ZELLER, EDUARD. — Born on 22 January 1814 at Kleinbottvar (Wurttemberg), died on 19 March 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.
The direction of his scholarly activity was initially determined by the influence of the Protestant theologian F. Ch. Baur, founder of the Tübingen School. For several years Z. directed the Theologische Jahrbücher, the school’s periodical, and in his essay on the Acts of the Apostles (Apostelgeschichte, Tübingen 1854) continued his teacher’s critical studies of the earliest literary documents of Christianity. Baur’s programmatic idea of a “universal theology” also inspired Z.’s studies of Greek philosophy. They resulted in his principal work, Die Philosophie der Griechen, in which the author’s historical-critical sense, philological precision, and philosophical qualities are felicitously combined. As a systematic philosopher, Z. soon distanced himself from the determinism and pantheism of Hegelian philosophy. In the inaugural lecture delivered at Heidelberg, he proclaimed the necessity of a return to Kant. The philosophy, however, which he developed in the following years is not so much a renewed criticism as a critical realism that, at several important points, rediscovers 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, extensively revised ed., 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.