Rüdiger, Andreas (1673–1731)

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RÜDIGER, ANDREAS
(1673–1731)

Andreas Rüdiger, the German physician and philosopher, was born in Rochlitz, Saxony. Poverty and bad health allowed him to study only irregularly. In 1692 he served as a tutor in the home of Christian Thomasius. He was compelled to interrupt his studies completely in 1695; not until 1697 could he enter the University of Leipzig, where he studied law and medicine, receiving a master's degree in 1700. He received a doctorate in medicine from the University of Halle in 1703, but he continued to lecture at the University of Leipzig. From 1707 to 1712 he practiced medicine and lectured in Halle, and from 1712 until his death he did so in Leipzig.

The development of Rüdiger's philosophy was greatly influenced by his teachers Christian Thomasius and Franz Budde. However, he soon developed individual views within the Thomasian school. His medical studies centered his interests on natural philosophy and gave his thought a practical bent. Like Budde's, Rüdiger's mind was more systematic than Thomasius's.

Rüdiger's most important work, Philosophia Synthetica (1706–1707), is divided into three sections: "Wisdom," "Justice," and "Prudence." The section on wisdom embraces logic and natural philosophy, that on justice covers metaphysics and natural law, and that on prudence covers ethics and politics.

Rüdiger's logic had a clear psychological orientation. He was mainly interested in the origin and development of our ideas, which, he held, come into our minds through the senses, although there are some innate mental elements, too. He criticized René Descartes, discussed Pierre Gassendi, and drew some inspiration from John Locke. Rüdiger stressed the passive element of the mind; reflection, or sensio interna, is (contrary to Locke) a passive fact. The standard of truth lies in man's consciousness, in a recta ratio, which is not common sense but something that can be acquired only through instruction in logic (lumen acquisitum ). Logic was therefore more important for Rüdiger than for the other members of the Thomasian school. He developed a refined syllogistic theory, formalizing his acceptance of the mathematical method in philosophy. However, he conceived the mathematical method quite differently from Christian Wolff, as a method for deducing facts from given facts rather than as the drawing of possible conclusions from abstract principles. Rüdiger's philosophy, like that of the Thomasian school generally, was based in large part on the notion of reality and appealed mainly to the senses and to experience, both interior and exterior. He defined "truth" in connection with the possibility of perceiving and "existence" in connection with being perceived—again in the tradition of Thomasian subjectivism.

In natural philosophy, Rüdiger tried to combine the Thomasian and Pietistic animistic or spiritualistic physics with mechanism, but the spiritualistic element predominates. He held that we have no certain knowledge of nature, and generally he refrained from choosing between different hypotheses, for instance, between the Copernican and the biblical astronomical theories.

The practical bent of Rüdiger's philosophy explains why he discussed metaphysics under the heading of justice. His metaphysical discussions were largely devoted to theology and to man's duties toward God; his discussions of natural law were devoted to our duties toward other men. Metaphysics is the science of reality, and in particular of the ens realissimum, rather than the science of possibility. However, according to Rüdiger, we cannot penetrate the essence of things in metaphysics; we can only establish, by means of experience, that things exist and how they exist.

Rüdiger's section on prudence constitutes, in the Thomasian tradition, a kind of anthropology, both private and public. Ethics provides precepts for reaching happiness on Earth, and politics provides precepts for governing a commonwealth.

Through his pupil A. F. Hoffmann, Rüdiger exerted a strong influence on the development of the philosophy of Christian August Crusius, and through Crusius on the whole development of German philosophy.

Bibliography

works by rÜdiger

Disputatio Philosophica de Eo, Quod Omnes Ideae Oriantur a Sensione. Leipzig, 1704.

Philosophia Synthetica. Tribus Libris de Sapientia, Justitia et Prudentia. Methodo Mathematicae Aemula Breviter et Succinte in Usam Auditorum Comprehense. Leipzig, 1707. Reprinted at Halle, 1711, and at Frankfurt, 1717, as Institutiones Eruditionis and at Leipzig, 1723, as Philosophia Pragmatica. Methodo Apodictica et Quoad Eius Licuit Mathematica Conscripta.

De Sensu Veri et Falsi. Halle, 1709.

Physica Divina Recta Ira ad Ultramque Hominis Felicitatem Naturalem Atque Moralem Ducens. Frankfurt, 1716.

Klugheit zu Leben und zu Herrschen. Leipzig, 1722.

Christian Wolffens Meinung von dem Wesen der Seele und eines Geistes überhaupt, und Andreas Rüdigers Gegen-Meinung. Leipzig, 1727. A pamphlet attacking Wolff.