Moritz Geiger (26 June 1880 – 9 September 1937) was a

German philosopher German philosophy, here taken to mean either (1) philosophy in the German language or (2) philosophy by Germans, has been extremely diverse, and central to both the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy for centuries, from Gottfried W ...

and a disciple of

Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...

. He was a member of the Munich phenomenological school. Beside

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...

, he dedicated himself to

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Episte ...

and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

Life

Moritz Geiger was born in

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

. He studied law at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's List of universities in Germany, sixth-oldest u ...

in 1898, then

history of literature The history of literature is the historical development of writings in prose or poetry that attempt to provide entertainment, enlightenment, or instruction to the reader/listener/observer, as well as the development of the literary techniques ...

in 1899, and finally philosophy and psychology in 1900, with

Theodor Lipps Theodor Lipps (; 28 July 1851 – 17 October 1914) was a Germans, German philosopher, famed for his theory regarding aesthetics, creating the framework for the concept of ''Einfühlung'' (empathy)'','' defined as, "projecting oneself onto the ob ...

. During the years 1901–1902, he studied

experimental psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

with

Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and ...

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. Returning to Munich in 1904, he became part of the circle of students around Lipps, which included

Alexander Pfänder Alexander Pfänder (7 February 1870, in Iserlohn18 March 1941, in Munich) was a German philosopher who was a member of the Munich phenomenological school. Biography Pfänder was born in Iserlohn and spent his entire academic career in Munich, wh ...

Adolf Reinach Adolf Bernhard Philipp Reinach (23 December 1883 – 16 November 1917) was a German philosopher, phenomenologist (from the Munich phenomenology school) and law theorist. Life and work Adolf Reinach was born into a prominent Jewish family in M ...

Theodor Conrad Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor. List of people with the given name Theodor * Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher * Theodor Aman, Romanian painter * Theodor Bluege ...

Aloys Fischer Aloys Fischer (10 April 1880 – 23 November 1937) was a German educationalist. Fischer was born in Furth im Wald, Bavaria on 10 April 1880. He attended the local elementary school. In 1891 he was awarded a scholarship to the grammar school bas ...

Max Scheler Max Ferdinand Scheler (; 22 August 1874 – 19 May 1928) was a German philosopher known for his work in phenomenology, ethics, and philosophical anthropology. Considered in his lifetime one of the most prominent German philosophers,Davis, Zachar ...

, and

Dietrich von Hildebrand Dietrich Richard Alfred von Hildebrand (12 October 1889 – 26 January 1977) was a German Roman Catholic philosopher and religious writer. Hildebrand was called "the twentieth-century Doctor of the Church" by Pope Pius XII. He was a leading ...

. In 1906, Geiger attended Husserl's lectures in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, and became part of the Munich Circle of phenomenology, along with Reinach, Conrad, Fischer and Pfänder. He passed his thesis in 1907. Along with this Husserlian circle (including

), he published the review ''

Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung Munich phenomenology (also Munich phenomenological school) is the philosophical orientation of a group of philosophers and psychologists that studied and worked in Munich at the turn of the twentieth century. Their views are grouped under the names ...

''. In 1915, he became a teacher at Munich and, after

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, at Göttingen (1923). When the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

had him dismissed from his chair because of his Jewish ancestry in 1933, he emigrated to the United States, teaching at

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

in New York and at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He died at

Seal Harbor, Maine Mount Desert is a town on Mount Desert Island in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,146 at the 2020 census. Incorporated in 1789, the town currently encompasses the villages of Otter Creek, Seal Harbor, Northeast Harb ...

. Several of his students became famous, such as Klaus Berger,

Hans-Georg Gadamer Hans-Georg Gadamer (; ; February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher of the continental tradition, best known for his 1960 ''magnum opus'', '' Truth and Method'' (''Wahrheit und Methode''), on hermeneutics. Life Family an ...

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin (; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German Jewish philosopher, cultural critic and essayist. An eclectic thinker, combining elements of German idealism, Romanticism, Western Marxism, and Jewish mys ...

and

Karl Löwith Karl Löwith (9 January 1897 – 26 May 1973) was a German philosopher in the phenomenological tradition. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he was one of the most prolific German philosophers of the twentieth century. He is known for his two ...

Theoretical contributions

Moritz Geiger was the sustainer of a

sui generis ''Sui generis'' ( , ) is a Latin phrase that means "of its/their own kind", "in a class by itself", therefore "unique". A number of disciplines use the term to refer to unique entities. These include: * Biology, for species that do not fit in ...

phenomenological method of “pure self-given

factuality A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scie ...

”, without limitation by sensual-visible or

idealistic 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 to ide ...

prejudices, without basing the reality on a lower, not-given sphere. In his phenomenology every given fact values equally, independent from whether it is sensual or not.Gödel, Florian (2015), "An introduction to Moritz Geiger’s psychological contribution on empathy." ''Dialogues in Philosophy, Mental and Neuro Sciences'', 8(1):161–8. He is also famous for being the founder of aesthetic phenomenology deeply but freely influenced by Husserl. A less known but very important contribution is in the clarification of the psychological concept of

empathy Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position. Definitions of empathy encompass a broad range of social, co ...

. In a lecture on the

essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

and meaning of empathy presented at the 4th Congress for

in Innsbruck (Austria), Geiger fully describes the different

concepts Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by sev ...

of empathy available in the whole wide panorama of his time. The range of the discussed conceptualizations is wide, from aesthetics to

evolutionary theory Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, from the phenomenal fact of “foreign expressive movements” and “foreign personalities” across the – deeply romantically influenced – treatment of the “animation of subhuman entities”, to end with the aesthetical aspects of empathy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Geiger, Moritz 1880 births 1937 deaths 20th-century essayists 20th-century German non-fiction writers 20th-century German philosophers Continental philosophers Epistemologists German male essayists German male non-fiction writers German people of Jewish descent Jewish philosophers Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich faculty Metaphysicians Ontologists People from Mount Desert Island Phenomenologists Philosophers of art Philosophers of mind Philosophers of psychology Philosophy academics Philosophy writers University of Göttingen faculty