NATORP, PAUL. – Philosopher, born in Düsseldorf on 24 January 1854, died in Marburg on 17 August 1924, professor of philosophy at this University from 1885.
He belongs to the Marburg school and essentially Cohen (v.). A disciple of F. A. Lange (v.), he develops the logistic interpretation of Kant in its purest and most coherent form. Having resolutely excluded the concept of the thing in itself, he establishes a pure idealism. Perhaps more original is his social pedagogy, which in its sentimental motives recalls Schleiermacher more than Kant, although in the latter he follows more closely in Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der Humanität (Freiburg 1894). His studies of ancient philosophy are of considerable importance. But his Platos Ideenlehre (Leipzig 1903) upholds the singular thesis that the “ideas” are methods and not things; pure positions of thought and not “objects” in themselves. In essence, Plato is understood or misunderstood through Kant.
Other principal works: Descartes Erkenntnistheorie (Freiburg in Br. 1882); Forschungen zur Gesch. des Erkenntnisproblem im Altertum (ibid. 1884); Pestalozzis Ideen über Arbeiterbildung und soziale Frage (ibid. 1894); Platos Staat und die Idee der Sozialpädagogik (ibid. 1895); Herbart, Pestalozzi und die heutigen Aufgaben der Erziehungslehre (Stuttgart 1899); Sozialpädagogik (ibid. 1899, 3rd ed. 1909); Logik (Marburg 1904); Der Idealismus Pestalozzis (Leipzig 1919); Autobiografia in Die deutsche Philos. d. Gegenwart in Selbstdarst., I (Leipzig 1921).