Werner Jaeger
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Werner Wilhelm Jaeger (July 30, 1888 - October 9, 1961) was a classicist of the 20th century.
Jaeger was born in Lobberich, Germany. He attended school at Lobberich and at the Gymnasium Thomaeum in Kempen before studying at the University of Marburg. He received a Ph.D. from Humboldt University of Berlin in 1911 for a dissertation on the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Only 26 years old and without habilitation, Jaeger was called on that basis to a professorship with chair at the University of Basel in Switzerland. One year later he moved to a similar position at Kiel, and in 1921 he returned to Berlin. Jaeger remained in Berlin until 1936, when he emigrated to the United States because he was unhappy with Hitler's regime; his wife was Jewish and Nazi legislation thus forbade his teaching at the university.
In the United States, he worked as a full professor at the University of Chicago from 1936 to 1939, at which time he moved to Harvard University. He remained in Cambridge, Massachusetts until his death.
He is perhaps best known for his multivolume work "Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture", an extensive consideration of both the earliest practices and later philosophical reflections on the cultural nature of education in Ancient Greece, which he hoped would restore a decadent early 20th century Europe to the values of its Hellenic origins.
[edit] Works
- Aristoteles (1924)
- Platons Stellung im Aufbau der griechischen Bildung (1928)
- Paideia, 3 vols. (from 1934), his magnum opus on Greek thought and education from Homer to Demosthenes
[edit] See also
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jaeger, Werner Wilhelm |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | classicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 30, 1888 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lobberich, Germany |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 9, 1961 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Cambridge, Massachusetts |
