Nicolai Hartmann, the German realist philosopher, was born in Riga, Latvia, and educated at St. Petersburg, Dorpat, and Marburg. He was a professor at Marburg from 1920 to 1925, at Cologne from 1925 to 1931, at Berlin from 1931 to 1945, and at Göttingen from 1945 until his death.

The Work and the Man

The typical German philosopher since the mid-1850s gives generous assistance to anyone wishing to become acquainted with his main ideas. He will have published at least one work on a philosopher of the past, who, with the regrettable exception of a few Greeks, turns out to be either German himself or mediocre and, with no exception at all, proves to be someone who could have been the professor's disciple or apostate. By simply observing what the author lauds and damns, stresses and omits, one may gather in concentrated form the materials for a portrait, not...