The Meaning of Truth (selected)

Rudolf Christoph Eucken received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1908 for his earnest pursuit of truth and his idealist philosophical vision. A German Idealist philosopher, he mounted a vigorous intellectual response to the materialism and positivism dominating late nineteenth-century thought. Though once widely read and debated, his work has since largely faded from mainstream philosophical attention.

Writing during the Wilhelmine era in Germany, Eucken's idealist philosophy emerged as a direct counter to the scientific materialism and mechanistic worldview that had come to dominate European intellectual life. His work reflected the broader cultural anxieties of a rapidly industrializing Germany grappling with questions of spiritual meaning in an increasingly secular age.