Emil Lask was a German philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

. A student of Rickert

Heinrich Rickert

Heinrich John Rickert was a German philosopher, one of the leading Neo-Kantians.-Life:He was born in Danzig, Prussia and died in Heidelberg, Germany.-Thought:...

 at Freiburg

University of Freiburg

The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...

, he was a member of the Southwestern School of Neo-Kantianism

Neo-Kantianism

Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...

.

Biography

Lask was made lecturer at Heidelberg in 1905, and he was elected professor there just before the outbreak of The Great War. Lask died during the war, not far from the city of his birth, in the Galician Campaign.

Lask was an important and original thinker whose rewarding work is little known, due to his early death, but also because of the decline of Neo-Kantianism. He is no easy read. His published and some unpublished writings were collected in a three volume edition by his pupil Eugen Herrigel

Eugen Herrigel

Eugen Herrigel was a German philosopher who taught philosophy at Tohoku Imperial University in Sendai, Japan, from 1924-1929 and introduced Zen to large parts of Europe through his writings.While living in Japan from 1924 to 1929, he studied kyūdō, traditional Japanese archery, under Awa...

 with a notice by Lask's former teacher Rickert in 1923 and 1924. Emil Lask is of interest to philosophers because of his uncompromising attitude and to historians of philosophy because of his influence on the young Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...

, and also on Georg Lukacs

Georg Lukács

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism. He contributed the concept of reification to Marxist philosophy and theory and expanded Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. Lukács' was also an influential literary...

. His ideas were also influential in Japan, due to Eugen Herrigel, who lived and taught there for several years.

His sister was the communist poet Berta Lask.

Original Works

• Fichtes Idealismus und die Geschichte Tübingen, 1902.
• Rechtsphilosophie in: "Die Philosophie im Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Festschrift für Kuno Fischer" Edited by Wilhelm Windelband, Heidelberg, 1907.
• Die Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre Tübingen, J.C.B. Mohr, 1911.

• Gesammelte Schriften edited by Eugen Herrigel, Tübingen: Mohr, 1923-24 (3 volumes); reprint: Jena, Scheglmann, 2002.

English translations

• The Logic of Philosophy and the Doctrine of Categories translated by Christian Braun, Free Association Books, 1999.

French translations

• La logique de la philosophie et la doctrine des catégories. Etude sur la forme logique et sa souveraineté Paris, Vrin, 2002.

External links

• Jewish Virtual Library Article on Lask