Jakob Thomasius (; ; 27 August 1622 – 9 September 1684) was a German academic philosopher and jurist. He is now regarded as an important founding figure in the scholarly study of the

history of philosophy The history of philosophy is the systematic study of the development of philosophical thought. It focuses on philosophy as rational inquiry based on argumentation, but some theorists also include myth, religious traditions, and proverbial lor ...

. His views were eclectic, and were taken up by his son Christian Thomasius.

Work

Thomasius was influential in the contemporary realignment of philosophy as a discipline. Martin Mulsow writes: He wrote on a wide range of topics, including

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from Ancient Greek language, Ancient Greek: , Romanization of Ancient Greek, romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: Help:IPA/Greek, �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced ...

plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...

and the education of women. He was the teacher of

Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Isaac Newton, Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in ad ...

at the

University of Leipzig Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...

, where Thomasius was professor of Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, remaining a friend and correspondent up until the early 1670s, and has been described as Leibniz's mentor. He is perhaps best remembered now as the author of the first published attack on

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

's Theological-Political Treatise. In Academic study of Western esotericism Thomasius is sometimes accredited as an intellectual watershed leading to the demise of the previously hegemonic

Prisca theologia ''Prisca theologia'' ("ancient theology") is the doctrine that asserts that a single, true theology exists which threads through all religions, and which was anciently given by God to humans. History The term ''prisca theologia'' appears to have ...

.Hanegraaff, Wouter (2012). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521196215.

Family

From 1653, Jacob Thomasius was married to Maria Weber, daughter of Archdeacon of St. Nicholas's Church and the extraordinary professor of the university Jeremiah Weber. Their children were the famous philosopher and lawyer Christian Thomasius (1655–1728), Doctor of medicine and physician in Nuremberg Gottfried Thomasius (born 1660) and Johanna (born 1663) – later the wife of professor of poetry and director of the University library in Leipzig Joachim Feller (1638–1691). Since Maria Weber died a few days after giving birth to her daughter, in 1664 Jacob Thomasius remarried with the widow of the rector of St. Peter's School. Nicholas was born Maria Elisabeth Hornschuh, nee Eichhorn, which brought him six more daughters and one son; among them, Maria Elisabeth (born 1665), was the wife of Leipzig professor of theology (1642–1721).

Bibliography

*''Philosophia practica'' (1661) *''Schediasma historicum'' (1665) *''De foeminarum eruditione'' (1671) with Johannes Sauerbrei and Jacobus Smalcius *''Praefationes sub auspicia disputationum suarum'' (1681) *''Dissertationes ad stoicae philosophiae'' (1682) *''Orationes'' (1683)

Notes

External links

*
Mathematics Genealogy Project

Thomasius' Neurotree profile
* *
Translation of Thomasius's critique of Spinoza
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thomasius, Jakob 1622 births 1684 deaths Heads of schools in Germany 17th-century German writers 17th-century German philosophers St. Thomas School, Leipzig teachers 17th-century German male writers

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Family

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