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Ingeborg Heidemann
*September 6, 1915 (Bonn, Germany)
†November 8, 1987 (Remagen, Germany)
Ingeborg Heidemann was born in Bonn on 6 September 1915. Her parents were Wilhelm Heidemann, a dentist, and Ida Heidemann (née Stahl). After completing her secondary school education (Abitur) at the Realgymnasiale Studienanstalt in Krefeld, she began to study medicine. She dropped out after one semester and enrolled in philosophy. In the following years she studied philosophy, psychology and psychological anthropology in Berlin, Munich, Königsberg and Cologne, as well as 6 semesters of journalism. Her studies were interrupted by various jobs, including that of a journalist.
On 2 February 1948 she took her oral doctoral examination under Heinz Heimsoeth in Cologne on Max Scheler’s critique of Kant’s formalism in ethics (Untersuchungen zur Kantkritik Max Schelers). From 1948 to 1953 she was a lecturer in psychology at the Cologne Sports University. In 1954 she was an assistant at the Philosophical Seminar I (Philosophisches Seminar I) at the University of Mainz. She became a research assistant to Gottfried Martin after the official publication of her dissertation by the Cologne University Press in 1955. In 1958, she habilitated in Mainz under Gottfried Martin on Spontaneity and Temporality in the Critique of Pure Reason (Spontaneität und Zeitlichkeit. Ein Problem der Kritik der reinen Vernunft). In the same year, she followed him to Bonn. There she continued to work as a research assistant. She became a private lecturer (Privatdozentin) in 1961 and an associate professor (Außerordentliche Professorin) and academic advisor (Akademische Rätin) in 1964. From 1968 she was a professor at the University of Bonn, where she was the head of the newly founded Department of Kantian Studies at the Philosophical Seminar A (Philosophisches Seminar A). In the same year she published her third book On the Concept of Play and the Aesthetic World Picture in Contemporary Philosophy (Zum Begriff des Spiels und das ästhetische Weltbild in der Philosophie der Gegenwart).
In 1974 Heidemann was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit mainly for her role and commitment to academic self-administration and her draft for a new university constitution and academic reform. She taught and researched in Bonn until 1980, when she was appointed to a vacant c4 professorship and retired immediately afterwards. Ingeborg Heidemann died on 8 November 1987 and was buried in Bonn.
Ingeborg Heidmann’s research was mainly concerned with the connection between transcendental philosophy, phenomenology, ontology and existential philosophy. She has published articles on Immanuel Kant, especially his ethics and the theoretical foundations of the Critique of Reason. She has also published on Nietzsche and on the interpretations of Kant by Heinz Heimsoeth and Gottfried Martin. In her post-doctoral thesis and her monograph on the concept of play, she dealt intensively with the early and late work of Martin Heidegger. Ingeborg Heidemann was a founding member of the Rheinland-Westfalen regional group of the Kant-Society in 1952. She was the sole editor of the Kant-Studien supplements (Kant-Studien Ergänzungshefte) (until 1973) and editor of Kant-Studien officially until 1961, but unofficially until1968. From 1968 she was professor and head of the newly founded Kant Research Department at the University of Bonn. She was a founding member of the new Kant Society and a member of its board throughout her life. Her contributions to the history of transcendental philosophy include the fundamental new edition of the Critique of Pure Reason published by Reclam and a problem-oriented edition of the Opus-Postumum, as well as contributions to the ontological interpretation of Kant and his followers. She was involved in the organisation of the first five Kant congresses (1960, 1965, 1970, 1974, 1981) and contributed to each of them. In the 1960s, she was largely responsible for renewing university and study regulations, as well as training the next generation of Kant scholars, particularly women and students from non-academic backgrounds.
-Michael Boch
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