Fries

Fries, JAKOB FRIEDRICH, the founder of a philosophic school in Germany, was born at Barby, in Prussian Saxony, 23d August 1773, studied at Leipzig and Jena, and in 1805 was called to Heidel- berg as professor of Philosophy and Mathematics. In 1816 he accepted a call to the chair of Speculative Philosophy at Jena, but was deprived of his professorship on account of his participation in the democratic disturbances of 1819. In 1824, however, he was appointed to the chair of Physics and Mathematics, which he occupied till his death, 10th August 1843. Amongst his more important books are System der Philosophie (1804); Neue Kritik der Vernunft (3 vols. 1807); System der Logik (1811); Handbuch der psychischen Anthropologie (1820-21); Die Lehren der Liebe, des Glaubens, und der Hoffnung (1823); and Geschichte der Philosophie (1837-40). Taking the Kantian philosophy for his starting-point, Fries demonstrated that intuitive psychology must be the basis of all philosophising. Thus, through inner experience a posteriori we learn to know the subjective a priori conditions of knowledge; and through intuitive presentiment or faith we derive our certainty of the reality of things themselves. From inner assurance of the essential worth and personal dignity of men flow the definitions and sanctions of ethics, and from the same source originate our æsthetic and religious feelings. See Henke, J. F. Fries (1867).