STEIN, LUDWIG

STEIN, LUDWIG (1859–1930), philosopher. Born in Erdöbenye, Hungary, he studied philosophy at Berlin under Zeller, at Halle, and at the Jewish Theological Seminary of Berlin, where he became a rabbi and functioned in that capacity for a couple of years. He taught at Zurich (1886–91) and then was professor at Berne. Stein edited the Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie, Archiv fuer Systematische Philosophie und Soziologie, Berner Studien zu Philosophie und ihrer Geschichte, Bibliothek fuer Philosophie, and Nord und Sued. During World War i he was involved politically with the moderate Gustav Stresemann. Stein wrote extensively on philosophy and sociology. He was a cultural and political optimist of religious tendencies, opposing the pessimism of Nietzsche and Spengler, a Humean in epistemology, and interested in biology. Stein's writings deal with the history of philosophy, Jewish thought, social questions, sociology, and optimistic philosophy.

His chief works include Die Willensfreiheit und ihr Verhaeltnis zur Goettlichen Praescienz und Providenz bei den Juedischen Philosophen des Mittelalters (1882); Freidrich Neitz sches Weltanschauung und ihre Gefahren (1893); Die soziale Frage im Lichte der Philosophie (1897, 1923⁴); Wesen und Aufgabe der Soziologie (1898); Der Sinn des Daseins (1904); Der soziale Optimismus (1905); Philosophische Stroemungen der Gegenwart (1908), on neo-Kantiansim; Gegen Spengler (1925); and Evolution and Optimism (lectures in America; 1926).

bibliography:

Koigen, in: Archiv fuer Systematische Philosophie und Soziologie, 33 (1929), 1–12; Dyroff, ibid., 34 (1931), 153–76.

[Richard H. Popkin]