EUCKEN, RUDOLF. - Philosopher, b. at Aurich on 5 Jan. 1846, d. at Jena on 6 Sept. 1926. He was professor of philosophy at Basel in 1871-74, then at Jena.
E. was one of the first to rise up against the naturalism and positivism of his time. His philosophy begins from the consideration of human life analyzed and interpreted not with the means of psychological research, but according to a special "noological" method, aimed at the understanding of spiritual life as the origin and means of development of ideas and of subjective and universal values. In the philosophy of religion E. gives this conception better-defined metaphysical foundations.
God taken in himself is spiritual and personal power, absolutely superior to the world. His productions and emanations are of an antithetic nature: on the one hand he is the origin of the material world, in which the spirit is present only as formal rationality; on the other he radiates into this world the forces that can raise themselves above nature. The first degree in this ascent is represented by organic life, the second by subjective consciousness. A new communication of the divine life renders psychic subjectivity capable of objectifying its activity in productions of objective and ideal validity. However, in order to make possible the attainment of the highest degree of the ascent toward spirituality, the Divine had to communicate itself in a final irradiation that gives the human spirit true interiority and a direct and personal relation with God. Christianity is the religion of this perfect union with the divine spirit; it represents the "characteristic" religion, superior to the other religions that remain in the sphere of moral and cultural life. With this appreciation, however, E. joins a decidedly negative judgment on the Christian Churches.
E. had, for some decades, a considerable and international influence. The E.-Bund, founded in 1920, seeks to continue his work as an exhorter and reformer of cultural life.
Principal works: Gesch. der philosophischen Terminologie (Leipzig 1879); Die Einheit des Geisteslebens in Bewusstsein und Tat der Menschheit (ibid. 1888); Die Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker (ibid. 1890, 18th ed. Berlin 1922); Der Wahrheitsgehalt der Religion (Leipzig 1901, 3rd ed. 1912); Hauptprobleme der Religionsphilosophie der Gegenwart (Berlin 1907, 5th ed. 1912); Kienen wir noch Christen sein? (Leipzig 1911); Mensch und Welt. Eine Philosophie des Lebens (ibid. 1918, 2nd ed. 1920).