Wilhelm Esser

Wilhelm Esser (1798–1854) was a German academic, logician, and philosopher. His works focused on logic, psychology, and moral philosophy. Esser is also identified as a post-Kantian logician.

Biography Esser was born on February 21, 1798, in Düren, Germany. He received his primary education in this North Rhine-Westphalian town, studying science under a Jesuit priest at Ratheim before attending a gymnasium at his hometown. In 1814, he moved to Cologne, where he studied philology, philosophy, and theology. Like Krug, who was also a post-Kantian logician, Esser held that there should be four fundamental laws of logic. These are:

All that is identical to an object must be attributed to it. To every object must be denied all that is opposed [Gegentheil] to it. To every fully determinate object every possible mark either belongs or does not. If one of two opposing marks should be affirmed or denied of an object, then there must be a sufficient ground on account of which this is attributed or denied it.

Universal law Esser described the laws of thought as "certain fundamental convictions which mind, absolutely identical to itself, grasping itself in its reality and causality, builds initially on itself and then, subsequently, also transfers to any other reality." According to him, if a form of thought is necessary and universal, then it is a law. He then defined a universal law as that which applies to "all cases without exception, and from which a deviation is ever, and everywhere, impossible, or at least, unallowed."

Publications System of logic, Elberfeld 1823. Moral philosophy, Coppenrath, Münster 1827. Memorandum to Georg Hermes, DüMont-Schauberg, Cologne 1832. Franz von Fürstenberg’s life and work, Deiters, Münster 1842. Psychology, 2 volumes, Cazin, Münster, 1854.