DESSOIR, MAX

DESSOIR, MAX (1867–1947), German philosopher and psychologist, of Jewish origin (he described himself as a "Vierteljude"); son of ludwig dessoir . Dessoir studied with Wilhelm Dilthey and received doctorates in philosophy and medicine. He was professor of philosophy in Berlin, 1897–1934 and taught until 1933. He only left Berlin in 1943 and returned to Germany in 1946 and taught at Frankfurt. Dessoir was particularly interested in marginal psychological phenomena, and in 1889 coined the term "parapsychology." He described and criticized the anthroposophy of Rudolph Steiner. Dessoir anticipated freud by introducing a theory of the subconscious, based on experiments carried out with hypnosis and dream analysis and psychological observation of daily life. Dessoir was also interested in aesthetics and "the general science of art" – a branch of study he founded. Aesthetic objects (or essences), in his view, include many phenomena in nature and in everyday life; while works of art have not only an aesthetic significance but also possess functions of meaning which embrace the whole range of culture: religious, moral, pedagogical, political, social functions, etc. Dessoir's aesthetics are mainly objectivist. He founded the Zeitschrift fuer Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft in 1906 and was its editor for 30 years. His works include Das Doppel-Ich (1890); Geschichte der neueren deutschen Psychologie (1894); Aesthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft (1906); Vom Jenseits der Seele (1917); Der Okkultismus in Urkunden, 3 vols. (1925), ed. by M. Dessoir; Beitraege zur allgemeinen Kunstwissenschaft   (1929); Die Rede als Kunst (1940); Buch der Erinnerung (1946), an autobiography. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. Herrmann, Max Dessoir, Mensch und Werk (1927); W. Kuehne, Max Dessoirs Methode… (1922); A. Werner, in: Philosophia, 2 (Belgrade, 1937), 299–307 (Ger.). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Kurzweg, Die Geschichte der Berliner "Gesellschaft für Experimental-Psychologie" mit besonderer Berücksichtigung ihrer Ausgangssituation und Wirkens Max Dessoir (1976); R. Steiner, Von Seelenrätseln – Max Dessoir über Antroposophie (19835).