Manfred Riedel

Manfred Riedel (10 May 1936, Etzoldshain - 11 May 2009, Erlangen) was a German philosopher.

Life Riedel studied from 1954 to 1957 philosophy, history, German studies, psychology, and sociology at the Karl Marx University, Leipzig, among others with Ernst Bloch, Hans Mayer, and Hermann August Korff. In 1957 he fled the GDR to Heidelberg (Republikflucht). There he continued his studies at the Ruprecht Karl University with Karl Löwith, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Arthur Henkel, and Werner Conze. In 1960 he received his doctorate under Löwith with a dissertation on "Theorie und Praxis im Denken Hegels". Contrary to the general trend of the 1960s, Riedel did not interpret Hegel from Marx but rather from the old European traditions of practical philosophy going back to Aristotle. In 1968 he completed his habilitation at the University of Heidelberg with a thesis on the topic Bourgeois Society: A Category of Classical Politics and Modern Natural Law.

After teaching positions at the universities of Heidelberg, Marburg and Saarbrücken, Riedel became a full professor of philosophy at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg in 1970. In 1980/81 he held the Theodor Heuss Professorship at The New School for Social Research in New York City. This was followed by guest professorships in Turin, Rome, Venice and Atlanta, Georgia. In 1992/93 he was a professor at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and in 1992 he received the chair of Practical Philosophy at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Riedel retired in 2004.

Literature

Hans-Helmuth Gander: Europa und die Philosophie. Verlag V. Klostermann, 1993, , S. 248