Background
Heimsoeth, Heinz was born on August 12, 1886 in Cologne, Germany.
philosopher university professor
Heimsoeth, Heinz was born on August 12, 1886 in Cologne, Germany.
Heimsoeth began his studies at Heidelberg in 1905, but soon transferred to Berlin, where he studied with Wilhelm Dilthey, Alois Riehl, and Ernst Cassirer. Due to his interest in Kant he transferred in 1907 to Marburg, where he studied with Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp. He graduated in 1911 with a thesis on Descartes.
Professor of Philosophy, Marburg, Königsberg and Cologne.
Publications:
‘2-14) Die Methode der Erkenntnis hei Descartes u,id Leibniz, Giessen: Töpelmann.
(*922) Die sechs grossen Themen der abendländischen Metaphysik, Berlin. Fifth edition, Darmstadt: ■ssenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1965.
* *929) Metaphysik der Neuzeit. New edition. Darm-
stadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967.
(1966-1971) Transzendentale Dialektik, Berlin: de Gruyter.
(1971) Studien zur Philosophie Immanuel Kants.
Metaphysische Ursprünge und ontologische Grundlagen. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann.
Heimsoeth advocated a metaphysical reading of Kant’s critical philosophy. He tried to show that although Kant’s critical philosophy criticized traditional metaphysics, it also owed a great deal to it. For Heimsoeth, Kant’s precritical writings were much more important than they were for the neo-Kantians who advocated an epistemological reading of Kant. Heimsoeth also argued that any sharply drawn distinction between the history of philosophy on the one hand and metaphysics on the other is a mistake. He thought that metaphysics is always historical, and the history of the problems of metaphysics is always itself metaphysics. Heimsoeth had a great deal of influence on the postwar German interpretation of Kant. However, his metaphysical or ontological interpretation of Kant has had much less influence in English-speaking countries.
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur.