Eugen Fink (11 December 1905 – 25 July 1975) was a German philosopher.

Biography

Fink was born in 1905 as the son of a government official in Germany. He spent his first school years with an uncle who was a Catholic priest. Fink attended a grammar school in Konstanz where he succeeded with his extraordinary memory. After his graduation exam in 1925, he studied philosophy, history, German language and economics, initially at Münster and Berlin and then in Freiburg with Edmund Husserl.

Philosophy

As Husserl's assistant from 1928, he was a representative of Phenomenology (philosophy) and at the same time he became familiar with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. From early on, Fink was critical recipient of their positions, thereby developing his own approach as a philosophical "cosmology". He approached the problem of Being as a manifestation of the cosmic movement of worldliness with man being a participant in this movement. Fink called the philosophical problems pre-questions, that are never ready-made problems with predetermined factors such as in natural sciences but have to be created in a genuine act of philosophical reflexion.

Works

English translations