Johannes Volkelt

Johannes Immanuel Volkelt (21 July 1848, Kunzendorf, Galicia – 8 May 1930, Leipzig) was a German neo-Kantian philosopher.

Biography

He was educated at Vienna, Jena, and Leipzig. At Jena, he was a student of Kant scholar Kuno Fischer. At Leipzig, Volkelt's doctoral advisor was Hermann Lotze.

Volkelt became professor of philosophy at Basel in 1883 and at Würzburg in 1889, and 1894 was made professor of philosophy and pedagogy at Leipzig. He is particularly noted for his investigations of the concept of empathy as a fundamental principle of the theory of art. He proposed that experiencing a work of art with empathy has two variations: "proper empathy" (eigentliche Einfühlung) and "empathy of mood" (Stimmungseinfühlung). His thoughts on Einfühlung and the empathic process were documented in his work System der Ästhetik.

Dream interpretation Volkelt spent time analysing the meaning of dreams, and captured his analysis in Die Traumphantasie. He is cited several times in The Interpretation of Dreams as a foundation for Sigmund Freud's claims.

Volkelt believed that elements of a dream were directly related to the body of the dreamer, such as a dreamed roaring stove representing the dreamer's lungs.

Works His more important works are: Aesthetische Zeitfragen (1895) Arthur Schopenhauer, seine Persönlichkeit, seine Lehre, sein Glaube (1900) Die Kunst des Individualisierens in den Dichtungen Jean Pauls (1902) System der Aesthetik (1905—14) Phänomenologie und Metaphysik der Zeit (1925)