Friedrich Paulsen

He completed his doctoral thesis under Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg at Berlin in 1871, he habilitated there in 1875, and he became extraordinary professor of philosophy and pedagogy there in 1878.

[1] He was the greatest of the pupils of Gustav Theodor Fechner, to whose doctrine of panpsychism he gave great prominence by his Einleitung in die Philosophie (1892; 7th ed., 1900; Eng.

But this will is neither rational desire, unconscious irrational will, nor conscious intelligent will, but an instinct, a will to live (Zielstrebigkeit), often subconscious, pursuing ends, indeed, but without reasoning as to means.

This conception of will, though consistent and convenient to the main thesis, must be rigidly distinguished from the ordinary significance of will, i.e. rational desire.

[2][1] Paulsen was a proponent of hylozoism, stating it is “a conception which almost irresistibly forces itself upon modern biology.