Fries and Lotze

This chapter aims to analyze the genesis of Hermann Lotze’s teleomechanism. Drawing from and significantly refining the work of J. F. Fries and C. H. Weiße, Lotze developed a non-reductionist dual model for scientific and philosophical disciplines. Lotze embraces the central idea of Fries’s philosophy that scientific explanations are hypothetical and mathematical in nature. Besides, he adopts Weiße’s “characteristic” idea that reality is dialectical and encompasses two sides: phenomenon and essence. Lotze takes this a step further, stating that there are two distinct thinking tendencies. The first tendency is that of the exact sciences, such as physics, which deal with one side of reality. The second one, which Lotze calls the “philosophical and teleological tendency”, deals with the other side of reality. The scientific task is to explain given phenomena by subsuming them under hypothetical laws. The philosophical task is “to interpret the meaning of reality”. According to Lotze, these two thinking tendencies are dialectically related and cannot be performed separately; otherwise, the final result would be one-sided. Furthermore, this chapter will analyze Lotze’s critique of the dynamic theory of matter proposed by Kant and Fries. Lotze’s atomistic point of view also stems from Weiße’s metaphysics.