Karl Bormann (November 23, 1928 in Monheim, – August 17, 2015 in Langenfeld) was a German historian of philosophy. His area of research was ancient and medieval philosophy, in particular the work of the catholic cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.
Biography
Bormann spent his entire scientific career at the University of Cologne. After graduating from the state humanistic high school in Cologne-Mülheim in 1949, he studied classical philology and philosophy with the professors Josef Koch, Günther Jachmann and Josef Kroll and received his doctorate in 1955 with a dissertation on Philon's theory of ideas and logos, in which Bormann explained Philon's concept of the logos in critical examination of Harry Austryn Wolfson's interpretation.
From 1954 to 1959, Bormann was a research associate for Josef Koch at the Thomas-Institut of the University of Cologne, then until 1965 an assistant at Paul Wilpert's Philosophical Seminar. Funded by a habilitation grant from the German Research Foundation, he habilitated in 1967 with the work about the fragments of Parmenides. In 1970 he was first appointed adjunct professor and shortly thereafter appointed scientific advisor and professor. In 1980 he was appointed university professor of philosophy. Since 1985 he was a Member of International Center for Platonic and Aristotelian Studies. In 1994 he retired.
In 1967 Bormann became head of the Cologne office of the Cusanus Commission of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, which oversees the edition and translation of the works of Nicholas of Kues. In 1970 he became a member of the Commission, in the same year a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Cusanus Society and in 1973 co-editor of the Cusanus Society's communications and research contributions. Since then, the Cusanus research and edition has been the focus of his scientific work. An introduction to Plato's life and work, which was published several times, was also widely distributed. Characteristic of Bormann's work is the sober and fact-oriented manner of presentation based on a thorough and precise, philologically sound text analysis, while avoiding extensive philosophical speculations.
Bormann supported the efforts to beatify the Monheim martyr priest Franz Boehm, who was deported to the Dachau concentration camp because of his resistance to the Nazi regime, where he died in February 1945. As a former altar server for the courageous parish priest, he was able to describe his personality from his own experience. He valued most about Boehm was that he was "helpful, deeply religious, conscientious, strict and uncompromising".
Writings (selection) as author
Die Ideen- und Logoslehre Philons von Alexandrien. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit H. A. Wolfson. Köln 1955 (Dissertation). Parmenides. Untersuchungen zu den Fragmenten. Meiner, Hamburg 1971 (Habilitation). Platon. Alber, Freiburg im Breisgau 1973; new 4th Edition 2003, ISBN 3-495-48094-3. The Interpretation of Parmenides by the Neoplatonist Simplicius. In: The Monist. 62. 1979, pp. 30-42. “Omne ens est bonum”: ethical character and social responsibility. In: Du Vrai, du Beau, du Bien. Études philosophiques presentées à Évanghelos Moutsopoulos. Paris 1990, pp. 228-249. Is there a unity of contemporary society? In: Energeia. Études aristotéliciennes offertes à Mgr. Antonio Jannone. Paris 1986, pp. 387-400. (Centre international d’études platoniciennes et aristotéliciennes, Publications – series “Recherches”, No. 1)