BECHER, Erich. - German philosopher, born in Reinshagen (Remscheid) on 1 September 1882, died on 5 January 1929 in Munich, where he had been a professor since 1916.
Principal works, in addition to an autobiography: *Philosophische Voraussetzungen der exakten Naturwissenschaften* (1907); *Gehirn und Seele* (1911); *Naturphilosophie* (1914); *Weltgebäude, Weltgesetze, Weltentwicklung* (1915); *Einführung in die Philosophie* (1926); *Metaphysik und Naturwissenschaften* (1926).
Becher was a critical realist: existences not given in consciousness manifest themselves through their activity, and the reality of an external world is a seriously plausible hypothesis. Substances are complexes of persistent qualities; bodies are space-filling qualities and form the real correlates of immediately perceptible qualities. His conception of nature is mechanistic, confirmed, in Becher’s view, by the electron theory. In psychology, he insisted on the doctrine of reciprocal activity or *Wechselwirkung*; in ethics, he advocated a social eudemonism and a kindly utilitarianism.