born Jan. 5, 1846, Aurich, East Friesland
died Sept. 14, 1926, Jena, Ger.
German philosopher.
He taught primarily at the University of Jena (18741920). Distrusting abstract intellectualism and systematics, Eucken centred his philosophy upon actual human experience. He maintained that man is the meeting place of nature and spirit and that it is a human duty and privilege to overcome nature by incessant striving after the spiritual life. A strong critic of naturalism, he held that humans are differentiated from the rest of the natural world by their possession of a soul, an entity that cannot be explained in terms of natural processes. He also was known as an interpreter of Aristotle . He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1908.