Wilhelm Esser

Wilhelm Esser (1798–1854) was a German academic, logician, and philosopher. His works focused on logic, psychology, and moral philosophy.[1] Esser is also identified as a post-Kantian logician.[2]

Wilhelm Esser
BornFebruary 21, 1798
Düren, Germany
Died1854
NationalityGerman
Alma materUniversity of Münster
Occupation(s)Philosopher and educator
Known forSystem der Logik

Biography

Esser was born on February 21, 1798, in Düren, Germany.[3] He received his primary education in this North Rhine-Westphalian town, studying science under a Jesuit priest at Ratheim before attending a gymnasium at his hometown.[4] In 1814, he moved to Cologne, where he studied philology, philosophy, and theology.[4] He then moved to Münster to continue his studies.[4]

After completing his education, Esser was contracted to work as an associate professor at the University of Münster in 1823. He was later promoted to a full professor of philosophy.[1][5]

Esser died in 1854.

Works

Logic

Kantian thought served as the basis of some of Esser's works on logic. In System der Logik, where he argued that logic is not a branch of psychology and that a formulation of logic requires a single psychological fact, he recognized Kant's role in reshaping logical theory.[6] Like Krug, who was also a post-Kantian logician, Esser held that there should be four fundamental laws of logic. These are:

  1. All that is identical to an object must be attributed to it.
  2. To every object must be denied all that is opposed [Gegentheil] to it.
  3. To every fully determinate object every possible mark either belongs or does not.
  4. If one of two opposing marks should be affirmed or denied of an object, then there must be a sufficient ground on account of which this is attributed or denied it.[2]

Esser's conceptualization of the above laws was distinguished from those by Wilhelm Traugott Krug on account of the differences in their formulation.[2] Esser's notions were mainly concerned with the marks that belong to or don't belong to an object.[2]

Esser's work on logic influenced the theories of thinkers such as Sir William Hamilton, who extensively drew from Esser's notion of the sense or quality of "necessary" in his definition of logic. As interpreted by Hamilton, Esser's view held that the necessity of a form of thought is contradistinguished from contingency due to its subjective nature so that a necessary form of thought is determined or necessitated by the nature of thinking itself.[7] He also outlined his interpretation of “clearness”. While Hamilton view it as a property of concepts, where a concept is said to be clear “when the degree of consciousness is such as to enable us to distinguish it as a whole from others”, Esser maintained that if the object thought through the concept is sufficiently distinguished, then it is a clear one.[8]

Universal law

Esser described the laws of thought as "certain fundamental convictions which mind, absolutely identical to itself, grasping itself in its reality and causality, builds initially on itself and then, subsequently, also transfers to any other reality."[5] According to him, if a form of thought is necessary and universal, then it is a law.[7] He then defined a universal law as that which applies to "all cases without exception, and from which a deviation is ever, and everywhere, impossible, or at least, unallowed."[9]

Publications
  • System of logic, Elberfeld 1823.
  • Moral philosophy, Coppenrath, Münster 1827.
  • Memorandum to Georg Hermes, DüMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1832.
  • Franz von Fürstenberg’s life and work, Deiters, Münster 1842.
  • Psychology, 2 volumes, Cazin, Münster, 1854.

References
  1. Peirce, Charles S. (1984). Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 2: 1867-1871. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 509, 518. ISBN 978-0-253-01666-9.
  2. Lapointe, Sandra (2019). Logic from Kant to Russell: Laying the Foundations for Analytic Philosophy. Oxon: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-18222-5.
  3. Köln, Historischer Verein für den Niederrhein, insbesondere die alte Erzdiöcese, Volume 1 (1859). Annalen des Historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, insbesondere die alte Erzdiöcese Köln (in German). Cologne: Historischer Verein. p. 263.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. Rassmann, Ernst (1866). Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schriften Münsterländischer Schriftsteller des 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts (in German). Munster: Coppenrath. p. 101.
  5. Conze, Edward (2016). The Principle of Contradiction. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. pp. 90, 150. ISBN 978-0-7391-2712-4.
  6. Jacquette, Dale (2003). Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychologism: Critical and Historical Readings on the Psychological Turn in Philosophy. New York: Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 35. ISBN 1-4020-1337-X.
  7. Gabbay, Dov M.; Woods, John (2008). British Logic in the Nineteenth Century, Volume 4. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 107–108. ISBN 978-0-444-51610-7.
  8. Mill, John Stuart (2022). An Examination of Sir William Hamiltons Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings. Frankfurt: Salzwasser Verlag. p. 550. ISBN 978-3-7525-8707-4.
  9. Manning, Russell Re; Brooke, John Hedley; Watts, Fraser (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Natural Theology. Oxford University Press. p. 101. ISBN 978-0-19-955693-9.
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