ZELLER, EDUARD. - Born on 22 Jan. 1814 at Kleinbottwar (Württemberg), died on 19 Mar. 1908 at Stuttgart.
He studied theology at Tübingen and Berlin and in 1850 obtained the *venia legendi* at Tübingen; from 1847 to 1862 he taught theology at the Universities of Bern and Marburg; in 1862 he accepted the chair of philosophy at Heidelberg; from 1872 to 1897 he was professor of philosophy at Berlin.
At the outset, the orientation of his scholarly activity was shaped by the influence of the Protestant theologian F. Ch. Baur, founder of the Tübingen school. For several years Z. edited the *Theologische Jahrbücher*, the periodical of the school, and continued with his essay on the Acts of the Apostles (*Apostelgeschichte*, Tübingen 1854) the critical studies of his master on the earliest literary documents of Christianity. The programmatic idea of Baur concerning a universal theology also inspired Z.’s studies on Greek philosophy. From these emerged his principal work, *Die Philosophie der Griechen*, in which the historical-critical sense, philological precision, and philosophical qualities of the author are happily combined. As a systematic philosopher, Z. soon distanced himself from the determinism and pantheism of Hegelian philosophy. In his inaugural lecture at Heidelberg he proclaimed the necessity of a return to Kant. The philosophy he developed in the following years, however, is not so much a renewed criticism as a critical realism, which in several important points recovers the theses of traditional metaphysics.
Principal works: *Das theologische System Zwinglis*, Tübingen 1853; *Die Apostelgeschichte*, Stuttgart 1854; *Die Philosophie der Griechen*, 1st ed. Tübingen 1844-52; 2nd ed., thoroughly revised, 5 vols., Tübingen-Leipzig 1859-1868; 6th-7th ed. edited by Fr. Lortzing and W. Nestle, Leipzig 1923; *Über die Bedeutung der Erkenntnistheorie*, Heidelberg 1862; *Vorträge und Abhandlungen*, 3 vols., Leipzig 1865-84.