Thomas Abbt (; 25 November 1738 – 3 November 1766) was a German mathematician and writer.
Education
Born in Ulm as the son of a wig-maker, Abbt visited a secondary school in Ulm, then moved in 1756 to study theology, philosophy and mathematics at the University of Halle, receiving a Magister degree in 1758.
Career
In 1760 Abbt was appointed as an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Frankfurt (Oder), where he wrote his most well-known work Vom Tode für's Vaterland (1761).
Abbt on sabbatical
Thomas Abbt wanted to grapple the exigencies of German social and intellectual life in a novel fashion. His work was an early attempt to create a space in which it became possible for individuals to think, talk, and act in reference to a larger socio-political whole. As Abbt finished up his studies, he took his professorship at the University of Frankfurt in 1760, where he began to work on "Dying for the Fatherland" in 1761. In early 1763 Abbt obtained the permission from his employer for a one year sabbatical. On his travels to Switzerland he visited Justus Möser, Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz, Friedrich Karl von Moser, Johann Daniel Schöpflin, and Isaak Iselin.
A lot of Abbt's work was an attempt to get the public life in the German society to act more for the good of the country, where he tries to motivate the people that anyone can be great. Even though he tries to motivate the people of Germany with words, Abbt is convinced that we have no one in Germany who equals his talent or can not even compare someone else to his writing. As he was concerned between the human heart and social utility, Abbt continued his word and his patriotism had a way to a fairly wide range of philosophy. He insisted on grounding moral discussion in the common understanding of the mass of human kind.
Understanding Abbt's writing
Abbt was a different type of writer in his time, his primary audience was the middle and higher orders in Germany. After his death in 1770, he was honored for his writing on "Problem of Publikum", where he described and taught pure virtue along with innocence. This writing of his began to evolve as it was looked at as a vision which seemed to hold unlimited promise. In understanding Abbts writing, it is important to realize that there was a relationship between the German public sphere and the Enlightenment discourse within it. His vision of the informal public sphere existing more or less independently of government based on natural, human impulses, resonates with Shaftesbury in this regard.
In Abbt's life he rose to the top of German academics at such a young age which moved to a position of enlightened administration and free scholarly activity. He had so much going for him at the age of 28 as he could have influenced so many more people and learned much more if it were not for the sudden illness that led to his death.