Background
Zeller, Eduard Gottlob was born on January 22, 1814 in Kleinbottwar, Württemberg.
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Eduard Gottlob Zeller
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Education
Doctorate, Tübingen. 1836.
Career
Professor of Theology, Bern, 1847. Professor of Philosophy, Marburg 1849. Heidelberg, 1862; Berlin.
1872-1895.
Views
Zeller argued for the decisive influence of ancient philosophy on the origins of Christianity as well as on its later development, and upheld a theological programme in which unfettered reason alone would count. He separated what he called philosophy of religion from history of religion. He rejected the radical reductionism. typical of the young Hegelians, of religion into feeling or will or wish-fulfillment, for a more balanced approach. When later excluded from theological Chairs by the polemical atmosphere surrounding the ‘higher criticism', Zeller moved into the history of ancient philosophy in which his work was characterized by a dominating interest in the internal systematic understanding of his subject, and philological rigour. He later withdrew his initial attempt to dispute Plato’s authorship of the Laws. He objected to what he saw as Hegel’s confusion of history and logic, and from 1862 on abandoned his early Hegelianism and became a major factor in the rise of neo-Kantianism, although opposing the idealism of many neoKantians, and argued for a rehabilitation of systematic philosophy with some positivistic overtones. In his later career Zeller extended his interests from ancient philosophy to modem. Sources: H. Diels, in Zeller. 1910-1911, vol. 3, pp. 465511; W. Dilthey, Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, no. 15670, 5 Apr 1908. repr. in W. Dilthey (1970) Gesammelte Schriften, Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, vol. 15, pp. 267-78.
