Rudolph Hermann Lotze (1817-1881)
Rudolph Hermann Lotze was a German philosopher and psychologist who studied medicine and philosophy in Leipzig. Lotze sought to reconcile the views of mechanistic science with the principles of romantic idealism. He started with the idea that all phenomena are determined by the interaction of substance. By analogy from immediate knowledge of spiritual existence in the self, Lotze argued that the centers of force are stages of development within the underlying substance of the world mind. Some of Lotze’s more important works are: Metaphysik (1841), Logik (1843), and Mikrokosmus (1885). An analogy between the whole world and its parts comes from the Greek word mikros kosmos, "little world," a Western philosophical term designating man as being a little world in which the universe is reflected. Lotze’s work on "medical psychology" entitled him to be called one of the founders of physiological psychology.