19 Facts About Martin Knutzen

Martin Knutzen would be an important figure in the formation of his Konigsberg University students Immanuel Kant and Johann Georg Hamann.

Martin Knutzen introduced him to the study of mechanics and optics, besides discussing faith extensively.

Martin Knutzen did not consider Kant to be one of his best students, and favoured Friedrich Johann Buck or Johann Friedrich Weitenkampf.

Martin Knutzen was 10 years Kant's senior and reached professorship at the early age of 21 years.

Martin Knutzen's advancedness did not lead him on to greater responsibilities.

Martin Knutzen's sedentarism meant that he never ventured more than thirty miles from his native town of Konigsberg.

Martin Knutzen acquainted Kant with both the latest scientific advances and discoveries and British empiricism.

Martin Knutzen's widow remarried a close friend of Kant's, a doctor of jurisprudence and young lawyer, Johann Daniel Funk.

Martin Knutzen sought to strike a balance between Pietist Lutheranism and Christian Wolff's dogmatic philosophy, trying to compatibilize the teachings of Pietism with the hypotheses of Wolff's illustrated philosophy.

Martin Knutzen saw philosophy not merely as a propaedeutic for gaining access to theology, but as a separate science that established its own postulates.

In writing this book, not only did Martin Knutzen show how strongly rooted his thinking was in Konigsberg's theological debate, but he revealed his intimate knowledge of what had until then been an unknown aspect of British philosophy.

Philosophically speaking, Martin Knutzen took an anti-Leibnizian standpoint, sustaining that the theory of pre-established harmony was as wrong, just like occasionalism, and that the only reasonable theory was that of physical influx, as suggested by Locke and corpuscularism.

Accordingly, Martin Knutzen's standpoints were closer to British than German philosophers.

Years earlier, in 1738, Martin Knutzen had predicted that a comet that had been observed in 1698 would reappear in the winter of 1744.

In 1744, Martin Knutzen published a book titled "Rational thoughts on the comets, in which is examined and represented their nature and their character, as well as the causes of their motion, and at the same time given a short description of the noteworthy comet of this year".

Martin Knutzen, referencing Newton, objected to this view and concluded that Heyn was an alarmist and obscurantist.

Martin Knutzen suggested that Knutzen had not sufficiently proved the respective identities of the 1698 and 1744 comets.

Martin Knutzen did not belong to that "small elite" of scientists on the continent who understood the details of Newtonian physics.

Martin Knutzen taught himself calculus and appears to have studied algebra from Wolf's work in Latin.