Ludwig Büchner

Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner (German: [ˈbyːçnɐ]; 29 March 1824 – 30 April 1899) was a German philosopher, physiologist and physician who became one of the exponents of 19th-century scientific materialism.

Biography

Büchner was born at Darmstadt on 29 March 1824. From 1842 to 1848 he studied physics, chemistry, botany, mineralogy, philosophy and medicine at the University of Giessen, where he graduated in 1848 with a dissertation entitled Beiträge zur Hall'schen Lehre von einem excitomotorischen Nervensystem (Contributions to the Hallian Theory of an Excito-motor Nervous System). Afterwards, he continued his studies at the University of Strasbourg, the University of Würzburg (where he studied pathology with the great Rudolf Virchow) and the University of Vienna. In 1852 he became lecturer in medicine at the University of Tübingen, where he published his magnum opus Kraft und Stoff: Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien (Force and Matter: Empiricophilosophical Studies, 1855). Büchner was one of the founding members of the Freies Deutsches Hochstift (Free German Foundation).

According to Friedrich Albert Lange (Geschichte des Materialismus, 1866), Kraft und Stoff was imbued with a fanatical enthusiasm for humanity. Büchner sought to demonstrate the indestructibility of matter, and the finality of physical force. The scientific materialism of this work, which contemporaries often lumped together with the publications of other 'materialists' like Karl Vogt and Jacob Moleschott, caused so much opposition that he was compelled to give up his post at Tübingen, and he retired to Darmstadt. He practiced as a physician and contributed regularly to pathological, physiological and popular magazines.