Background
Rudolf Eisler was born to a family of wealthy Jewish merchants.
Historian of philosophy Neo-Kantian
Rudolf Eisler was born to a family of wealthy Jewish merchants.
As a student of Wilhelm Wundt, Rudolf Eisler studied philosophy in Leipzig and earned his Doctor of Philosophy there.
In addition to Immanuel Kant, his philosophical writings, particularly those concerning phenomenalism, were largely influenced by Wundt, as well as Hermann Cohen and Edmund Husserl. Upon moving to Vienna in 1901, he and his family settled in the "Matzos Quarter," a section of the city largely composed of working-class Jews. He found work as an editor for a series of books on philosophy and sociology for the publisher Werner Klinkhardt.
His Grundlagen der Philosophie des Geisteslebens (Foundations of the Philosophy of the Spiritual Life, 1908) was an installment of that series.
In 1907, along with the Marxist Max Adler, he founded the Vienna Sociological Society. With a firm understanding of the writings of Kant, his musings generally concerned the origins and construction of reality and truth.
Eisler described his philosophical position as an 'objective phenomenalism'. He understood it as a synthesis of‘empirical realism and transcendental idealism'. He was concerned mainly with three fundamental problems, namely the problem of truth and certainty, the problem of the origin of knowledge, and the problem of reality. In dealing with these problems, Eisler constantly looked back to Kant, arguing that Kant's theory is essentially correct. However, he emphasized transcendental logic, downplaying Kant’s psychologist«: tendencies. Eisler is important mainly for his philosophical lexica. His Kantlexikon is still the best work of its kind.
Gerhart Eisler (20 February 1897 – 21 March 1968): politician and prominent member of the Communist Party of Germany.