Hindenburg

Digitalisat der Ausgabe von 1925, erschienen 202

Gedanken über den Gegensatz von Leben und Geist

Digitalisat der Ausgabe von 1921, erschienen 201

Theodor Lessing Collection 1922-1968

This collection features 5 original letters written by Lessing to Max Brod and original letters by Lessing's sister in which she recounts events from Lessing's life. In addition there are two printed cards, one a call to action by prominent intellectuals, which appear to have been created in the wake of Lessing's assassination. The rest of the collection consists primarily of photocopies of short manuscripts by Lessing, as well as photocopies of financial documents and correspondence regarding the creation of a foundation in honor of Lessing. In this group there are also a few letters to the Bäderzeitung newspaper about a bounty for Lessing offered by the German government.Container list:There is no record of where the originals of the photocopied manuscripts and correspondence in this collection are located.Photographs have been removed to the Photograph Collection ; clippings have been removed to the Clippings Collection.Theodor Lessing was born in Hannover in 1972. He studied medicine in Freiburg, Bonn and Munich, where he switched to philosophy, literature and psychology. In 1907 he returned to Hannover, where he taught philosophy at the Technische Hochschule. He served as a physician in World War I and established the Volkshochschule in Hanover in 1919. In the 1920s, he became a prolific writer and published articles and essays in several newspapers and magazines. Lessing left Germany in March of 1933 and moved to Marienbad from where he continued to publish in exile newspapers. He was shot in his office on August 30, 1933 and died the next day.An earlier inventory is available in the folder.digitize

Defining Human Sciences: Theodor Waitz’s Influence on Dilthey

1The work of Theodor Waitz is an important but hitherto unnoticed source of Dilthey’s concept of ‘human sciences’ (Geisteswissenschaften). Waitz (1821-1864) was an outstanding philosopher and psychologist who, in the late 1850s, devoted himself wholeheartedly to empirical anthropology. In this field Waitz distinguished himself for his defence of the unity of humankind against mainstream polygenic and racial doctrines. Waitz inspired Dilthey’s articulation of psychology into two branches: the ‘descriptive’ one and the ‘explanative’ one. Even more remarkably, in a work reviewed by Dilthey in warmly favourably terms, Waitz explicitly mentioned and defined the ‘sciences which treat of the spirit (Geist)’. Many important insights of Dilthey’s work are thus prefigured in Waitz’s long underrated work.partially_openopenRiccardo MartinelliMartinelli, Riccard