Rudolf Christoph Eucken

Rudolf Christoph Eucken (1846 to 1926) was a German philosopher who won the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature for his idealistic philosophy of life. Born in Aurich in the Kingdom of Hanover, he studied at Göttingen under Hermann Lotze and in Berlin, then taught at Basel from 1871 and at Jena from 1874 until he retired in 1920. His work joined historical study of philosophical concepts to a constructive view he called ethical activism, in which people overcome their non-spiritual nature through continuous effort toward a spiritual life. Among his best known books are The Problem of Human Life (1890) and The Meaning and Value of Life (1908). He lectured at Harvard and New York University in 1912 and 1913, and his sons Walter and Arnold became an economist and a chemist.