Otto Friedrich Bollnow

Who was Otto Friedrich Bollnow?

Otto Friedrich Bollnow was a German philosopher and teacher.

He was born the son of a rector in Stettin in what was then northwest Germany and went to school in the town of Anklam. After gaining his Abitur he studied mathematics and physics at Göttingen University, where he was influenced by the philosopher Herman Nohl. Bollnow received a doctorate in physics in 1925 and successfully completed his habilitation at Göttingen in 1931. He taught at Göttingen for some years without being appointed to the faculty. Bollnow was a member of the Militant League for German Culture.

In 1939 he moved to Gießen then briefly to Kiel, to Mainz and finally in 1953 to a chair in contemporary philosophy, philosophical anthropology and ethics at Tübingen. He taught at Tübingen until his retirement in 1970.

Bollnow concerned himself with the foundations of philosophy and with phenomenology and existential philosophy. He developed the work of Wilhelm Dilthey on hermeneutics and was concerned with the philosophical foundations of pedagogy.

In 1980 he received the Lessing-Prize—a literary and cultural honour endowed by German freemasons.