Friedrich Paulsen (; July 16, 1846 – August 14, 1908) was a German Neo-Kantian philosopher and educator. Biography He was born at Langenhorn (Schleswig) and educated at the Gymnasium Christianeum, the University of Erlangen, and the University of Berlin. He completed his doctoral thesis under Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg at Berlin in 1871, he habilitated there in 1875, and he became extraordinary professor of philosophy and pedagogy there in 1878. In 1896 he succeeded Eduard Zeller as professor of moral philosophy at Berlin. He was the greatest of the pupils of Gustav Theodor Fechner, to whose doctrine of panpsychism he gave great prominence by his Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892; 7th ed., 1900; Eng. trans., 1895). He went, however, considerably beyond Fechner in attempting to give an epistemological account of the knowledge of the psychophysical. Admitting Immanuel Kant's hypothesis that by inner sense we are conscious of mental states only, he holds that this consciousness constitutes a knowledge of the thing-in-itself which Kant denies. Soul is, therefore, a practical reality which Paulsen, with Arthur Schopenhauer, regards as known by the act of will. But this will is neither rational desire, unconscious irrational will, nor conscious intelligent will, but an instinct, a will to live (Zielstrebigkeit), often subconscious, pursuing ends, indeed, but without reasoning as to means. This conception of will, though consistent and convenient to the main thesis, must be rigidly distinguished from the ordinary significance of will, i.e. rational desire. Paulsen is almost better known for his educational writings than as a pure philosopher, including his German Education, Past and Present (Eng. trans., by I. Lorenz, 1907). Works Among his other works are: Versuch einer Entwickelunggeschichte der Kantischen Erkenntnistheorie (Leipzig, 1875) Im. Kant (1898, 1899) Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten (1885, 1896) System der Ethik (1889, 1899; Eng. trans. [partial] 1899) Das Realgymnasium u. d. humanist. Bildung (1889) Kant d. Philos. d. Protestantismus (1899) Schopenhauer, Hamlet u. Mephistopheles (1900) Philosophia militans (1900, 1901) Parteipolitik u. Moral (1900) See also German new humanism Notes References External links fps-niebuell.de 1846 births 1908 deaths 19th-century educators 19th-century essayists 19th-century German male writers 19th-century German philosophers 20th-century educators 20th-century essayists 20th-century German male writers 20th-century German philosophers Action theorists German consciousness researchers and theorists Continental philosophers Epistemologists German ethicists German humanists German male essayists German male non-fiction writers Humboldt University of Berlin alumni Academic staff of the Humboldt University