Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch (August 16, 1802, in Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

 - September 30, 1896, in Leipzig) was a German mathematician, logician, psychologist and philosopher. His brother was the composer Karl Ludwig Drobisch (1803-1854).

Life

Drobisch studied mathematics and philosophy at the university of Leipzig, where he subsequently became a professor. He wrote his habilitation in 1824. From 1826 to 1868 he served as ordinarius (full professor) in mathematics, and from 1842 on as ordinarius in philosophy. He was rector of the university of Leipzig in 1840-41 and served as dean of the philosophical faculty several times. Drobisch made contributions to philosophical and mathematical logic

Mathematical logic

Mathematical logic is a subfield of mathematics with close connections to foundations of mathematics, theoretical computer science and philosophical logic. The field includes both the mathematical study of logic and the applications of formal logic to other areas of mathematics...

, set theory

Set theory

Set theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...

, quantitative linguistics

Quantitative linguistics

Quantitative linguistics is a sub-discipline of general linguistics and, more specifically, of mathematical linguistics. Quantitative Linguistics deals with language learning, language change, and application as well as structure of natural languages...

 and empirical psychology

Empirical psychology

Empirical psychology is a term most commonly used to refer to the work of a number of nineteenth century pioneers of experimental psychology, including William James, Wilhelm Wundt and others...

. Drobisch was strongly influenced by Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart

Johann Friedrich Herbart was a German philosopher, psychologist, and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline....

.

In 1834, Drobisch joined the Count Jablonowski Society of the Sciences in Leipzig. In 1846 he was a co-founder of the Saxony's Royal Society of the Sciences, whose successor organisation has named a medal in his honour. In 1868, Drobisch resigned from the mathematics department to devote himself to philosophy. He was made an honorary citizen of Leipzig in 1876. In his later years, Drobisch suffered from advancing blindness, making scholarly work impossible from the mid-1880s on. Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"...

, a pioneer of German empirical psychology, held Drobisch's funeral oration and acknowledged his influence. Drobisch was one of the forerunners of the Neo-Kantian

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...

 revival of the 1860s. Friedrich Albert Lange

Friedrich Albert Lange

Friedrich Albert Lange , was a German philosopher and sociologist.-Biography:Lange was born in Wald, near Solingen, the son of the theologian, Johann Peter Lange. He was educated at Duisburg, Zürich and Bonn, where he distinguished himself in gymnastics as much as academically...

criticized him and Herbart in his Foundations of Mathematical Psychology (1865).

Works

• 1834: Beiträge zur Orientierung über Herbart's System der Philosophie. [Contributions to the Orientation in Herbart's System of Philosophy.] Significantly revised and expanded editions in 1851 and 1863.
• 1836: Neue Darstellung der Logik nach ihren einfachsten Verhältnissen. Nebst einem logisch-mathematischen Anhange. [New presentation of Logic in its Most Basic Relations. With a Logico-Mathematical Appendix.]
• 1840: Quaestionum mathematico-psychologicarum. [Mathematical-Psychological Question.]
• 1842: Empirische Psychologie nach wissenschaftlicher Methode. [Empirical Psychology According to the Scientific Method.]
• 1846: Über die mathematische Bestimmung der musikalischen Intervalle. [On the Mathematical Determination of Musical Intervals.]
• 1850: Erste Grundlegung der mathematischen Psychologie. [First Foundation of Mathematical Psychology.]
• 1867: Die moralische Statistik und die menschliche Willensfreiheit. [Moral Statistics and Human Free Will.]
• 1876: Über die Fortbildung der Philosophie durch Herbart. [On Herbart's Continuation of Philosophy.]
• 1885: Kant's Dinge an sich und sein Erfahrungsbegriff. [Kant's Things in Themselves and his Concept of Experience.]

Sources

• Heinze, M., 'Drobisch, Moritz.' In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 48. Leipzig 1904, pp. 80–82.
• Best, K.H., 'Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch (1802-1896).' In: Glottometrics 17, 2008, pp. 109-114.
• Neubert-Drobisch, W., Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch: ein Gelehrtenleben. Leipzig 1902.
• Moritz Wilhelm Drobisch anlässlich seines 200. Geburtstages. Verlag der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Stuttgart and Leipzig, 2003.