Georg Mehlis

Georg Mehlis (8 March 1878 – 13 November 1942) was a German neo-Kantian philosopher.

Biography

He was born in Hannover, the son of the lawyer Georg Mehlis and his wife Marie Heins. After attending the Lyceum, he first joined the military. In 1896, he began his military career as an ensign with the 10th Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment No. 134. The following year, he became a lieutenant. In 1902 he took his leave. Mehlis then studied German, philosophy and history for two semesters at the University of Marburg. In 1903, he transferred to Heidelberg University, where he concentrated primarily on the study of philosophy. In 1906, he received his doctorate in philosophy from Wilhelm Windelband in Heidelberg with a dissertation on "Schelling's Philosophy of History in the Years 1799-1804." In 1909, he habilitated at the University of Freiburg with a paper on Die Geschichtsphilosophie Auguste Comtes ("The Philosophy of History by Auguste Comte") and was a private lecturer there from 1910.

Mehlis was a student and follower of the philosopher Heinrich Rickert. Together with Richard Kroner, Nikolai von Bubnoff, Sergius Hessen, and Fedor Stepun, who had also studied or received their doctorates under Windelband or Rickert, he founded the journal Logos. Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie der Kultur. It was published in Germany by Mohr Siebeck from 1910 to 1933, and also in Russia and Italy. Mehlis was the sole editor of the German edition at the beginning, and from the third volume on he edited it together with Kroner until 1924. This journal of cultural philosophy soon gained notoriety, among other things due to the participation of eminent humanities scholars from various disciplines with close ties to neo-Kantianism.

During World War I, Mehlis initially fought at the front and was stationed with the Deputy General Command in Koblenz. After being wounded at the end of 1914, he was only deployed close to home. In 1915, he published a Lehrbuch der Geschichtsphilosophie ("Textbook of the Philosophy of History") and was subsequently appointed associate professor of philosophy at the University of Freiburg. At this time he was very critical of the war, which he called "the enemy of culture." He wrote other philosophical writings, including a study of Plotinus.

In 1924, Mehlis fled Germany because he was being investigated for an offense under § 175. He then lived in Chiavari. In the following years, he published several books on Italian fascism and wrote related articles for the German nationalist magazine Der Tag. He considered Benito Mussolini a "great leader personality," but that the "form of the fascist state was appropriate for the German people" he doubted.

His ideas on aesthetics have been taken up by Suzanne Langer.

Works

• Schellings Geschichtsphilosophie in den Jahren 1799–1804 (1906)
• Die Geschichtsphilosophie Auguste Comtes (1909)
• Lehrbuch der Geschichtsphilosophie (1915)
• Einführung in ein Systeme der Religionsphilosophie (1917)
• Probleme der Ethik (1918)
• Über Formen der modernen Lyrik und Epik (Axel Lübbe). Eine kunstphilosophische Studie (1922)
• Die deutsche Romantik (1922)
• Plotin (1924)
• Die Mystik in der Fülle ihrer Erscheinungsformen in allen Zeiten und Kulturen (1926)
• Die Idee Mussolinis und der Sinn des Faschismus (1928)
• Der Staat Mussolinis (1929)
• Italienische Philosophie der Gegenwart (1932)
• Freiheit und Faschismus (1934)
• Führer und Volksgemeinschaft (1941)

External links

• Works by Georg Mehlis German National Library