Ernst Kapp, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

Ernst Kapp

German philosopher

Date of Birth: 15-Oct-1808

Place of Birth: Ludwigsstadt, Bavaria, Germany

Date of Death: 30-Jan-1896

Profession: geographer, philosopher

Nationality: Germany

Zodiac Sign: Libra


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About Ernst Kapp

  • Ernst Christian Kapp (15 October 1808 – 30 January 1896) was a German philosopher of technology and geographer, and a follower of Carl Ritter. He was prosecuted for sedition in the late 1840s for publishing a small article entitled 'Der konstituierte Despotismus und die konstitutionelle Freiheit' (1849) and was subsequently forced to leave Germany.
  • He then emigrated to the German pioneer settlements of central Texas where he worked as a farmer, geographer and inventor. He was one of the early German Free Thinkers in Sisterdale, Texas.
  • In 1853, he was elected the President of the Freethinker abolitionist organization Die Freie Verein (The Free Society), which called for a meeting of abolitionist German Texans in conjunction with 14 May 1854 Staats-Saengerfest (State Singing Festival) in San Antonio, Texas.
  • The convention adopted a political, social and religious platform, including: 1) Equal pay for equal work; 2) Direct election of the President of the United States; 3) Abolition of capital punishment; 4) Slavery is an evil, the abolition of which is a requirement of democratic principles...; 5) Free schools – including universities - supported by the state, without religious influence; and 6) Total separation of church and state. After the Civil War he left the USA for a visit to Germany, but fell ill during the voyage.
  • Urged by his physician not to risk the return trip at his age, he re-entered the academic world.Reflecting on his frontier experience, Kapp wrote "Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik" (Elements of a Philosophy of Technology) (1877).
  • This work, among many other things, formulates a philosophy of technology in which tools and weapons are identified as different forms of 'organ projections', although this idea may have been loosely covered as early as Aristotle.
  • Furthermore, in chapters 12 & 13, it notably analyses language and the state as extensions of mental life, long before such ideas were popularised by Marshall McLuhan.

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