Eduard Zeller

Eduard Zeller was born in Kleinbottwar in the Kingdom of Württemberg, the son of a government official. He was educated first at the Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Blaubeuren starting in 1831, and later at the University of Tübingen (the Tübinger Stift), then much under the influence of Hegel. He received his doctorate in 1836 with a thesis on Plato's Laws. In 1840 he was Privatdozent of theology at Tübingen, in 1847 professor of theology at Bern, and in 1849 professor of theology at Marburg, where he soon shifted to the philosophy faculty as the result of disputes with the Clerical party. He became professor of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg in 1862, moved to Berlin in 1872, and retired around 1895. He remained best known for his The Philosophy of Greeks in Their Historical Development (1844–52). He continued to expand and improve this work to reflect new research, and the last edition appeared in 1902. It was translated into most European languages and became the standard textbook on Greek philosophy. Zeller also published many works on theology and three volumes of philosophical essays. He was also one of the founders of the Theologische Jahrbücher (Theological Yearbooks), a periodical which became well known as the exponent of the Tübingen School historical-critical method of David Strauss and Christian Baur. He wrote much on the debate about whether theology was a kind of science (Wissenschaft). Like most of his contemporaries, including Friedrich Theodor Vischer, he began with Hegelianism, but subsequently developed a system of his own. He felt the necessity of going back to Kant and critically reconsidering the epistemological problems which, he believed, Kant had only partially resolved. He died in Stuttgart.

The Philosophie appeared in an abbreviated form as Grundriss der Geschichte der Griechischen Philosophie (1883; 5th ed. 1898); English transl. by Alleyne and Evelyn Abbott (1886), under the title, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy. Among his other works are: Platonische Studien (1839) Die Apostelgeschichte kritisch untersucht (1854; English translation J Dare, 1875–76: Volume 1 and Volume 2) Entwickelung des Monotheismus bei den Griechen (1862) Strauss und Renan (1864); (English translation 1866) Geschichte der christlichen Kirche (1898) Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz (1873, ed. 1875) Staat und Kirche (1873) Strauss in seinen Leben und Schriften 1874; (English translation 1874) Über Bedeutung und Aufgabe der Erkenntnisstheorie (1862) Über teleologische und mechanische Naturerklärung (1876) Vorträge und Abhandlungen (1865–84) Religion und Philosophie bei den Römern (1866, ed. 1871) Philosophische Aufsätze (1887).