Karl von Prantl

Who was Karl von Prantl?

Carl von Prantl was a German philosopher and philologist.

He was born at Landsberg on the Lech. In 1843 he became doctor of philosophy at Munich Observatory, where he was made professor in 1859. He was also a member of the Academies of Berlin and Munich. Strongly in agreement with the Hegelian tradition, he defended and amplified it in Die gegenwärtige Aufgabe der Philosophie and Verstehen und Beurteilen.

In these works he emphasized the identity of the subjective and the objective for consciousness, and the fact that the perception of this unity is peculiar to man. He is more important, however, as a commentator and scholar, and made valuable contributions to the study of Aristotle. He published Aristoteles über die Farben, Aristoteles acht Bücher der Physik, and numerous minor articles on smaller points, such as the authenticity of the thirty-eight books of the Problems.

The work by which he is best known is the Geschichte der Logik im Abendland. Christoph von Sigwart, in the preface to the first edition of his Logic, makes special mention of the assistance he obtained from this book.