FRIEDRICH PAULSEN. — Philosopher, b. at Langenborn (East Silesia) on 16 July 1846, d. at Steglitz (Berlin) on 14 Aug. 1908. He began theological studies at Erlangen in 1867, but left them to enrol in the Faculty of Philosophy at Berlin, where he was a pupil of Trendelenburg. He taught in Berlin from 1878.
Principal works: *Einleitung in die Philosophie* (Berlin 1892; Italian trans. by L. Gentilini, Turin 1911); *I. Kant* (Stuttgart 1892; Italian trans. by B.-A. Sesta, Palermo 1914); *System der Ethik* (2 vols., Berlin 1896); *Philosophia militans gegen Klerikalismus und Naturalismus* (ibid. 1901; Italian trans. by L. Guglielminotti, Turin 1907).
Paulsen’s main merit lies in having spread Kantian thought, understood not merely as the destroyer of previous ideologies but also as the defender of the rights of metaphysics, inasmuch as the striving towards the transcendent is generated by the insufficiency of empirical science and is the soul of philosophy: if philosophy were not also a faith, a tendency towards the sphere beyond pure cognition, it would reduce itself to being a mere science or a complex of sciences (cf. *Einleitung...*, Italian trans., pp. 1-36; F. Tocco [q.V. bibliography], p. 455).
Paulsen, who adhered to freethought, had bitter words for religious tradition that takes the biblical narrative literally, yet, like Hegel, he ended by understanding religion as a symbolic expression of what philosophy teaches speculatively (*Gegen Klerikalismus*, etc., pp. 81-91). The Catholic Church is criticised as backward and conservative, incapable of comprehending the development of the modern world.