Palágyi, Menyhért

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PALÁGYI, MENYHÉRT

PALÁGYI, MENYHÉRT (Melchior ; 1859–1924), philosopher; brother of the poet Lajos *Palágyi, Palágyi taught at the University of Kolozsvár (Cluj). When Kolozsvár was seized by Romania in 1919, he moved to Germany.

His Neue Theorie des Raumes und der Zeit (1901) anticipated Einstein and Minkowski. His works on logic (1902 and 1903) against psychologism were criticized by Husserl. His Kant und Bolzano (1902) revived interest in Bolzano. Palágyi also worked in epistemology, aesthetics, and natural philosophy (where he worked out a system of world mechanics). His later work appears in Ausgewaehlte Werke, 3 vols. (1924–25).

bibliography:

Kövesi, in: Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 6 (1967), 18–19; Boyce Gibson, in: Journal of Philosophical Studies, 3 (1928), 15–28.

[Richard H. Popkin]