Stephan Wannowski (1749-1812) was a preacher at the Polish reformed church (since 1775)1 and (since 1779) director of the reformed Latin school in Königsberg/East Prussia where E. T. A. Hofmann, the famous German poet, was among his pupils. Wannowski was part of the wider circle around Immanuel Kant whose philosophy he applied in theology2 and linguistics.
Most notably, he anonymously published in 1805 Philosophische Principien einer allgemeinen Sprachlehre nach Kant und Sacy3, a book partly based on personal communications with Kant which therefore, apart from some scattered remarks in the lectures on metaphysics, constitutes a valuable source on the philosopher’s views on transcendental grammar.
J. F. Goldbeek (ed.), Nachrichten der königlichen Universität zu Königsberg in Preußen und daselbst befindlichen Lehr, Schul und Erziehungsanstalten , Königsberg 1782. (p.178f)
Manfred Riedel, Sprache und Vernunft. Grundmodell der transzendentalen Grammatik in Kants Lehre vom Kategoriengebrauch , pp.44-60 in Riedel, Urteilskraft und Vernunft , Suhrkamp Frankfurt am Main 1989.
Karl Rosenkranz, Geschichte der Kant’schen Schule , Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1987[1840]. (pp.271f, 345)
Antoine Isaac Sylvestre de Sacy, Principes de Grammaire Générale mis à la portée des enfans, et propres à servir d’introduction à l’étude des toutes les langues , Frommann-Holzboog Stuttgart 1974[1803].
Rüdiger Safranski, E. T. A. Hofmann. Das Leben eines skeptischen Phantasten , Hanser München 1984.
Stephan Wannowski, Brief an Kant 31. März 1786 , p.439 in Kant, Akademie Ausgabe X Briefe 1, Berlin de Gruyter 1923.
Stephan Wannowski, Auskünfte über Kant an Samuel Gottlieb Wald , pp.39-42 in Rudolph Reicke (ed.), Kantiana. Beiträge zu Immanuel Kants Leben und Schriften , Theile Königsberg 1860. (Internet archive)
Anonymous [i.e. Stephan Wannowski], Philosophische Principien einer allgemeinen Sprachlehre nach Kant und Sacy, in einer ausführlichen Recension der Grundsätze des Letztern , Nicolovius Königsberg 1805. (online version Bayrische Staatsbibliothek)
Before that he was preacher and teacher at the Königsberg orphanage. Some biographical information can be found in Goldbeek (1782) and Safranski (1984). Apparently he was of Polish origin from Ostraszym with his name sometimes spelled as Stefan Vannovsky. Surprisingly, he still figures as an anonymous author in the recension of his 1805 book in Rosenkranz’ 1840 text, despite the latter being a professor at Königsberg! ↩
Commentarionem ethico-theologicam de Immanuele Kantio veritatis Religionis Christianae, in foro Rationis humanae non Accusatore sed Vindice presented to the University of Frankfurt/Oder in 1806 according to the Intelligenzblatt der Allgem. Literatur-Zeitung no.69 1806, p.546. ↩
Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy (1758-1838) was a French orientalist whose then in France widely used textbook Grammaire Arabe (1810) Wilhelm von Humboldt called in a letter to August Wilhelm Schlegel dated october 18th, 1822 “a highly superficial book”. The book of Sacy’s reviewed by Wannowski though was Principe de Grammaire Générale which was reprinted in the prestigeous series Grammatica Universalis as late as 1974. ↩
Last revised on February 28, 2020 at 17:26:12. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.