Background
Deussen, Paul was born on January 7, 1845 in Oberdreis, Neuwied, Germany.
Deussen, Paul was born on January 7, 1845 in Oberdreis, Neuwied, Germany.
Universities of Bonn. Tübingen and Berlin (1864-1869, 1873-1881).
Privatdozent (1881 7) and Extraordinarius (1887-1889), University of Berlin. Ordinarius (1889 1919), University of Kiel.
It was Nietzsche Who first introduced Deussen to Schopenhauer. After initial reservations he became an enthusiastic, though not entirely orthodox, disciple of Schopenhauer, founding the Schopenhauer-Gesellschaft in 1911, editing its Jahrbuch until his death and preparing an edition of Schopenhauer's Works. Deussen’s entire work, both philosophical and historical, was dominated by the thought of Schopenhauer. Deussen wrote only one genuinely philosophical work. Die Elemente der Metaphysik (1877). It is basically a restatement of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, albeit stripped of its radical pessimism and given a vaguely Christian, vaguely Pantheistic interpretation. The book enjoyed considerable popularity in its time. Today, however, Deussen is chiefly remembe-ed partly as the friend and correspondent of Nietzsche, partly as an editor and translator of the classical textsof Indian philosophy and partly asa historian of philosophy, especially of Indian philosophy. It is generally agreed that, as a historian and interpreter of Indian thought, he tends to read Sehopenhauerian ideas into Hindu philosophy; and even his history of European philosophy, contained in the second half of his Allgemeine Geschichte, is dominated by the conviction that Schopenhauer represents the climax of European thought, surpassing even Kant in importance.