author
Jonas Cohn
1869–1947
A German philosopher and educator shaped by Neo-Kantian thought, he spent decades teaching in Freiburg before exile forced him to rebuild his life in England. His work ranges across philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, and aesthetics, always returning to the tension between competing ideas.
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About the author
Born in Görlitz on December 2, 1869, Jonas Cohn studied in Leipzig, Berlin, and Heidelberg. He first earned a doctorate in systematic botany in 1892, then turned to philosophy and pedagogy, completing his habilitation in Freiburg in 1897.
Cohn became a professor at the University of Freiburg in 1901 and was known as a philosopher, psychologist, and educator associated with Neo-Kantianism. Reference works describe him as an important teacher of aesthetics, and summaries of his thought often note his interest in the ongoing interplay of opposing principles in philosophy, education, and psychology.
In 1933, after the Nazi rise to power, he left Germany and emigrated to England. He died in Birmingham on January 12, 1947. His life and work reflect both a wide-ranging intellectual career and the upheaval faced by many Jewish scholars in twentieth-century Europe.