Dhe philosopher Dieter Henrich died in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 17 in Munich. This ended one of the most fruitful lives in German philosophy.
From his youth, Henrich devoted his work to idealistic philosophy from Immanuel Kant to GWF Hegel, to its intellectual development and its understanding of the history of ideas. What the fact of the self-awareness we have means for our existence, he has discussed in studies with worldwide impact. At the same time, he was interested in how that epochal fertility of thinking came about around 1800, at the center of which was this self-confidence.
His favorite was Friedrich Hölderlin, to whose philosophical power and poetry he dedicated several books. Henrich was a professor in Heidelberg, Berlin and Munich, guest professorships took him to Harvard, Yale and New York.
Henrich, who was born in 1927, published books well into old age: most recently on nihilism, on Fichte and on the Gospel of John. His productivity didn’t seem to be flagging. Anyone who experienced him met a noble, perfectly formed person.
