Jakob Thomasius

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Jakob Thomasius (1622–1684) was a German academic philosopher and jurist. He was influential in the contemporary realignment of philosophy as a discipline. Martin Mulsow writes^[1]

According to Thomasius’ “Schediasma historicum” of 1665, from a theological point of view, philosophy needed to guarantee a clear separation of Creator from Creation, of God from Nature. It should thus only spring from Christian Aristotelianism, not from Stoicism or Neoplatonism.

He wrote on a wide range of topics, including plagiarism and the education of women.

He was the teacher of Gottfried Leibniz at the University of Leipzig, where Thomasius was professor of Rhetoric and Moral Philosophy, remaining a friend and correspondent, and has been described as Leibniz's mentor. He was the father of the jurist Christian Thomasius.