The New International Encyclopædia/Fischer, Kuno

FISCHER, Kuno (1824—). A noted German philosopher and literary critic. He was born at Sandewalde, Silesia, studied at the universities of Leipzig and Halle, in 1850 became a lecturer at Heidelberg, and when his lectureship had been withdrawn in 1853 by direction of the Bavarian Ministry, continued researches at Heidelberg, and was in 1856 appointed a lecturer at Berlin. He had, however, a short time previously accepted the chair of philosophy at Jena, and continued to occupy it until 1872, when he was called to that of philosophy (to succeed Zeller) and modern German literature at Heidelberg. He achieved high distinction as both academic lecturer and author. His philosophical viewpoint is, with some modifications, Hegelian. His chief work is the Geschichte der neuern Philosophie (a new edition in 9 vols., 1897 et seq.), at once the most extensive and the most distinguished exposition of the subject. In 1860 his Kants Leben und die Grundlagen seiner Lehre lent the first real impulse to the so-called ‘return to Kant.’ Important among his further publications are: Schiller als Philosoph (2d ed. 1891-92); Lessings Nathan der Weise (1896); Baruch Spinozas Leben und Charakter (1865); Goethe-Schriften (1895-1900); Shakespeare's Hamlet (1896); and several ‘Festreden,’ such as Goethe in Heidelberg (1899).