TRENDELENBURG, FRIEDRICH ADOLF. — Spiritualist philosopher, born at Lutin on 30 November 1802, died in Berlin on 24 January 1872.
His dissatisfaction with modern thought led him to study classical thought, particularly that of Plato and Aristotle, from whom he drew the fundamental lines of his “organic conception of the world,” inspired by a constructive finalism of reality both in nature and in history. His studies of the history of classical (especially Aristotle) and modern thought (Leibniz, Spinoza) are fundamental; in particular, mention must be made of the objection raised against Hegelian dialectic that made an epoch: Hegel asserts that dialectic must proceed from pure thought without empirical presuppositions (reines, voraussetzungslose Denken), but in reality he introduces at every point images and concepts taken from experience, such as those of “movement,” “development,” “internal and external,” “whole and parts,” etc. (Logische Untersuchungen, 2nd ed., III, Leipzig 1862, p. 36 ff.). It was this difficulty that first nourished Kierkegaard’s critique of idealism and later, through K. Fischer (System der Logik u. Metaphysik oder Wissenschaftslehre, 3rd ed., Heidelberg 1909, p. 199 ff.), stimulated Spaventa and Gentile toward the “reform” of Hegelian dialectic. T. is also largely responsible for the revival of Aristotelian studies in Germany and of the doctrine of “intentionality” by F. Brentano and of speculative phenomenology (1917); a disciple of T. was also
(phot. R. Rossi)
Principal works: Aristoteles, De Anima (critical edition with commentary), 2nd ed., edited by C. Belger, Leipzig 1877; Historische Beiträge zur Philosophie, 3 vols., Berlin 1846–1855 (vol. I contains the fundamental works: Aristoteles Kategorienlehre and Die Kategorienlehre in der Geschichte der Philosophie); Logische Untersuchungen, 3rd ed., Leipzig 1870; Naturrecht auf dem Grunde der Ethik, Leipzig 1860 (Italian translation, Naples 1873); Elementa logices Aristoteles, 9th ed., Berlin 1892.