Cohen, Hermann
Cohen, Hermann
A Discalced Carmelite (Augustin-Marie of the Blessed Sacrament, generally known as Father Hermann), born at Hamburg, Germany, 10 November, 1820; died at Spandau, 20 January, 1871. The son of a Jewish merchant, he devoted himself to music, which he studied under Liszt at Paris, where he joined a brilliant but frivolous circle, to the detriment of his morals. One day, in May, 1847, while leading the choir at Benediction in the church of Sainte-Valérie, he felt himself touched by Divine grace, and, after a short sojourn at Ems, resolved to become a Christian. Baptized 28 August, he instituted with De la Bouillerie the pious practice of the nocturnal adoration; he entered the Carmelite novitiate at Broussey, made his profession 7 October 1850, and was ordained priest 19 April of the following year. His fiery eloquence and the stir caused by his conversion made him a favorite preacher, notwithstanding insufficient studies. He was instrumental in the foundation of convents at Bagnères-de-Bigorre (1853), Lyons (1857), the Desert of Tarasteix near Lourdes (1857), and in London (1862), where he had been known during his artistic career. After some years spent in England he went on a preaching tour through Germany and France and ultimately to Tarasteix. At the outbreak of the Franco-German War he fled to Switzerland, and later on took charge of the lazaretto at Spandau, where he contracted smallpox. He was buried in St. Hedwig’s church, Berlin. Among his works are Le Catholicisme en Agnleterre, a speech delivered at Mechlin, also in English (Paris, 1864); Gloire à Marie (1849); Amour à Jésus (1851); Fleurs du Carmel; Couronnement de la Madonne; Thabor (1870), five collections of sacred songs with accompaniment, pious but somewhat shallow; this also holds good of his Mass (1856).
———————————–
B. ZIMMERMAN Transcribed by Michael C. Tinkler
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IVCopyright © 1908 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, CensorImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Cohen, Hermann
(1842-1918) and Paul Natorp (1854-1924) were the chief leaders of the “Marburg School” which formed a definite branch of the Neo-Kantian movement. Whereas the original founders of this movement, O. Liebmann and Fr. A. Lange, had reacted to scientific empiricism by again calling attention to the a priori elements of cognition, the Marburg school contended that all cognition was exclusively a priori. They definitely rejected not only the notion of “things-in-themselves” but even that of anything immediately “given” in experience. There is no other reality than one posited by thought and this holds good equally for the object, the subject and God. Nor is thought in its effort to “determine the object = x” limited by any empirical data but solely by the laws of thought. Since in Ethics Kant himself had already endeavored to eliminate all empirical elements, the Marburg school was perhaps closer to him in this field than in epistemology. The sole goal of conduct is fulfillment of duty, i.e., the achievement of a society organized according to moral principles and satisfying the postulates of personal dignity. The Marburg school was probably the most influential philosophic trend in Germany in the last 25 years before the First World War. The most outstanding present-day champion of their tradition is Ernst Cassirer (born 1874). Cohen and Natorp tried to re-interpret Plato as well as Kant. Following up a suggestion first made by Lotze they contended that the Ideas ought to be understood as laws or methods of thought and that the current view ascribing any kind of existence to them was based on a misunderstanding of Aristotle’s. — H.G.