Ernst Tugendhat

{{Infobox philosopher

| name = Ernst Tugendhat

| image =

| caption =

| birth_date = {{birth date|1930|03|08|df=y}}

| birth_place = Brno, Czechoslovakia

| death_date = {{death date and age|2023|03|13|1930|03|08|df=y}}

| death_place = Freiburg, Germany

| education = {{ubl| Stanford University | University of Freiburg }}

| institutions = {{ubl |University of Münster | University of Tübingen | University of Heidelberg | Free University of Berlin | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile | Charles University }}

| main_interests = Philosophy of language

| thesis_title = The concept of truth in Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger

| thesis_year = 1966

| awards = Meister Eckhart Prize

}}

Ernst Tugendhat (8 March 1930 – 13 March 2023) was a Czechoslovak-born German philosopher. He was a scion of the wealthy and influential Jewish Tugendhat family. They lived in Venezuela during the Nazi regime, and he studied first in Stanford University, then in Freiburg. He taught internationally in Europa and South America, with a focus on language analysis.

Life and career

File:VT16 PD zahrada.jpg

Tugendhat was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia, to Fritz and Grete (Löw-Beer) Tugendhat,{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7srJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA163 | title=Mies van der Rohe im Diskurs: Innovationen - Haltungen - Werke. Aktuelle Positionen | isbn=9783839423059 | last1=Plüm | first1=Kerstin | date=31 March 2014 |pages=161–193| publisher=transcript Verlag }} a wealthy Jewish family that had commissioned Mies van der Rohe to design of the Villa Tugendhat in Brno. In 1938 the family escaped the Nazi regime, first to St. Gallen, Switzerland, and later to settle in Caracas, Venezuela. Ernst had an older half-sister, Hanna Weiss, and three younger siblings – Herbert, Ruth, and Daniela.{{cite book |last1=Jamrozik |first1=Julia |last2=Kempster |first2=Coryn |title=Growing up Modern: Childhoods in Iconic Homes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f4cgEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA83 |date=2021 |publisher=Birkhäuser |location=Basel, Switzerland |isbn=978-3-0356-1905-8 |page=88}}{{cite book |last=Lambek |first=Michael |title=Behind the Glass: The Villa Tugendhat and Its Family |url=https://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/PublicFullRecord.aspx?p=7107149 |date=2022 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |location=Toronto, Ontario |isbn=978-1-4875-4222-1|pages=208–209}}{{subscription required}} The last two children were born after the family migrated to Venezuela.

Tugendhat studied classics at Stanford University from 1944 to 1949, and went on to do graduate work in philosophy and classics at the University of Freiburg. He achieved his doctorate there with a thesis on Aristotle in 1956. During the years 1956 to 1958 he performed post-doctoral research at the University of Münster. From then until 1964 he was an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at the University of Tübingen, where, after spending 1965 lecturing at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, he gained his habilitation in 1966 analyzing the concept of truth in Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger.

Tugendhat was professor at the University of Heidelberg from 1966 to 1975. During the 1960s and 1970s, Heidelberg developed into one of the main scenes of the left-wing student protests in Germany.{{cite web |url=http://mathphys.fsk.uni-heidelberg.de/ruprecht2.html |title=Student protests at Heidelberg |access-date=16 May 2008 |work=Ruprecht online – University of Heidelberg Homepage |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090215141632/http://mathphys.fsk.uni-heidelberg.de/ruprecht2.html |archive-date=15 February 2009 }} from Ruprecht, issue 37, 12.07.95 Because of the student movement and as a protest against the situation at German universities in the 1970s, Tugendhat gave up his position and relocated to Starnberg, where Jürgen Habermas worked at the time. In 1980 he moved to Berlin, becoming, like his friend Michael Theunissen, a professor of philosophy at the Free University of Berlin.

Tugendhat retired in 1992, but was a visiting professor in philosophy at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago (1992–1996), a researcher at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna (1996), and visiting professor at Charles University in Prague (1997–1998).

Tugendhat died in Freiburg on 12 March 2023 at age 93.

Awards

Tugendhat became a honorary professor of the Tübingen University in 1999, and in 2002 a fellow of the {{ill|Kolleg Friedrich Nietzsche|de}}.{{cite web |url=https://www.klassik-stiftung.de/forschung/forschungsaktivitaeten/kolleg-friedrich-nietzsche/fellowships/distinguished-fellows/ |title=Distinguished Fellows: Distinguished Fellows im Überblick |work=Klassik Stiftung Weimar |access-date=13 March 2023}} He received an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid in 2005, and from the University of Zürich in 2009. In 2005 he was awarded the Meister Eckhart Prize;{{cite web |url=https://identity-foundation.de/meister-eckhart-preis/ |title=Meister Eckhart Preis |website=identity-foundation.de |access-date=18 March 2023}} he donated the prize money to a school, "Talitha Kumi", in Beit Jala, Palestine.{{cite web |url=https://monde-diplomatique.de/artikel/!490139 |title=Über west-östliche Mystik und höhere Traurigkeit |website=monde-diplomatique.de |date=13 January 2006 |language=de |access-date=18 March 2023}}

Bibliography

Publications by Tugendhat, many of them published by Suhrkamp,{{cite web |url=https://www.suhrkamp.de/person/ernst-tugendhat-p-5012 |title=Ernst Tugendhat |work=Suhrkamp Verlag |language=de |access-date=18 March 2023}} are held by the German National Library, including:{{cite web |url=https://portal.dnb.de/opac/simpleSearch?reset=true&cqlMode=true&query=auRef%3D118624504&selectedCategory=any |title=Publications by Ernst Tugendhat |work=German National Library |access-date=18 March 2023}}

1958: Ti kata tinos. Karl Alber, Freiburg. {{ISBN|3-495-48080-3}}
1967: Der Wahrheitsbegriff bei Husserl und Heidegger. de Gruyter, Berlin. {{ISBN|978-3-11-010289-5}}
1970: "The Meaning of 'Bedeutung' in Frege" (Analysis 30, pp 177–189)
1975: Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main. {{ISBN|3-518-27645-X}}, In English: Traditional and analytical philosophy. Lectures on the philosophy of language. Transl. by P.A. Gorner. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1982.
1979: Selbstbewußtsein und Selbstbestimmung. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt. {{ISBN|3-518-27821-5}}, In English: Self-consciousness and self-determination. Transl. by Paul Stern. Cambridge, Mass./ London: MIT Press, 1986. (= Studies in contemporary German social thought.)
1984: Probleme der Ethik. Reclam, Stuttgart. {{ISBN|3-15-008250-1}}
1992: Philosophische Aufsätze. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt. {{ISBN|3-518-28617-X}}
1992: Ethics and Politics
1993: Vorlesungen über Ethik. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt. {{ISBN|3-518-28700-1}}
1995: "The Moral Dilemma in the Rescue of Refugees" (Social Research 62:1)
2000: "Zeit und Sein in Heideggers Sein und Zeit" (Sats: Nordic Journal of Philosophy 1.1)
2003: Egozentrizität und Mystik. Eine anthropologische Studie. C. H. Beck. {{ISBN|978-3-406-51049-6}}
2007: Anthropologie statt Metaphysik. C. H. Beck. {{ISBN|978-3-406-55678-4}}

References

{{Reflist

| refs =

{{cite news

| last = Brumlik

| first = Micha

| url = https://taz.de/Nachruf-auf-Ernst-Tugendhat/!5918852/

| title = Nachruf auf Ernst Tugendhat: Sprachanalyse und Mystik

| newspaper = taz

| date = 13 March 2023

| language = de

| access-date = 17 March 2023

}}

{{cite news

| last = Gauger

| first = Hans-Martin

| url = https://www.badische-zeitung.de/der-freiburger-philosoph-ernst-tugendhat-wird-90-jahre-alt

| title = Der Freiburger Philosoph Ernst Tugendhat wird 90 Jahre alt

| newspaper = Badische Zeitung

| date = 5 March 2020

| language = de

| access-date = 13 March 2023

}}

{{cite news

| last = Geyer-Hindemith

| first = Christian

| url = https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/der-philosoph-ernst-tugendhat-wird-neunzig-jahre-alt-16667135.html

| title = Ernst Tugendhat wird 90: Was meint "ich"?

| newspaper = FAZ

| date = 8 March 2020

| language = de

| access-date = 23 January 2023

}}

{{cite news

| last = Hesse

| first = Michael

| url = https://www.fr.de/kultur/gesellschaft/philosoph-ernst-tugendhat-der-solitaer-92143082.html

| title = Philosoph Ernst Tugendhat: Der Solitär

| newspaper = Frankfurter Rundschau

| date = 13 March 2023

| language = de

| access-date = 17 March 2023

}}

{{cite news

| last = Raack

| first = Jochen

| url = http://www.gkpn.de/Tugendhat_Alter.pdf

| title = Das Alter – Die Herausforderung der Frustrationen

| journal = Aufklärung und Kritik

| date = November 2006

| language = de

| page = 77

| access-date = 17 March 2023

| archive-date = 9 July 2021

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210709185119/http://www.gkpn.de/Tugendhat_Alter.pdf

| url-status = dead

}}

{{cite web

| url = https://www.mz.de/kultur/philosoph-ernst-tugendhat-gestorben-3565881

| title = Mit 93 Jahren: Philosoph Ernst Tugendhat gestorben

| date = 13 March 2023

| newspaper = Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

| language = de

| access-date = 13 March 2023

}}

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070311104340/http://www.ksta.de/ks/images/mdsBild/1109243487491l.jpg Photograph of Ernst Tugendhat] Kölner Stadtanzeiger
[http://www.signandsight.com/features/1487.html "The time for philosophising is over"] (interview) Sign and Sight 20 August 2007
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100610071314/http://cup.columbia.edu/static/Zabala-Santiago-interview Interview with Santiago Zabala, author of The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy: A Study of Ernst Tugendhat] Columbia University Press, archived 10 June 2010
{{YouTube|Anbp8kDk2eU|Ernst Tugendhat: "Unsere Angst vor dem Tod"}}

Category:1930 births

Category:2023 deaths

Category:People from Brno

Category:20th-century Czech philosophers

Category:20th-century German philosophers

Category:21st-century German philosophers

Category:Jewish philosophers

Category:Philosophers of language

Category:Philosophers of mind

Category:Czech Jews

Category:Venezuelan people of Czech descent

Category:Czechoslovak emigrants to Venezuela