author
Robert Zimmermann
1824–1898
A key figure in 19th-century philosophy, he taught for decades at the University of Vienna and became especially known for his work on aesthetics. His career also links him to Bernard Bolzano, whose unfinished mathematical-philosophical work he was entrusted to edit.
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About the author
Born in Prague on November 2, 1824, Robert von Zimmermann was an Austrian-Czech philosopher who studied in Prague and Vienna. He was a student of Bernard Bolzano, and while still young he was entrusted with Bolzano’s unfinished Grössenlehre, a project that helped connect Zimmermann’s name with larger debates in philosophy and the foundations of mathematics.
Zimmermann went on to teach at the universities of Olomouc, Prague, and, from 1861, Vienna, where he spent more than three decades as a professor. He is often described as an orthodox follower of Johann Friedrich Herbart, and his writing made him an important voice in formal aesthetics as well as in the history of aesthetics.
He died in Prague on August 31, 1898. Today he is remembered less as a household name than as a serious scholar whose teaching and books helped shape philosophical discussion in the Habsburg world of the 19th century.