Hermann Graf Keyserling

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This article is about a German philosopher. For Russian ambassador, see Herman Karl von Keyserling.

Hermann Alexander Graf Keyserling (July 20, 1880, in Könno (Kõnnu), Russian Empire, [now Estonia] – April 26, 1946, in Innsbruck, Austria) was a wealthy philosopher from the aristocratic Baltic German Keyserling family. He married Goedela von Bismarck-Schönhausen, grandaughter of Otto von Bismarck. His son Arnold Keyserling was a renowned philosopher as well.

After his education at the universities of Dorpat (Tartu), Heidelberg, and Vienna, he took a trip around the world. He interested himself in natural science and in philosophy, and before World War I he was known both as a student of geology and as a popular essayist. The Russian Revolution deprived him of his estate in Livonia, and with the remains of his fortune he founded the Gesellschaft für Freie Philosophie (Society for Free Philosophy) at Darmstadt. The mission of this school was to bring about the intellectual reorientation of Germany.[1]Although not a doctrinaire pacifist, Keyserling believed that the old German policy of militarism was dead for all time and that Germany's only hope lay in the adoption of international, democratic principles. His best known work is the "Reisetagebuch eines Philosophen". The book also describes his travels in Asia, America and Southern Europe.

[edit] Works

Reisetagebuch eines Philosophen
Das Buch vom Ursprung
Schöpferische Erkenntnis
Südamerikanische Meditationen
Einführung in die Schule der Weisheit
Philosophie als Kunst
Das Buch vom persönlichen Leben
Betrachtungen der Stille und Besinnlichkeit
Reise durch die Zeit (Memoiren)

[edit] Literature

Dyserinck, Hugo: Graf Hermann Keyserling und Frankreich, Ein Kapitel deutsch-französischer Geistesbeziehungen im 20. Jahrhundert; Bouvier, Bonn 1970; ISBN 3-416-00667-4
Gahlings, Ute: Hermann Graf Keyserling, ein Lebensbild; Justus-von-Liebig-Verlag, Darmstadt 1996; ISBN 3-87390-116-1
Keyserling-Archiv Innsbruck-Mühlau (Hrsg.): Graf Hermann Keyserling, ein Gedächtnisbuch; Rohrer, Innsbruck 1948