Martin Knutzen

Martin Knutzen (1713 to 1751) was a German philosopher, a follower of Christian Wolff and the teacher of Immanuel Kant, to whom he introduced the physics of Isaac Newton. Born in Königsberg, he studied philosophy, mathematics and physics at the University of Königsberg, took his master's degree in 1733 and became extraordinary professor of logic and metaphysics there in 1735. He taught physics, astronomy and mathematics as well as philosophy. Study of Newton led him to question the pre-established harmony of Leibniz and Wolff and to defend mechanical causality in physical motion. His best-known book, the Philosophical Proof of the Truth of the Christian Religion (1740), sought a balance between Pietist Lutheranism and Wolff's rationalist philosophy. He strongly influenced Kant and Johann Georg Hamann, and Kant drew on his private library of natural science. Outside pressures kept him from an ordinary professorship, and he died in Königsberg in 1751, aged 37.