MARCUS, ERNST

MARCUS, ERNST (1856–1928), German jurist and philosopher. Marcus studied law and was a judge. As a philosopher, he was a Kantian who opposed the new interpretations offered by H. Cohen\>\> and L. Nelson\>\> . For Marcus the "thing-in-itself" remained central, deducible from reason. He developed a theory of the a priori "organism" which the "I" constructs. He wrote many works on Kant including Kants Revolutionsprinzip (1902); Das Erkenntnisproblem (1905), Die Beweisfuehrung in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1914), and Kants Weltgebaeude (1917). He also wrote Theorie einer natuerlichen Magie (1924). Using Kant's theory, Marcus criticized Einstein in his Kritikdes Aufbaus der speziellen Relativitaetstheorie (1926) and in Die Zeit-und Raumlehre Kants (1927). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S. Friedlaender, Der Philosoph Ernst Marcus als Nachfolger Kants (1930); idem, Kant gegen Einstein (1932). (Richard H. Popkin)