Background
Plessner, Helmuth was born on September 4, 1892 in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Plessner, Helmuth was born on September 4, 1892 in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Studied Medicine. Zoology and then Philosophy at Freiburg, Heidelberg, Berlin and Erlangen.
Taught in Cologne, 1920-1934. Left Germany and worked at Groningen until 1951. 1951-1962, Professor of Sociology, Gottingen.
After retirement. Visiting Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York (1962-1963).
The face of the German spirit at the end of 0s bourgeois stage, as historian of ideas Plessner explored the history of German nationalism and compared the philosophies of different cultures. His sociology ranged over the science, education, politics and culture of both the West and the East, pointing out, for example, the semireligious function culture played in predominantly Protestant societies. He is best known, however, beside Max Scheler. as creator of philosophical anthropology as a systematic discipline dealing with the traditional philosophical question ‘what is man?’, and providing focus and conceptual guidance to all the disciplines dealing with man. In his idea ol ‘anthropology’ and his recognition of the shaping influence of historical and social factors he was indebted to Dilthey, while he derived his phenomenological approach from Husserl, under whom he had studied. He shifted emphasis, however, on to man as a psychophysical unit decisively conditioned by his physiological makeup, whose greater flexibility and responsiveness to change distinguished him from other animals and gave him a unique place in the order of organic nature. The philosophical coordination of a whole range °f empirical disciplines shows man both conditioned on different levels and yet shaping his own nature.