Fries, Jakob Friedrich

FRIES, JAKOB FRIEDRICH. - Philosopher, b. at Barby (Saxony) on 23 Aug. 1773, d. at Jena on 10 Aug. 1843. He was educated in the schools of the Pietist confraternities and subsequently studied at the Universities of Leipzig and Jena, where from 1816 he was professor of philosophy.

F. seeks to recover, in opposition to idealism, the doctrine and spirit of Kantian philosophy. His interpretation, however, does not preserve the idea of a transcendental critique, inasmuch as it transposes the deduction of the first principles of thought onto the psychological and anthropological plane. In his philosophy of religion F. enriches the moralistic conception of the Enlightenment with Pietist and Romantic motifs. His doctrine of a specifically religious mode of experiencing and ascertaining the Divine was accepted and developed by some of the most influential Protestant theologians (W. Bousset, R. Otto). F.'s philosophy found at the beginning of this century a continuator in L. Nelson, founder and head of the so-called Neo-Friesian school.

Principal works: Handbuch der praktischen Philosophie, I: Ethik... (Heidelberg 1818); II: Religionsphilosophie... (ibid. 1823); Neue Kritik der Vernunft (3 vols., 2nd ed., ibid. 1828-32); System der Metaphysik (ibid. 1824); Wissen, Glaube und Ahndung (new ed. edited by L. Nelson, Göttingen 1905).

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