Emil Lask | |
|---|---|
| Born | 25 September 1875 |
| Died | 26 May 1915 (1915-05-27) (aged 39) Turza Mała, Austrian Galicia, Austria-Hungary |
| Alma mater | University of Freiburg |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Neo-Kantianism |
| Institutions | University of Heidelberg |
Emil Lask (25 September 1875 – 26 May 1915) was aGerman philosopher. A student ofHeinrich Rickert atFreiburg University, he was a member of the Southwestern school ofneo-Kantianism.
Lask was born inAustrian Galicia, as a son ofJewish parents. After completing his philosophical education at theUniversity of Freiburg, he was made lecturer at theUniversity of Heidelberg in 1905, and he was elected professor there just before the outbreak ofWorld War I. When war began in 1914 Lask immediately volunteered. Since, as a Heidelberg professor, he would have been regarded as indispensable on the home front, he did not have to enlist. But, conscientious and idealistic, Lask believed that he had an obligation to serve his country. Lask was made a sergeant and sent to Galicia on the Eastern front, despite a frail constitution and severe myopia—which also meant that he could not shoot, but he still felt obliged to remain at the front.[1] Lask died during the war, not far from the city of his birth, in theGalician Campaign.Wilhelm Windelband refused to request his return to Heidelberg as indispensable to philosophy.[2]
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. His published and some unpublished writings were collected in a three volume edition by his pupilEugen Herrigel with a notice by Lask's former teacher Rickert in 1923 and 1924. Lask is of interest to philosophers because of his uncompromising attitude and to historians of philosophy because of his influence onGyörgy Lukács and the youngMartin Heidegger. InBeing and Time (1927), Heidegger credited Lask with being the only person to have taken upEdmund Husserl's investigations "positively from outside the main stream of phenomenological research", pointing to Husserl'sLogical Investigations (1900–1901) as an influence on Lask'sDie Logik der Philosophie und die Kategorienlehre (1911) andDie Lehre vom Urteil (1912).[3] Lask's ideas were also influential in Japan, due to Herrigel, who lived and taught there for several years.
His sister was the poetBerta Lask.
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