Johannes Volkelt

Johannes Immanuel Volkelt (21 July 1848 in Lipnik near Biala, Austrian Galicia – 8 May 1930 in Leipzig) was a German philosopher.

Biography

He was educated at Vienna, Jena, and Leipzig. He became professor of philosophy at Basel in 1883 and at Würzburg in 1889, and in 1894 was made professor of philosophy and pedagogy in Leipzig.

Philosophy

In philosophy his main efforts have been his opposition to positivism and his attempt at a new metaphysical theory. His independent position was arrived at after successive periods in which he followed Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann.

Works

Volkelt has written on aesthetics as well as on philosophy proper. His more important works are:

• Pantheismus und Individualismus im System Spinozas (1872)
• Die Traumphantasie (1875)
• Kants Erkenntnistheorie, a searching piece of criticism (1879)
• Aesthetische Zeitfragen (1895)
• Arthur Schopenhauer, seine Persönlichkeit, seine Lehre, sein Glaube (1900)
• Die Kunst des Individualisierens in den Dichtungen Jean Pauls (1902)
• Phänomenologie und Metaphysik der Zeit (1925)

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 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.