A German Roman Catholic philosopher. Influenced such men as Friedrich von Schelling and Søren Kierkegaard.
Background
He was born in Munich, the third son of Franz Josef Baader, court physician to the Prince-elector of Bavaria. Franz studied medicine at Ingolstadt and Vienna, and for a short time assisted his father in his practice. This life he soon found uncongenial, and decided on becoming a mining engineer. He studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg, travelled through several of the mining districts in north Germany, and for four years, 1792–1796, resided in England.
Education
Baader was trained in medicine and studied mineralogy in England from 1792 to 1796.
Views
He tried to unite Roman Catholic philosophy and mysticism and so break away from the dominant philosophical schools of Continental rationalism, with its stress on pure reason; and British empiricism, with its emphasis on sense experience.
In social philosophy, Baader opposed liberalism and called for a society with a hierarchy of social classes and a state subordinate to the church.