Rudolf Christoph Eucken, the German philosopher of life, was born in Aurich, East Friesland. He studied philology and philosophy at the University of Göttingen; after attaining his doctoral degree, he taught several years at Frankfurt Gymnasium. In 1871 he became professor of philosophy at the University of Basel, and in 1874 at Jena, where he remained until his death. In 1908 he received the Nobel Prize in literature.

Eucken was not a systematic philosopher. He began with life as man experiences it. Life inevitably tends to organize into "systems of life" that are organic or institutional. The function of philosophy is to make the meaning of each system explicit and, by explicating each, to raise the question, Which is to be preferred? But philosophy does not merely explicate; it also helps to transform existing life systems. Men assess these explications practically, in terms of...