Karl Becker (philologist)

Karl Ferdinand Becker (14 April 1775 Lieser (Mosel) – 4 September 1849 Offenbach am Main) was a German physician, educationalist, and philologist.

He then studied medicine at the University of Göttingen, became a physician at Offenbach in 1815, and was a surgeon in the army.

His work as an instructor led him to make researches in philology, which for a time met with considerable recognition.

His view was that all languages are subject to certain logical and philosophical principles, and that thus a science of comparative philology might be arrived at by a process of deduction.

This method was later largely discredited by the investigations of Jakob Grimm and others, whereby comparative philology is based on principles of history and ethnology and is attained inductively.