Encyclopedia > University of Heidelberg

Article Content

University of Heidelberg

The University of Heidelberg was established in the town of Heidelberg in the Rhineland in 1386. It was founded at the behest of the Count Palatinate and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, Ruprecht I, in order to provide faculties for the study of philosophy, theology, jurisprudence, and medicine. The university's official title is Ruprecht-Karls-University of Heidelberg.

Among the prominent thinkers to have been associated with the university are Georg Hegel, the existentialist philosopher-psychologist Karl Jaspers[?], the political theorist Hannah Arendt, the philosopher of hermeneutics Hans-Georg Gadamer, the critical theorist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas, and the philosopher of discourse ethics[?] Karl-Otto Apel[?].