo Strauss (, ; September 20, 1899 – October 18, 1973) was a German-American political philosopher who specialized in classical political philosophy. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, Strauss later emigrated from Germany to the United States. ...

. Of Klein's first book ''Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra'', Strauss said:

The work is much more than a historical study. But even if we take it as a purely historical work, there is not, in my opinion, a contemporary work in the history of philosophy or science or in "the history of ideas" generally speaking which in intrinsic worth comes within hailing distance of it.

Russian born French philosopher Alexandre Kojève counted Klein as one of the two people (along with Strauss) from whom he could learn anything. The central thesis of his work ''Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra'' is that the modern concept of mathematics is based on the symbolic interpretation of the Greek concept of number (''

arithmos Karlsruhe Accurate Arithmetic (KAA) or Karlsruhe Accurate Arithmetic Approach (KAAA), augments conventional floating-point arithmetic with good error behaviour with new operations to calculate scalar products with a single rounding error. The f ...

''). Klein died in 1978 in

Works

*''A Commentary on Plato's Meno'' (University of North Carolina Press, 1965) *''Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra'' (MIT Press, 1968), translated from German by

Eva Brann Eva T. H. Brann (born 1929) is a former dean (1990–1997) and the longest-serving tutor (1957–present) at St. John's College, Annapolis. She is a 2005 recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Brann was born to a Jewish family in Berlin. She ...

, originally published in 1934–36. *''Plato's Trilogy: Theaetetus, the Sophist, and the Statesman'' (University of Chicago Press, 1977) *''Jacob Klein: Lectures and Essays'' ed. by Robert Williamson and Elliott Zuckerman (St. John's College Press, 1985)

Notes

References

* 1899 births 1978 deaths People from Liepāja People from Courland Governorate Latvian Jews American philosophers Jewish philosophers German emigrants to the United States American historians of mathematics St. John's College (Annapolis/Santa Fe) faculty German male writers 20th-century German philosophers Philosophers of mathematics Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Germany {{germany-philosopher-stub