Lipps, Theodor

Born July 28, 1851, in Wallhalben in the Rhineland-Palatinate; died Oct. 17, 1914, in Munich. German idealist philosopher, psychologist, and aesthetician.

Lipps was a professor at the universities of Bonn (1884), Breslau (1890), and Munich (1894). He founded the Psychological Institute in Munich. Along with Wundt and Ebbinghaus, Lipps systematized German psychology of the late 19th century. Taking the concept of immediate psychological experience as the starting point for his philosophy, Lipps saw in psychology the foundation for all branches of philosophy: logic, ethics, and aesthetics. Under the influence of Husserl’s phenomenology, he later tried to overcome psychologism. Lipps developed a psychology of art with empathy (Einfühlung) as the central concept.