Name Karl Bayrhoffer Role Philosopher | Died February 3, 1888, Monroe | |
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Karl Theodor Bayrhoffer (14 October 1812, in Marburg – 3 February 1888) was a German American philosopher and publicist.
In 1834 he received his PhD from the University of Marburg, where he later was named an associate professor of philosophy (1838, a full professor in 1845). He became a member of the Diet of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel) in 1848, and in 1850 was President of the Chamber. After the defeat of his party (Democratic) he came to the United States in 1852 and settled in Wisconsin as a farmer, though from 1866 he lived principally by his pen.
In his early writings, notably in Die Idee und Geschichte der Philosophie ("Idea and History of Philosophy", 1838), he appears as a zealous disciple of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Afterward he became a champion of German Catholicism and wrote Researches into the Essence, History, and Criticism of Religion (1849).