Đuro Arnold

Đuro Arnold (24 March 1853 – 22 February 1941) was a Croatian writer and philosopher.

Early life and study Arnold was born as the 19th of 24 children of Ivan, a tax gatherer, and Sofija, née Vukanić. His ancestors arrived from Switzerland during the French Revolution. He was born in Ivanec and spent his early childhood in Krapina. He attended primary school in Zagreb, and high school in Varaždin and Zagreb, where he graduated in 1873.

In 1874 he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb majoring in philosophy, with a minor in history and geography. During the Bosnian crisis he was recruited, and it was only in 1879 that he was hired as a professor in a Zagreb gymnasium. In 1880 he was promoted as the first PhD in philosophy at the University of Zagreb, with a thesis Ethics and history (Etika i povijest), which was published in 1879.

In the treatise Zadnja bića ("Last beings", Rad JAZU, 1888, 93 ) he conceived a world composed from the variety of simple, immutable soullike "last beings" that are connected by the feeling of touch and hierarchically arranged according to different levels of awareness, with absolute consciousness, the God, occupying the peak of the hierarchy.

According to some opinions, in his later works such as O psihologiji bez duše and Monizam i kršćanstvo (Rad JAZU, 1909, 176 and 178) Arnold has abandoned his earlier philosophical views. Others such as Pavao Vuk-Pavlović, Stjepan Matičević and Blaženka Despot however maintain that Arnold's philosophical view was uniform and consistent - spiritualist pluralism which doesn't completely exclude spiritualist monism.

Arnold is one of the founders of the Croatian philosophical terminology, having authored two influential high school textbooks (Logika and Psihologija) that were standard textbooks for more than thirty years.

At Arnold's proposal, in 1896 the Pedagogical Seminar for theoretical and practical training of future secondary school teachers was founded at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. As a teacher, organizer of educational system, the first Professor of Pedagogy at the Faculty of Philosophy and the first head of the Pedagogical Seminar, has influenced many generations of teachers.

Arnold died in Zagreb.

Works In literature: Izabrane pjesme, 1899, Zagreb Čeznuća i maštanja i pjesme, 1900–1907, Zagreb S visina i dubina, 1918, Zagreb Izabrane pjesme, 1923, Zagreb Na pragu vječnosti, 1935, Zagreb

In philosophy: Etika i poviest, 1879, Zagreb Logika za srednja učilišta, 18881, 19235, Zagreb Psihologija za srednja učilišta, 18931, 19237, Zagreb