Jakob Sigismund Beck (also Jacob; 6 August 1761 – 29 August 1840) was a German philosopher.
Biography
Beck was born in the village of Liessau (Lisewo) in the rural district of Marienburg/Malbork in Greater Poland in 1761. The son of a Liessau pastor, he studied (after 1783) mathematics and philosophy at the University of Königsberg, where Christian Jakob Kraus, Johann Schultz, and Immanuel Kant were his teachers. After his studies, he first accepted a post as a teacher at a grammar school in Halle. With his thesis Dissertatio de theoremate Tayloriano, sive de lege generali, secundum quam functionis mutantur, notatis a quibus pendent variabilibus, which he wrote in Halle, he was qualified as a university lecturer. He then worked as a lecturer of philosophy at the University of Halle (1791–1799) and then he became a professor of philosophy at the University of Rostock (from 1799). He devoted himself to criticism and explanation of the doctrine of Kant, and in 1793 published the Erläuternder Auszug aus den kritischen Schriften des Herrn Prof. Kant, auf Anrathen desselben (Riga, 1793–1796), which has been widely used as a compendium of Kantian doctrine.
Beck died in Rostock.
Works
- Erläuternder Auszug aus den Kritischen Schriften des Herrn Prof. Kant (1793–96), vol. 3: Einzig-möglicher Standpunct, aus welchem die critische Philosophie beurtheilt werden muß (1796)