Harald Høffding
Danish philosopher and theologian (1843–1931)
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Life
Born Høffding was born in Copenhagen, the son of businessman Niels Frederik Høffding and Martha Høffding (née Jhellerup). The family lived at the corner of Gammeltorv and Nørregade. Høffding became a schoolmaster, and ultimately in 1883 a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He was strongly influenced by Søren Kierkegaard in his early development, but later became a positivist, retaining and combining with it the spirit and method of practical psychology and the critical school. The physicist Niels Bohr studied philosophy from and became a friend of Høffding. The philosopher and author Ágúst H. Bjarnason was a student of Høffding.
Høffding's great-nephew was the statistician Wassily Hoeffding.
Høffding died in Copenhagen.
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Work
His best-known work is perhaps his Den nyere Filosofis Historie (1894), translated into English from the German edition (1895) by B.E. Meyer as History of Modern Philosophy (2 vols., 1900), a work intended by him to supplement and to correct that of Hans Brøchner to whom it is dedicated. His Psychology, the Problems of Philosophy (1905) and Philosophy of Religion (1906) also have appeared in English.
Among Høffding's other writings, most of which have been translated into German, are Den engelske Filosofi i vor Tid (1874); Etik (1876); Psychologi i Omrids paa Grundlag af Erfaring (ed. 1892); Psykologiske Undersøgelser (1889); Charles Darwin (1889); Kontinuiteten i Kants filosofiske Udviklingsgang (1893); Sören Kierkegaard als Philosoph (1896); Det psykologiske Grundlag for logiske Domme (1899); Rousseau und seine Philosophie (1901); Mindre Arbejder (1899).
Commemoration
A commemorative plaque on the facade of Alexandrahus in Copenhagen (Nørregade 1) commemorates that Høffding was born on the site.