The New International Encyclopædia/Krug, Wilhelm Traugott

KRUG, Wilhelm Traugott (1770-1842). A German philosophical writer, born at Radis (Prussia). He studied at Wittenberg as a pupil of Reinhard and Jehnichen, and at Jena under Reinhold, and from 1801 to 1804 was professor of philosophy in the University of Frankfort-on-the-Oder. In 1804 he succeeded Kant as professor of logic and metaphysics at Königsberg, and from 1809 until his retirement in 1834 held the chair of philosophy at Leipzig. He fought in the War of Liberation (1813-14) as captain of mounted chasseurs. His Handbuch der Philosophie und philosophischen Litteratur (1820-21; 3d ed. 1828) gives in concise form his philosophical system, a lengthy exposition of which was developed in the Fundamentalphilosophie (1803), the System der theoretischen Philosophie (1806-10), and the System der praktischen Philosophie (1817-19). This system has for its basic idea a transcendental synthesis of being and knowledge; that is, synthesis original and therefore unexplainable, in accordance with which the understanding recognizes the existence of the subject and of the external world, and of a connection between these. Thus it is seen to be an attempted harmony of idealism and realism. Consult the autobiography Meine Lebensreise (2d ed., Leipzig, 1840).