Moritz Geiger

Personal

Vocation

German philosopher, a disciple of Edmund Husserl and a member of the Munich phenomenological school. Beside phenomenology, he dedicated himself to psychology, epistemology and aesthetics. Moritz Geiger studied law at the University of Munich in 1898, then history of literature in 1899, and finally philosophy and psychology in 1900, with Theodor Lipps. During the years 1901-1902, he studied experimental psychology with Wilhelm Wundt at Leipzig. Returning to Munich in 1904, he became part of the circle of students around Lipps, which included Alexander Pfänder, Adolf Reinach, Theodor Conrad, Aloys Fischer, Max Scheler, and Dietrich von Hildebrand. In 1906, Geiger attended Husserl's lectures in Göttingen, and became part of the Munich Circle of phenomenology, along with Reinach, Conrad, Fischer and Pfänder. He passed his thesis in 1907. Along with this Husserlian circle (including Max Scheler), he published the review Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung. In 1915, he became a teacher at Munich and, after World War I, at Göttingen (1923). When the Nazis had him dismissed from his chair because of his Jewish ancestry in 1933, he emigrated to the United States, teaching at Vassar College in New York and at Stanford University. Several of his students became famous, such as Klaus Berger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Walter Benjamin and Karl Löwith. He died in Seal Harbor, Maine on 9 September 1937, aged 57. Link to Wikipedia biography