Spiegelberg, Herbert

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SPIEGELBERG, HERBERT

SPIEGELBERG, HERBERT (1904–1990), philosopher. Of Jewish origin, Spiegelberg was raised as a Christian. Born in Strasbourg, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Munich. He went to the U.S. in 1938 and taught at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania (1938–41) and Lawrence College in Wisconsin (1941–63). In 1963 he was appointed to the philosophy department of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he stood out as a phenomenologist and historian of phenomenology. He retired as professor emeritus in 1971.

Spiegelberg belonged more to the "Older Phenomenological Movement" than to the Freiburg School, influenced by Alexander Pfaender's approach. He was very influential in developing interest in phenomenological thought in the Anglo-American world through his lectures and writings. His Phenomenological Movement has provided a historical study and interpretation to this philosophy from Brentano to the present.

His major writings include Anti-relativismus (1935), Gesetz und Sittengesetz (1935), The Phenomenological Movement (2 vols., 1960, 19652), Alexander Pfaender's Phaenomenologie (1963), the translation of Pfaender's Phenomenology of Willing and Motivation (1967), Phenomenology in Psychology and Psychiatry (1972), Doing Phenomenology (1975), The Content of the Phenomenological Movement (1981), and Steppingstones toward an Ethics for Fellow Existers (1986).

bibliography:

H. Spiegelberg, Phenomenological Perspectives: Historical and Systematic Essays in Honor of Herbert Spiegelberg (1975).

[Richard H. Popkin /

Ruth Beloff (2nd ed.)]