Thiodolf Rein, Hermann Lotze and the rise of empiricism in Finland

Abstract

The paper addresses Thiodolf Rein's (1838–1919) view of empiricist philosophies, which arrived in Finland in the second half of the 19^th Century. Rein was the key figure of the Finnish philosophy towards the end of the 19^th Century. His philosophy was strongly influenced by Hermann Lotze (1817–81), probably the most distinguished German philosopher of the time. In his main work, Psychology, or the Science of the Soul (1876, -91), Rein attempts to reconcile the modern natural science and its empirical methodology with idealist metaphysics. His chief concern is to refute the claim that the results of the natural science testify to materialism. Whereas Lotze had only shortly commented on Charles Darwin's (1809–82) theory of evolution, Rein attempts to integrate Darwin's theory into his idealist metaphysics. Besides philosophy, Rein's arguments had also implications for broader political and cultural issues of the time.